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SEasterling · (This post was last modified: 10-05-2014 05:11 PM by SEasterling.)

What are the best resources for learning and using the 50g? I'm in the process of selling my 48gx and all the books and advanced user manual, and never gave it much thought that these would be useful for the 50g. Should I keep this stuff for the 50g or let it all go with the 48gx? If all the 50g resources are readily downloaded online, then that would be great.

I have not closely followed the development and execution (and updates) of the 50g much since I have not used these professionally and been out of college for a while (just collected them and used the smaller HP scientifics at work). Does the 50g represent a nice advancement in technology over the 48gx? The reason I ask is because I want to start using it to relive my youth as my daughter progresses in school. The highest math class I took was PDE and we used Mathematica to help with that. Any chance the 50g could handle PDEs and is there a reference book to help get the most out of the calc?

BTW, I considered the Prime but decided to wait for it to mature a little longer in hopes any issues would be resolved and the consensus here declared it to be the best and most reliable calc HP ever made.

**rprosperi** · 10-05-2014, 06:27 PM

(10-05-2014 05:07 PM)SEasterling Wrote: What are the best resources for learning and using the 50g? I'm in the process of selling my 48gx and all the books and advanced user manual, and never gave it much thought that these would be useful for the 50g. Should I keep this stuff for the 50g or let it all go with the 48gx? If all the 50g resources are readily downloaded online, then that would be great.

I have not closely followed the development and execution (and updates) of the 50g much since I have not used these professionally and been out of college for a while (just collected them and used the smaller HP scientifics at work). Does the 50g represent a nice advancement in technology over the 48gx? The reason I ask is because I want to start using it to relive my youth as my daughter progresses in school. The highest math class I took was PDE and we used Mathematica to help with that. Any chance the 50g could handle PDEs and is there a reference book to help get the most out of the calc?

BTW, I considered the Prime but decided to wait for it to mature a little longer in hopes any issues would be resolved and the consensus here declared it to be the best and most reliable calc HP ever made.

Experts will likely weigh-in with better answers, but some quick comments follow:

The 50g is a large leap forward over the 48G; Much faster, much better LCD, MANY more commands for adv. math, on-machine compiling SysRPL, etc.
If you like the 48G, odds are quite high you will love the 50g
All 50g Manuals are available to download in PDF format (see http://www.hpcalc.org - a real goldmine for everything RPL)
A project to provide printed copies of the 50g AUR can be found within this Forum (search, you'll find it)
As the 50g is nearly a proper superset of the 48G, the old manuals may be useful for reference; slight differences exist, so caveat emptor, but paper manuals are nicer for extended reading, imho

HTH

SEasterling · 10-05-2014, 11:28 PM

You're right! How could I have forgotten about hpcalc.org! I just got the AUR manual there. I'll have to keep digging around there to find the equivalent of a couple of my current 48GX calculus books.

David Hayden · 10-07-2014, 08:23 PM

The 50g also has support for USB and an SD card. Note that you need a SD card and NOT an SDHC. I believe that in practical terms this means a card with 2GB or less. That may seem small but it's enough to hold the entire contents of the 50g programs from hpcalc.org. RPL programs are SMALL!

I'd keep the 48g manuals. Having jumped from a 41CV in 1981 to a 50g in 2005(?), I found the manuals to be terrible. The printed manual that came with the 50g was more like a quick reference guide. I was completely lost trying to read it. The larger Guide is better, but everything is explained in RPN and algebraic and soft menus and choose boxes, so it's very verbose.

Speaking of algebraic, the first thing you'll want to do when turning it on is switch to RPN mode. Press MODE then +/- to change change RPN mode. Press F6 to save.

SEasterling · 10-08-2014, 12:48 AM

Thanks, Dave. Yeah, I already switched to RPN. I also have a 49G+ and have used it some in the past. I am expecting to get the 50G manuals here (in line with the pending order). Do you think that will help make up for the fact that I just sold all (all but one) of my 48GX manuals on EBay? I sold them with a NOS 48GX. The bigger math manuals seemed to focus on graphing so much in order to arrive at a solution (or to graph a solution) rather than helping to arrive at a solution. The one book I kept was a small tan-colored book called "The HP 48 Handbook." It seemed to have more weight and substance to understand the calc better, and hopefully it'll help with the 50G, too.