HP Prime CAS RPN

[hga...@xmission.com]

RPN works in the home view on the HP Prime, but not in the CAS. That makes for an awkward transition for calculations between the two views. If the user wants "seamlessness," he/she might as well use the Prime in algebraic mode only.

Is this the future? Will RPN not be supported any more, or will there be efforts to have CAS functions accept arguments in RPN mode?

I guess, for now, I'll hang on to my 50G!

[Nicola Bressanin]

Same goes for me. For sectorial, wizard-app-assisted calculi there are already Casio and Ti's edu-friendly platforms.

[Thomas Walter]

hga...@xmission.com said

> RPN works in the home view on the HP Prime, but not in the CAS. That makes for an awkward transition for calculations between the two views. If the user wants "seamlessness," he/she might as well use the Prime in algebraic mode only.

Is this true? Is it not possible anymore to construct a function like
SQ(SIN(X))by pressing the four keys ' X SIN x2

This would be a major drawback.

Thomas

[Erwin Ried]

On Monday, September 2, 2013 2:03:07 PM UTC-4, Nicola Bressanin wrote:
> Same goes for me. For sectorial, wizard-app-assisted calculi there are already Casio and Ti's edu-friendly platforms.

What I saw in my university is that even new engineer generations don't enjoy the non-user friendliness of the hp calculators (really sad), maybe it is a positive thing that they refresh the line with this product; just to keep them alive.

TI arrived several times with a *party* in the campus, giving away calculators and showing how good their software is and everyone wanted one... now Imagine HP showing Conn4x to students.

[hga...@xmission.com]

Sure, you can construct this in Home view.

However, CAS and programs require algebraic syntax.

Don't get me wrong, the Prime appears to be a slick machine - - it just isn't a true RPN breed any more. At least not right now (using the emulator).

[TW]

> Don't get me wrong, the Prime appears to be a slick machine - - it just isn't
> a true RPN breed any more.

If by "true RPN" machine you mean one that is constructed from the ground up using RPN/RPL or similar, then yes that is true. One of the big issues with the 50g is that you must have deep knowledge of a very obscure language to be able to work on it at all. Makes long term support difficult when there are only a handful of people qualified to work on it in the world. All development for the past several years of any HP calculator has been using c/c++. This has its own disadvantages, but also many, many strong advantages in areas such as portability, maintainability, speed of creation and so on.

However, the real reason there is no RPN input in the CAS screen right now is that that Bernard stopped supporting it a long time back due to lack of interest from his giac/xcas users. It will take a while to get that implemented back in and it just wasn't possible to do for the first release with so much other important stuff needing to be done for a first release. Programming is kind of the same way. There were some minor improvements put in, but it is nowhere near final at this point.

TW

[hga...@xmission.com]

Thanks for the clarifications!

Will I buy a Prime? Sure! The interface is nice in algebraic mode, and I'll try that. Who knows - - I might really like it.

Will I replace my 50G with the Prime? Not yet - - for that to happen, RPN has to be implemented in a more holistic way (at least the CAS portion, so CAS functions can also be manipulated on the stack).

By the way, does the Prime support complex matrices? I can't seem to create a matrix with complex elements. Thanks again!

[TW]

> Will I replace my 50G with the Prime?

I did it about 4 months back or so. Realized was always reaching for that instead. :-)

> By the way, does the Prime support complex matrices? I can't seem to create a matrix with complex elements. Thanks again!

Yes, complex matrices are supported in home, and the cas supports matrices containing any object.

In home, or the matrix editor, just add a complex into the matrix during editing and it will convert it to a complex one. You have multiple options for entering complexes. In alg, (2,3) or 2+3i or 2<)3 ( <( being the angle symbol ). In RPN you can use (2,3) or 2i3 or 2<)3.

TW

[hga...@xmission.com]

Yes, complex entries work in the editor (with built-in matrices M0-M9), so no problem there. I initially wanted to enter the matrix in the command line, e.g., [[(2,3) 6]], and that doesn't work. The comma doesn't get recognized, and when you press Enter, you get [[ 2 3 6]].

[TW]

> I initially wanted to enter the matrix in the command line, e.g., [[(2,3) 6]],

Ah, I see what you mean. Looks like there is an interaction between the 2d editor and the (x,y) form of complex. Thanks!

TW

[hga...@xmission.com]

Sounds good. And another thing. I was pleasantly surprised that the Prime knows how to integrate 'SIN(x)*LN(x)' in CAS view (which the HP50G cannot), but then, looking at the answer, 'Ci(x)-COS(x)*LN(x*SIGN(x)', pressing the help button on the Ci integral (i.e., cosine integral, highlighted in the CAS catalog) brings up the definition of the Ei integral. (However, in help tree view, the correct definition comes up).

[hga...@xmission.com]

BTW, same problem with the sine integral (Si) - - the help screen gives the definition of the exponential integral, and the Si is not even listed in tree view (under special functions).

[Darryl Okahata]

On Wednesday, August 28, 2013 9:29:44 AM UTC-7, hga...@xmission.com wrote:

> RPN works in the home view on the HP Prime, but not in the CAS. That makes for an awkward transition for calculations between the two views. If the user wants "seamlessness," he/she might as well use the Prime in algebraic mode only.
>
> Is this the future? Will RPN not be supported any more, or will there be efforts to have CAS functions accept arguments in RPN mode?

Keep in mind that the HP Prime appears to use the giac symbolic computation kernel (I assume that HP has licensed it), which might help to explain the lack of RPN:

giac/xcas: http://www-fourier.ujf-grenoble.fr/~parisse/giac.html

Mentions of HP Prime using giac/xcas:

http://tiplanet.org/hpwiki/HP_Prime
http://xcas.e.ujf-grenoble.fr/XCAS/viewtopic.php?f=22&t=1332

[hga...@xmission.com]

Yes I understand that. Thanks for pointing it out.

However, wasn't Bernard Parisse also heavily involved in the development of the CAS of the 49G+ (or was it the 50G?) - - so he obviously does have experience with RPN.

It would be nice if the Prime CAS could accept arguments to its functions/commands in RPN syntax as well.

[hga...@xmission.com]

And here is another problem (sigh):

Create any real 3x3 matrix, store in M1
EIGENVV(M1);
Store in L1
Open the list editor and try editing L1

-> HP Prime has stopped working.

Can a stored list not contain matrices? I hope this problem affects only the emulator (rev. 5106), and not the real calculator.

[TW]

> Can a stored list not contain matrices? I hope this problem affects only the emulator (rev. 5106), and not the real calculator.

It can. Looks like something funny regarding complex matrix only. Real only seems to be fine.

TW

[hga...@xmission.com]

Hopefully, some of these things can be ironed out before the calculator hits the market - -but if not, I guess the ROM can always be updated.

[hga...@xmission.com]

But consider this matrix

[[1 9 5]
[2 11 19]
[3 21 27]]

store into M1

CAS.EIGENVV(M1)

All eigenvectors and eigenvalues in this list are real, right?

store into L1

edit L1 -> emulator hangs

So, this does apparently not happen with only complex eigenvectors/eigenvalues

[John H Meyers]

On 9/9/2013 3:40 PM, hgabert wrote:

> wasn't Bernard Parisse also heavily involved in the development
> of the CAS of the 49G+ (or was it the 50G?)

Quoting the professor himself:

"I'm the main author of the CAS of the HP49G,
HP40G, HP49G+ and HP48GII calculators."
<http://www-fourier.ujf-grenoble.fr/~parisse/english.html>

To see all authors' names, type the VER command, which displays
"HPxx CAS by Parisse, Heiskanen & Fiechter"
plus a version and date, e.g. 4.20060919

ISTR that BP was in the role of an independent contractor,
rather than as an HP employee.

An HP50G leaves the "49" part of its name behind,
as well as radically changing its case colors,
perhaps because of the horrible reputation of the 49G+
for bad keyboards, but it is, software-wise,
still the same as a 49G+, which in turn is still
the same as a 49G, except that the original 49G contained
an original HP "Saturn" processor, designed for calculators,
while all subsequent members of the series
contain instead an "ARM" CPU running an emulator of the Saturn,
beneath the awareness of any Saturn-based programs,
including the complete original Saturn-based ROM,
preserving the investment in original calculator development,
as well as thousands of third-party programs, for quite a long run.

-[ ]-

[ingenios...@gmail.com]

Hi there, I'm new I hope you don't mind me to join... I just got my Prime today and realized the CAS didn't support RPN and I'm kinda disappointed.
I have readed that it uses Windows CE, maybe.. and just maybe, that would make it eassier to create updates with new functions but it looks to me that they just ported xcas to make it work in WinCE and that's it :(

[yanni...@gmail.com]

me too !
More : I just buy a new HP50G (last one stolen).