HP Forums

Hello!

Just purchased a new HP Prime which I’m excited to get using, admittedly not for much calculating but all going well as a fun programming environment .

So if it’s alright I have a few questions!

In short I’m hoping to use the device to create a piece of software to work alongside a board game im designing and also to muck around making a video game of sorts. I’m planning to buy up a few calculators to create a backup system and all going well only use the PC to get updates.

So first, is the calculator stable enough for this kind of project? Like id like to code on the calc ideally, so which language would be best, HPPPL or Python? If Python is stable enough I feel that’s be best as it’s more transferable but I have used a variety of languages before so can learn HPPPL if that’s the best one!

Also any limitations/features I should know about?

I think there’s more but I forgot right now, thanks in advance, looking forward to trying it anyhow!

Thanks, Nytician.

Python is much faster than PPL but it has a more limited graphics library. So if you want to create more graphically heavy games, you should use PPL, but if you want more computationally heavy games, you should use Python. Another thing worth noting is that PPL lacks OOP, and while there are workarounds, it might make game development more tedious.

Ok that’s actually good, I’m thinking to make an ASCII style game on it, so long as Python is stable and can be coded on the calculator that’s fine! Also would prefer to use an OOP supported language anyhow .

Thanks for your response!

Nytician

Making an ASCII game on the Prime would not be a good idea in my opinion, because the terminal does not use a single-width font. However, you could try to get a png file containing all the ASCII characters you will need. In fact, somebody has already done that.

Ok thanks, so I’ll perhaps consider doing a text based game instead as would rather not use image files if I can!

Finally is programming on the calculator stable enough and are there any limits on program/code length or can I just keep adding bits over time?

Thanks!

Edit: Also my understanding is that with PPL lists are limited to the 10, are similar limits in place for Python or could I theoretically have unlimited dictionaries etc

(09-05-2021 09:34 PM)Nytician Wrote: [ -> ]Ok thanks, so I’ll perhaps consider doing a text based game instead as would rather not use image files if I can!

Finally is programming on the calculator stable enough and are there any limits on program/code length or can I just keep adding bits over time?

Thanks!

Edit: Also my understanding is that with PPL lists are limited to the 10, are similar limits in place for Python or could I theoretically have unlimited dictionaries etc

You are limited to 10 global lists. You can define as many local lists as you want. At least I have never run into a limit.