HP-17BII+ serial

[tomisan]

Just picked up a silver HP-17BII+ with serial CNA24609V7 from the UK Amazon site.

Haven't seen this format of the serial string with a "V" there before, but I assume the starting digit means it's manufactured in 2012?

It's nice to have 32KB, but too bad that the Solver is such a challenge with the L(x:expr) and G(x) functions especially.

Anyway, I have managed to enter most of my most important equations from my beloved HP-27S.

A random number generator is still a challenge. I use this equation for now:

RAN#=L(SEED:FP(9821xG(SEED)+.211327))

On first run (with SEED=0), RAN#=0.211327 as expected, but then the formula is evaluated twice for each run, so in effect I get every second term in the sequence. I can live with that, but wish I could make the Solver behave the way I want.

By the way, HP-27S on the other hand, will not solve the above formula if SEED=0. I don't know how the original HP-17BII behaves.