HP15c CE: 8x8 equation system

[Steve Simpkin]

(05-13-2023 11:48 PM)Valentin Albillo Wrote:  ...
However, on the other hand he [Dr Kahan] was very dismissive of the HP-71B, despite it implementing his IEEE math and being at least two orders of magnitude more capable than the HP-15C (and only 4x more expensive). He says about the HP-71B:

"KAHAN: [...] But it only accepts Basic, or a kind of assembly language; it runs slowly; it’s got a very limited window. It’s got sort of fraction-of-a-line window, so you can’t even get a whole line of Basic in there sometimes. So it’s not a pleasant thing to use unless you have relatively simple computations. [...]

[...] also, it was expensive. You could afford it to control laboratory instruments—but if all you wanted was a handheld calculator, that was a lot of money to pay and it was easier to use a PC. [...]

HAIGH: So was that the only machine that was built to the standard, or did other people take it up, too?

KAHAN: That’s the only one I know about whose hardware was designed for the standard, and even that is a little bit stretching because, of course, this is actually a very rudimentary microprocessor microcoded from ROM to perform arithmetic in a certain way."

V.

That is rather ironic considering, as was mentioned, it was the first handheld to incorporate the IEEE floating point math standard which he contributed so much to. I suspect some of Dr Kahan's criticisms of the HP-71B were based on his vision of it it not being the best calculation tool for his target market, engineering students. In that light, his criticisms are probably more reasonable.

You, yourself mention some of the HP-71B's limitations in less than glowing terms
"unbearably high prices when released"
"rather pathetically small display, limited to a single 22-character line"
"But for every other use and purpose, it was hopelessly slow"
"built-in BASIC interpreter, which for all its power and advanced features was nevertheless excruciatingly slow when doing such extremely common operations as branching and looping"

HP-71B Modest Mater