Special Function Sets & HPs

[emece67]

(01-31-2016 08:29 AM)Paul Dale Wrote:  

Quote:Hyperbolics

Seriously, does anyone actually use these? I have never required them for anything beyond minimal step challenges. Honestly, I'd prefer to include the Jacobi elliptic functions which are a superset of both hyperbolic and trigonometric functions (these didn't make the cut in the 34S).

[...]

Well, as you have asked... I suppose this (and all others) depend on the field each one uses to work. When studying EE I used hyperbolics in two situations (lossy transmission lines and bipolar differential amplifiers). And later, when at work, when dealing with exponential horns. But, instead, I've never seen (this does not mean that they do not exist) an engineering book that uses the Jacobi elliptic functions, but have seen many others using the Bessel ones (one of the things I have missed in my calculators).

(01-31-2016 10:07 AM)Den Belillo (Martinez Ca.) Wrote:  Yes Pauli. I second all your points. IMHO; having a calculator with everything but the kitchen sink is desireable UNLESS that takes away from user program memory. Then the ability to loose large un-needed (to me) functions would be great.
As you mentioned; imperial <> metric conversions take space, and they could be memorized by the few of us that need them, if that gains RAM.

I use the metric system, but many times I need to convert to/fro imperial units. Not being a "native imperial user", I only know, from memory, what feet and inches are, so I currently rely on a wp34s or Emu48 for other conversions. Incidentally, I much appreciate the mpg<->l/100 km conversion on the wp34s!

Surely HP/TI took many compromises when dealing with the scarcity of memory, processor, display and others, apparently both of them took right enough decisions, seeing their success. For me, today, the bottleneck is the interface, so such hypothetical all-included calculator is desirable unless it has a cumbersome interface requiring long key sequences to arrive to the functions I want to use or a cryptic display that turns entering/reading data a nightmare. If not this way, I would prefer to use Matlab/Mathematica on a PC.