HP Forum Archive 21

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There are some things the HP 50g does better than the HP Prime Message #1 Posted by Michael de Estrada on 4 Nov 2013, 9:41 a.m. Although there are definitely improvements in the way HP Prime handles complex problems, the old HP 50g still has the edge when it comes to more simple situations. For example, let's say I want to convert a 25 m^2 area into a result in ft^2. On my HP 50g the keystrokes would be as follows: 25 <right shift> UNITS AREA m^2 <left shift> ft^2 And voila, the result 269.0978_ft^2 is immediately displayed. Note that everything was done on the command line w/o the need to use the Enter key. Now let's see how I would handle the same problem on the HP Prime: <Shift> Units Tools CONVERT 25 <Shift> Units Units Area m^2 ,1 <Shift> Units Area ft^2 Enter which is a lot more involved with many more keystrokes. One problem with the menu system in the Prime is that after a single selection you are returned to the main Home or CAS screen, and have to re-enter and navigate the menu repeatedly to select more entries. With the 50g once you are in a particular submenu of a particular feature you remain there until you select another feature. Edited: 4 Nov 2013, 10:42 a.m.

Re: There are some things the HP 50g does better than the HP Prime Message #2 Posted by Mike Powell on 4 Nov 2013, 11:15 a.m., in response to message #1 by Michael de Estrada The king is slightly poorly, long live the king :-D

Re: There are some things the HP 50g does better than the HP Prime Message #3 Posted by Jan on 4 Nov 2013, 11:59 a.m., in response to message #1 by Michael de Estrada "There are some things the HP 50g does better than the HP Prime" You bet! RPN for instance (and in paricular). If I 'm correctly interpreting the posts here at the forum dealing with this issue then RPN support on the Prime seems to be a complete joke. At least for me this was enough a reason to buy a new 50g instead of a Prime only 2 weeks ago.

Re: There are some things the HP 50g does better than the HP Prime Message #4 Posted by Marcus von Cube, Germany on 4 Nov 2013, 12:10 p.m., in response to message #3 by Jan I partly agree. I like the Prime and its programming model but at times, some more RPN commands would come in handy. This is especially true for the stack manipulation commands like DUP which are missing in the present implementation.

Re: There are some things the HP 50g does better than the HP Prime Message #5 Posted by Michael de Estrada on 4 Nov 2013, 12:33 p.m., in response to message #4 by Marcus von Cube, Germany Quote: This is especially true for the stack manipulation commands like DUP which are missing in the present implementation. Not true. Tap on any entry in the stack and soft touch keys will appear at the bottom of the screen. Tap Stack, and a menu with operations DROPN, DUPN, Echo and ->LIST will appear.

Re: There are some things the HP 50g does better than the HP Prime Message #6 Posted by Marcus von Cube, Germany on 4 Nov 2013, 12:44 p.m., in response to message #5 by Michael de Estrada Michael, these cannot be typed on the command line and therefore not be included in the return string of a keyboard redefinition.

Re: There are some things the HP 50g does better than the HP Prime Message #7 Posted by Michael de Estrada on 4 Nov 2013, 12:53 p.m., in response to message #6 by Marcus von Cube, Germany OK, I understand your point. I've never attempted to redefine keys on the Prime and w/o RPL programming I see little need for these operations to be available on the command line.

Re: There are some things the HP 50g does better than the HP Prime Message #8 Posted by Tim Wessman on 4 Nov 2013, 12:56 p.m., in response to message #6 by Marcus von Cube, Germany Well, to be honest I did not think people would actually use them typed and viewed those stack manipulation commands as part of RPL programming. Since there is no RPL programming they did not seem to be useful at all. Please convince me otherwise! (I see you describing them for use as pseudo-RPL in a program or something) The only two I saw as very important is DUP and SWAP which are already directly available on two hard keys. TW

Re: There are some things the HP 50g does better than the HP Prime Message #9 Posted by Marcus von Cube, Germany on 4 Nov 2013, 1:03 p.m., in response to message #8 by Tim Wessman Having DUP and SWAP as typeable commands comes in handy for keyboard redefinitions: Just include them in the return string together with other operations. See my other post about returning more than one value to the stack.

Re: There are some things the HP 50g does better than the HP Prime Message #10 Posted by Michael de Estrada on 4 Nov 2013, 1:20 p.m., in response to message #8 by Tim Wessman Where is the DUP hard key located ?

Re: There are some things the HP 50g does better than the HP Prime Message #11 Posted by Marcus von Cube, Germany on 4 Nov 2013, 1:29 p.m., in response to message #10 by Michael de Estrada ENTER

Re: There are some things the HP 50g does better than the HP Prime Message #12 Posted by Michael de Estrada on 4 Nov 2013, 1:39 p.m., in response to message #11 by Marcus von Cube, Germany If I type in DUP on the command line in my HP 50g and hit Enter, it duplicates the value in stack level 1 in level 2. If I type ENTER and hit enter, I get 'ENTER' in level 1.

Re: There are some things the HP 50g does better than the HP Prime Message #13 Posted by Raymond Del Tondo on 4 Nov 2013, 1:55 p.m., in response to message #12 by Michael de Estrada I think Marcus meant just to press the ENTER key instead of typing in ENTER;-) HTH Ray

Re: There are some things the HP 50g does better than the HP Prime Message #14 Posted by Miguel Toro on 4 Nov 2013, 6:23 p.m., in response to message #8 by Tim Wessman Hi, 'OBJ->' could be very handy : You can return a list from a program and decompose it in the stack. In fact, the Prime has already '->LIST', why not 'OBJ->'. Regards, Miguel

Re: There are some things the HP 50g does better than the HP Prime Message #15 Posted by fabrice48 on 4 Nov 2013, 1:13 p.m., in response to message #4 by Marcus von Cube, Germany yes it's true, the hp prime interface is very badly thinked. i juqt have exactly the same problem while designing an electronic's scematic's on Eagle, i need at this time to convert inch to millimeters.

Re: There are some things the HP 50g does better than the HP Prime Message #16 Posted by Michael de Estrada on 4 Nov 2013, 12:29 p.m., in response to message #3 by Jan Actually, in all fairness to the Prime, it has certain advantages in RPN entry mode over the HP 50g. For example, if you want to use RPN operations such as SWAP or ROT on the 50g, you must access them through the Tool Stack softkey menu. On the Prime, you simply tap the touchscreen on the stack item and a touch buttons appear at the bottom of the screen with the RPN stack operations. As soon as you are done with the operation and make another entry, the soft buttons disappear. Also, the SWAP operation for the first two levels of the stack (x<>y on older 4 level stacks) is a primary hard key on the Prime (comma key). The real problem with RPN on the Prime is that it has catastrophic consequences if it is enabled when using certain Apps, such as the spreadsheet.

Re: There are some things the HP 50g does better than the HP Prime Message #17 Posted by Tim Wessman on 4 Nov 2013, 12:49 p.m., in response to message #16 by Michael de Estrada *ONLY* the spreadsheet... ??? (not "several" I think) I am not aware of any others that have any problem (apart from people not putting in ' ' automatically when editing an algebraic object in SYMB view). TW Edited: 4 Nov 2013, 12:51 p.m.

Re: There are some things the HP 50g does better than the HP Prime Message #18 Posted by Michael de Estrada on 4 Nov 2013, 12:56 p.m., in response to message #17 by Tim Wessman Try entering a function in the Solve App while RPN entry mode is set and see what happens.

Re: There are some things the HP 50g does better than the HP Prime Message #19 Posted by Tim Wessman on 4 Nov 2013, 12:57 p.m., in response to message #18 by Michael de Estrada It wants an algebraic...what is the problem? I don't see any memory corruption, crashes, or anything like that. 'X+34*Y=2' works, as does 'X' 34 'Y' * + 2 - ENTER. Or are you referring to there not being ' ' added automatically when editing, or = being mapped as a synonym for ==? TW Edited: 4 Nov 2013, 1:01 p.m.

Re: There are some things the HP 50g does better than the HP Prime Message #20 Posted by Michael de Estrada on 4 Nov 2013, 1:09 p.m., in response to message #19 by Tim Wessman I was trying to just quote the variables, e.g. 'A'='B', and getting a syntax error. I didn't realize you need to quote the entire expression or otherwise enter it in RPN format with only the variables quoted. It would really help a lot if all these nuances were explained in the User Guide.

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