Re: HP 34S integration Message #13 Posted by David Hayden on 18 Feb 2013, 12:27 p.m., in response to message #11 by Walter B
Hi Walter,
Quote:
Not true. As can be seen on pp. 20 and 31, Rv and R^ affect all stack levels in either case.
My point is that if you explicitly want to roll the X, Y, Z and T registers, you'd have to ensure that the stack size is 4.
Quote:
I'd vote for "roll full" and "roll half" if we'd need that. The latter would equal x<>y in a 4-level stack. But I don't think these functions are required.
"Roll full" and "roll half" might be useful, but they wouldn't solve the issue here (a program executes Rv and mistakenly assumes that the stack size is 4 instead of 8). One can certainly argue that a program that uses Rv and R^ should set the stack size ahead of time (and restore it upon exit), but I think it would be more convenient to give programmers commands to explicitly roll 4 registers or 8.
Hmm, here's something to consider, though maybe not for the 34S. What if the stack size only affected the automatic push and drop that occur with LASTx, and 1 or 2 number functions (the last 3 columns on page 20). ENTER, FILL, DROP, Rv and R^ would have 4- and 8- register versions. In fact, there would be ONLY the 4- and 8-register versions of the commands (e.g., ENTER4 and ENTER8, but no ENTER). Pressing the ENTER, Rv or R^ keys would execute either the 4- or 8-register version of the command, depending on the current stack size.
The idea behind this would be to minimize the chances of programming errors related to assuming a particular stack size, while still maintaining the advantages of two possible stack sizes.
Dave
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