on the RPN mentioning sharp pc-1211, v.albillo, el-506w and recurring topics

[Steve Simpkin]

(12-03-2017 09:47 PM)pier4r Wrote:  

(12-03-2017 09:42 PM)Maximilian Hohmann Wrote:  No. But the equation writer of the 48 is incredibly bad. So bad that there is really no point in using it. It should be used as an example on computer science courses on how not to design a user interface. Unless of course one grew up with it and got to love it before seeing different solutions.

Interesting point of view. Would it be possible for you to point to a similar equation writer that is "slick" ?

I would say *any* modern implementation of a "Textbook" display calculator would be better in every way than the original HP-48 "Equation Writer". The Equation Writer in the original HP-48SX/S was *extremely* S-L-O-W and very awkward to navigate around in and use. It was a separate environment that was strictly limited to returning the results of the "textbook" equation you laboriously wrote back to the stack as an in-line (ugly) algebraic equation (or vice versa). Even Bill Wickes admitted that it pushed the absolute limits of that machine's hardware. While it may have been useful in certain cases, it was usually much faster to just enter the algebraic equation as a single in-line algebraic in the command line.

The Equation Writer built into the HP-48GX/G was slightly improved and was faster, but still very limited. The HP-49G finally implemented an integrated CAS environment (based on ALG48 and Erable) that allowed you to calculate with and display "textbook" results. The HP-50G improved upon this and made it much faster. These final two evolution's brought about what we think of as having a "Textbook" display in a modern CAS calculator.