HP Forum Archive 20

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A few WP34s questions Message #1 Posted by Cristian Arezzini on 12 Aug 2011, 3:03 a.m. I was playing with the newest version today, and I have a few questions. 1 - In program mode, if I press LBL then a key, it enters the keyboard scan code. Is this intended? Wouldn't it be more intuitive to enter the letter associated to the key? 2- After pressing LBL, if I press [g][ENTER] the display shows LBL' and then I can enter letters; is there a way to modify the overlay to show that if you want to enter ' you have to press [g][ENTER] and not [f][ENTER]? 3- After pressing LBL, if I just want to enter a single letter, I expected to be able to press [f][ENTER] which should be 'alpha'; but after pressing those keys, the display shows LBL 31. Again, is this intended? 4- Do three-letter alpha-commands take more than one step? Because after adding a few, the sum of total program steps plus free space isn't 506 any more... 5- If in run mode, I press XEQ then [f][ENTER], expecting to be able to enter a label, a program runs instead (I think it's the program I labeled 'A'). Again... is this intended? I don't know if something changed lately or if it's always been like that and I didn't notice. But I seem to remember that the handling of [f][ENTER] was more consistent in always entering INPUT mode, while right now it only does so while in RUN mode, and not after XEQ or LBL. Also [g][ENTER], sometimes it enters " ' " (after LBL or XEQ, it makes you enter several alpha characters) and sometimes just enters the single letter H. That is, unless I totally messed up, after all the last two nights I only got 3 hours of sleep... in which case I apologize in advance! :) Cristian

Re: A few WP34s questions Message #2 Posted by Paul Dale on 12 Aug 2011, 4:01 a.m., in response to message #1 by Cristian Arezzini Quote: 1 - In program mode, if I press LBL then a key, it enters the keyboard scan code. Is this intended? Wouldn't it be more intuitive to enter the letter associated to the key? This is intentional but we've not yet decided if the experiment is final or not. The concept is to allow shortcuts to some of the numeric labels which means faster entry and an association between keys and functions. Seems like it is causing confusion for you rather than being useful. It is also less consistent in its use of [f] and enter. Quote: 2- After pressing LBL, if I press [g][ENTER] the display shows LBL' and then I can enter letters; is there a way to modify the overlay to show that if you want to enter ' you have to press [g][ENTER] and not [f][ENTER]? Do you have a pen? :-) Just ENTER works to get the ' the [f] has always been optional here. Now it does something else. Quote: 3- After pressing LBL, if I just want to enter a single letter, I expected to be able to press [f][ENTER] which should be 'alpha'; but after pressing those keys, the display shows LBL 31. Again, is this intended? Yes, the shortcuts again. Omit the [f] and it will do what you want. Quote: 4- Do three-letter alpha-commands take more than one step? Because after adding a few, the sum of total program steps plus free space isn't 506 any more... These instructions take two steps of memory. Quote: 5- If in run mode, I press XEQ then [f][ENTER], expecting to be able to enter a label, a program runs instead (I think it's the program I labeled 'A'). Again... is this intended? If you press an otherwise undefined key or [f] the a key, you get a shortcut to numeric labels. Quote: I don't know if something changed lately or if it's always been like that and I didn't notice. But I seem to remember that the handling of [f][ENTER] was more consistent in always entering INPUT mode, while right now it only does so while in RUN mode, and not after XEQ or LBL. Yes things changed recently. I'm not convinced it is a change for the better anymore. Quote: Also [g][ENTER], sometimes it enters " ' " (after LBL or XEQ, it makes you enter several alpha characters) and sometimes just enters the single letter H. When does it produce a single H ? That isn't intentional and would be a bug. - Pauli

Re: A few WP34s questions Message #3 Posted by Cristian Arezzini on 12 Aug 2011, 4:18 a.m., in response to message #2 by Paul Dale Hi Pauli, thanks for the reply! :) Quote: When does it produce a single H ? That isn't intentional and would be a bug. Well, I was mistaken in that it's not a capital H, but a capital greek eta. But they do look exactly the same! :) It happens simply when you are in alpha mode (i.e. [f][ENTER][g][ENTER]). Still, I have to admit that when key combinations do different things in different situations, I get a little confused... Cristian

Re: A few WP34s questions Message #4 Posted by Paul Dale on 12 Aug 2011, 4:21 a.m., in response to message #3 by Cristian Arezzini Ahhh yes. At least Eta is documented as being there :-) - Pauli

Re: A few WP34s questions Message #5 Posted by Walter B on 12 Aug 2011, 7:02 p.m., in response to message #3 by Cristian Arezzini Quote: Well, I was mistaken in that it's not a capital H, but a capital greek eta. But they do look exactly the same! :) Such is life :-) Also capital Greek chi looks like X, capital Greek rho looks like P, etc. Quote: It happens simply when you are in alpha mode (i.e. [f][ENTER][g][ENTER]). As advertised 8-)

Re: A few WP34s questions Message #6 Posted by Marcus von Cube, Germany on 12 Aug 2011, 4:13 p.m., in response to message #2 by Paul Dale To use f as the "make any key available" prefix is arbitrary and can be changed to any other prefix but f has a similar meaning in some other circumstances (switch between characters and digits in alpha mode) so I decided to use it. We can remove the f prefixing altogether. What do we gain with the shorthand addressing (with or without f)? With the removal of the extended single letter labels (such as I) we lost the ability to use more than the four hot keys A to Z in a user interface. Having to remember a numeric label or having to type XEQ ENTER I ENTER instead of a simple XEQ I to enter the interest rate in a TVM application is awkward. So I had the idea to allow a shortcut addressing to some numeric labels. We already have the KEY? command with its row/column codes and it seemed natural to resolve labels following the same scheme. There are still many keys which cannot be addressed this way such as the digit keys or, as you already found out, ENTER. I introduced the f prefix as a way to escape the default meaning of the keys. This makes, as a side effect, XEQ A call a different routine then XEQ f A. All the changes are in the user interface, to be more precise in the label prompting code. The runtime is totally unaffected. Pauli and Walter didn't like the somewhat random selection of single character labels beyond D which lead to a silent removal of this feature. If we remove both the single letter labels and the shortcuts, Franz' TVM application will suffer as will the user interface of the Vector program.

Re: A few WP34s questions Message #7 Posted by Paul Dale on 12 Aug 2011, 6:25 p.m., in response to message #6 by Marcus von Cube, Germany Quote: If we remove both the single letter labels and the shortcuts, Franz' TVM application will suffer as will the user interface of the Vector program. I agree that TVM will suffer if these are removed. The vector code was intended to be a suite of subroutines rather than a stand alone application -- the latter was added later. Having both in the same flash segment as applications risks confusion since they don't define the same shortcut labels.... - Pauli

Re: A few WP34s questions Message #8 Posted by Marcus von Cube, Germany on 13 Aug 2011, 4:15 a.m., in response to message #7 by Paul Dale Quote: Having both in the same flash segment as applications risks confusion since they don't define the same shortcut labels.... You underestimate the genius of the intended audience. ;-)

Re: A few WP34s questions Message #9 Posted by Walter B on 13 Aug 2011, 5:51 a.m., in response to message #8 by Marcus von Cube, Germany Quote: You underestimate the genius of the intended audience. ;-) And you underestimate the number of questions running up the hotline, especially from such an audience ;-)

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