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HP Forum Archive 21

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New HP39gii U.S. availability?
Message #1 Posted by Carey on 8 Mar 2012, 5:22 p.m.

Hi everyone,

I see links for the new HP39gii on a few european websites but was wondering if anyone might know approximately when it is expected to be available in the U.S? Thanks!

      
Re: New HP39gii U.S. availability?
Message #2 Posted by Eric Smith on 8 Mar 2012, 6:50 p.m.,
in response to message #1 by Carey

My Magic 8-Ball says:

"Reply hazy, try again"

Those that know don't say, and those that say don't know.

            
Re: New HP39gii U.S. availability?
Message #3 Posted by db (martinez, ca.) on 8 Mar 2012, 8:01 p.m.,
in response to message #2 by Eric Smith

Eric; Can you shake your 8 ball and ask if it will be rpn/rpl?

                  
Re: New HP39gii U.S. availability?
Message #4 Posted by Howard Owen on 8 Mar 2012, 10:00 p.m.,
in response to message #3 by db (martinez, ca.)

That one is easy. Neither. The calculator has an entirely new architecture, including a new user environment.

                        
Re: New HP39gii U.S. availability?
Message #5 Posted by Eric Smith on 8 Mar 2012, 10:45 p.m.,
in response to message #4 by Howard Owen

And despite not being RPN or RPL, that new environment is actually quite nice, compared any previous non-RPN graphing calculators.

                              
Re: New HP39gii U.S. availability?
Message #6 Posted by Fabricio on 8 Mar 2012, 11:01 p.m.,
in response to message #5 by Eric Smith

Too adventurous to say but... could it be that in the end rpn failed to survive the test of time? Could it be that it was an incredible tool but just for the early times and a new era simply is taking its place?

                                    
Re: New HP39gii U.S. availability?
Message #7 Posted by Howard Owen on 9 Mar 2012, 1:13 a.m.,
in response to message #6 by Fabricio

I think counting RPN or RPL out is premature. HP still sells new models of both types. RPN in particular is well entrenched in some fairly successful products. I'm waiting to see if they come out with a new high-end professional calculator as a follow-on to the HP50G. That should give us a much clearer picture of where HP is going with respect to RPL. Speculating: such a machine will share most of the underlying architecture with the 39gii. What the user environment will look like is an open question, I expect HP will try warm the cockles of a mathematical geek's heart with or without postfix. Regardless, new machines will certainly be flashable. If they are as hackable as the [20|30]b, a community effort to provide a nice RPN/RPL environment might be practical.

                                          
Re: New HP39gii U.S. availability?
Message #8 Posted by Marcus von Cube, Germany on 9 Mar 2012, 3:00 a.m.,
in response to message #7 by Howard Owen

There is a fundamental difference between old and new: The 28 lineage (and even the business clamshells 18B and 19B) is based on SysRPL internally. User RPL is a layer above System RPL and therefore kind of natural to implement. The business machines and the 38/39/40 machines were deliberately designed to hide RPL from the user while the scientific machines are exposing it.

The new machines are based on a modern library and leave System RPL totally behind. In order to make User RPL available on these machines it would have to be reinvented from scratch.

                                                
Re: New HP39gii U.S. availability?
Message #9 Posted by Oliver Unter Ecker on 9 Mar 2012, 6:35 a.m.,
in response to message #8 by Marcus von Cube, Germany

Quote:
In order to make User RPL available on these machines it would have to be reinvented from scratch.

Which is easy to do, regardless of how the command set is implemented (and how backwards-compatible it is to the 50g), *as long as* there's the concept of a stack.

If there is a stack, RPL truly begins as the most natural language, and it makes some sense to keep it. (Though it can be made nicer, better.)

                                                
Re: New HP39gii U.S. availability?
Message #10 Posted by Howard Owen on 9 Mar 2012, 7:42 a.m.,
in response to message #8 by Marcus von Cube, Germany

Quote:
In order to make User RPL available on these machines it would have to be reinvented from scratch.

Reimplemented is the word I'd use. The complete design spec for the user environment exists, embodied in the HP50G if nowhere else. It wouldn't be trivial to implement that on top of a new architecture, but you wouldn't have to reinvent the wheel. Whether they would want to reinvent the wheel is the interesting question. I think that continuity for existing RPL users might be a consideration in a new design. An RPL++ could emerge from that, who knows?

                                                      
Re: New HP39gii - can they put RPN/RPL on it?
Message #11 Posted by Bart (UK) on 9 Mar 2012, 8:41 a.m.,
in response to message #10 by Howard Owen

Quoting TW from a thread in another forum:

Quote:
Complete and modern programming language that integrates with the rest of the system.
I don't know to what extent it is programmable, but perhaps someone can write an RPN/RPL interface for it (like some have done for the fx-9860g, but much more integrated).
                                                            
Re: New HP39gii - can they put RPN/RPL on it?
Message #12 Posted by M. Joury on 9 Mar 2012, 9:14 a.m.,
in response to message #11 by Bart (UK)

It's been done for the 39gs (RPN). Although a little slow it works. However, integration (at least for the version I wrote) is essentially non-existent. It is simply a completely separate environment written in 39gs BASIC. I started to re implement it in SysRPL but got busy with my day job and never completed the effort. I was planning on returning to it one day but probably won't now--I'll wait for the 39gii to become available and see what I can do with that. With a more powerful language and (hopefully) better access to internals better integration might be possible without resorting to an entirely new ROM.

One thought I had while implementing the BASIC version was wondering if it would be possible to find a way to expose the SysRPL layer underneath. This would have required a library to display the stack, check and control input, and expose the SysRPL functions that one wanted among other required features. I suspect that this would have effectively eliminated the performance problem and offered options for better integration but I never took the idea beyond a mental exercise. As mentioned above I did start on a SysRPL version of my BASIC program but this would have been an additional layer that interpreted user input--RPN layer as opposed to exposing the base RPL system.

Cheers,

-Marwan

                                                            
Re: New HP39gii - can they put RPN/RPL on it?
Message #13 Posted by Tim Wessman on 9 Mar 2012, 11:21 a.m.,
in response to message #11 by Bart (UK)

There is currently no "native" programming available for the device. It is user language only.

TW

                                                                  
Re: New HP39gii - can they put RPN/RPL on it?
Message #14 Posted by Howard Owen on 9 Mar 2012, 2:36 p.m.,
in response to message #13 by Tim Wessman

Given the great gift of the hackable 20/30b, it seems natural to hope that HP would release design details on the underlying hardware of a new machine, if not the software layers above. I can dream, right? :)

                                                                  
Re: New HP39gii - can they put RPN/RPL on it?
Message #15 Posted by Han on 9 Mar 2012, 7:14 p.m.,
in response to message #13 by Tim Wessman

Oh wow, in that case my interest in one of these went from "really want one" to "never getting one."

                                                                        
Re: New HP39gii - can they put RPN/RPL on it?
Message #16 Posted by David Hayden on 9 Mar 2012, 11:08 p.m.,
in response to message #15 by Han

I think what Tim means is that there is no way for a user to create machine code. The user code is just a different language.

Of course I'm hopeful that HP will create an RPN/RPL machine on the new platform, but even without it, the 30gii is a huge step forward. High res screen, fast processor, lots of memory.

                                                                  
Re: New HP39gii - can they put RPN/RPL on it?
Message #17 Posted by db (martinez, ca.) on 10 Mar 2012, 11:57 a.m.,
in response to message #13 by Tim Wessman

tim; thought i'd look at it on the hp site. clicking on hp's own links all i find are "page not found's.

you guys sweat bullets to make something and the comp-u-weenies and marketing types drop the ball. that's typical of any business though.

                                                            
Re: New HP39gii - can they put RPN/RPL on it?
Message #18 Posted by Patrice on 9 Mar 2012, 7:54 p.m.,
in response to message #11 by Bart (UK)

Should we ask (politely) to Cyrille? :)
My guess is that the is the one with best knowledge of the new hardware and RPN calcs.


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