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

[pier4r]

(12-04-2017 06:50 PM)Gene Wrote:  More serious response. :-)

1) Most of what I compute is off the cuff on the spot computation where I am gathering data and having to compute things that were not prepared in advance. I don't **know** the formula up front so I work through it by hand. To me, RPN wins here hands down. I can compute a result and if it turns out I need to compute another result and then use it on the first result, I find RPN easier to do this in than algebraic.

Yes I can see also that for explorations RPN is faster. Because it is like trial and errors and errors in algebraic are costly.

Quote:2) As a previous programmer in AOS (I had TI calculators from the SR-51A to the SR-52, SR-56 and TI-58C) and a programmer in lots of RPN and RPL machine environments, I find programming on a calculator (that's important here) much harder in AOS than RPN. In a structured programming environment using a procedural language, algebraic orientation is fine. Through college, I got through BASIC, fortran, COBOL, SNOBOL, and more without a stack-oriented machine. However, on a calculator, I find it terribly difficult to keep track of what the state of the machine is on an AOS style machine vs. an RPN one. I have no doubts that programming on a TI graphing model is easier than the 58C, but ...

Well in my mind I had only calculators that compute formulas or functions. I did not consider programs (aside from small ones). Indeed I picked the el 506w as example that is not programmable. Still one can define formulas to reuse later that are like a little program (if one uses and fills the variables).


RPN is concise for a calculator keyboard, algebraic would need more effort (given my experiences with a casio fx 7400 and the ti89).

For the nitpick: true! My bad.