(49) HP49G Top 5 Tips for Newbies

[Ari M. Weinstein]

Here are some useful tips that took me a while to learn. Perhaps they'll be
helpful to some of the newest HP49G owners, especially those (like me) who
never had an HP48...

Ari's Top 5 Newbie Tips for the HP49G
=====================================

1. Learn RPN. It's worth the time and effort
2. Change flag 117 so your menus become choose boxes. This is a big
improvement over pop-up modal menus
3. Program an equation like this: <<'equation' STEQ 30 MENU>> and it becomes
a solver. Highly efficient. Thank you John H. Meyers!
4. Keyboard Shortcuts. You'll want to remember these, and learn as many
others as you can (See HP's site, and the FAQ at hpcalc.org). Note these are
for RPN mode:
Left-shift, variable softkey (F1 - F6) - stores into the variable
Right-shift, variable softkey - recalls the variable
*Hold down* Left-shift and press a softkey to access graphing and table
windows
Right-arrow - swap stack levels 1 and 2
Down-arrow - edit the object in the stack in the appropriate editor.
(i.e. equations in Equation Writer, matrices in Matrix Writer, etc.)
Works in ALG mode too, actually.
5. Change the Keytime value to something less than 1365.
Example: 750 ->KEYTIME. Your calculator will feel faster

And one extra tip:

http://www.hpcalc.org

Where a treasure-trove of useful software and documentation awaits.

Good luck!

----------------
Ari M. Weinstein
Bayside, NY USA

[Bob Strand]

6. Place as many greyscale pictures of Cindy Crawford, or other models, on
to your calculator as possible. Do not waste precious memory on programs or
equations, every free byte must be used to fulfill your carnal desires.

"Ari M. Weinstein" <ar...@bigfoot.com> wrote in message
news:B6D304C7.8753%ar...@bigfoot.com...

[Chr. de La Chapelle]

Bob Strand wrote:

> 6. Place as many greyscale pictures of Cindy Crawford, or other models, on
> to your calculator as possible. Do not waste precious memory on programs or
> equations, every free byte must be used to fulfill your carnal desires.
>

5bis: devellop the viewer before, in ML of course!!! and then you'll be an HP4x
master!!!

And to be able to devellop this viewer, read "Voyage au centre de la HP48" Paul
Courbis - Sébastien Lalande (I don't know if an english version is
available...) Then try to find some magazines like HPPisteurs HPvues or
HPgraal... You'll learn plainty of things in it...

Try also to find a maximum of courses on the net...

Some of them (excuse me, they're in french!) can be found at
http://www.esiee.fr/~hp48c

Best regards.

Christophe de la Chapelle

[John H Meyers]

Wolfgang:

> Well, independently of interchanging the RCL and STO
> functionality of the menu keys, assigning the quoting of
> variables to the presently unused right-shift-hold menu
> keys is extremely useful. With this, the suggestion to
> interchange EQW and quoting becomes useless :-)

Ever type an algebraic expresssion?

Ever use a menu other than VAR?

A certain kind of accountant might feel that it is redundant
to have more than just one screwdriver in a toolkit
for any given screw type. So he's bought a comprehensive
"compact screwdriver" kit, with one of each type,
and he's happy with his foresight, his preparedness,
his thoroughness, and of course his cost-efficiency.

Then one day, he finds a screw recessed down a deep hole;
even though the tip of the screwdriver is the right type,
the "compact" shaft just isn't long enough to reach it.

So the accountant throws out the short screwdriver
and replaces it with a long one. One day, however,
he finds a screw located in a very tight space,
into which the long-handled screwdriver can not
possibly fit. So he throws out the long-handled
screwdriver, replacing it with a clever "right-angled"
type that sneaks into very short spaces; unfortunately,
it's even worse when it comes to the deep hole, however.

One day, after much shuffling between one "perfect" screwdriver
and another, the accountant realizes that it is not so redundant,
after all, to have more than one Philips #2 screwdriver,
for the different environments in which different screws
are actually found, in real life, even if they sometimes
might overlap a bit in functionality, because there are
still some situations in which one of them is much better,
for the purpose at hand, and it isn't always the same one.

Some accountants, I am told by reliable sources, have even been
known to carry more than one credit card in their wallet, although
surely any one popular credit card is the same as any other :)

"640K ought to be enough for anybody" - Bill Gates, 1981

-----------------------------------------------------------
With best wishes from: John H Meyers <jhme...@mum.edu>

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[John H Meyers]

Previously:

> assigning the quoting of variables to the currently unused
> right-shift-hold [keys in the VAR] menu [makes] the suggestion
> to interchange EQW and quoting ['] become useless :-)

Let me even expand my previous list of questions:

o Ever type an algebraic expresssion?

o Ever need to type 'X' when there is no variable named 'X'?

o Ever want to type 'NAME' alphabetically, where 'NAME'
is in HOME, but the current directory isn't HOME?
(or you just don't want to have to switch into VAR
and hunt through 150 variables to find NAME,
or NAME is a "hidden" variable)?

o Ever need to type ['] when editing SysRPL (or text)?

o Ever use a menu other than VAR?

I'm sorry to pick on you for this example, but all this
reminds me of very many half-baked designs which conceive
only very narrowly of how people will experience the product,
what they will really want to be able to do, and how frustrated
they might feel at how someone else decided to design it
only for the limited range of things they happen to think of
to do, not for most of what I want and need to do.

I just bought a new Panasonic telephone answerer; as always,
it is fabulously well designed and well integrated, able to
do much more, much better than I even anticipated.

The last time I was in Switzerland (way back, now),
it was hard to find any product in any store that wasn't
of high quality, in both design and manufacture,
but even at that time, I could never say the same
while shopping around back at home.

Every HP calculator I ever bought also gave me a similar
experience, much like a composition of a master artist
(but I didn't buy my very latest HP calc; it was a gift :)

Then I walk into my office and sit down at my MS operating
system; it constantly makes me feel like muttering and cursing,
as though I'd been stuck driving a "Yugo" instead of a BMW.

MS even has the audacity to remove *optional* display columns
(e.g. file attributes) from the Explorer "details" view,
over the whole OS, whenever you "upgrade" only IE,
so that you can't even *elect* the old options any more,
for example (you can restore them by re-importing the deleted
Registry entries, if you know what they were and how to restore them).

MS "selection" windows aren't wide enough to display their contents
(and are not resizeable), the mouse cursor no longer shows "activity"
when programs are still loading or doing something, MS-generated
web sites now contain non-spec Java code whose only purpose
seems to be to crash Netscape, every new piece of MS software comes
with a wider open highway for virus entry than for useful information,
etc. etc. etc. GRRRrrr...!!!

So that's why I employ only non-MS additional software wherever
possible, use ported Unix tools, etc., and why I'm also sad
that TI joins MS in walking away with the mass market,
for vending-machine-quality products.

Gresham's law rules?

Random tuning into web searches for "Gresham's law":
http://www.its.unimelb.edu.au/hma/pub/nisus/d199/0083.html
(follow links for plenty of diatribe, how to succeed in business
by being everything except innovative or creative, as HP once was)
http://wcuvax1.wcu.edu/~mulligan/gresham.html (a scholar)

Now I'm so OT, I'll never find my way back ;-)

-[]-

[W. Rautenberg]

On Fri, 16 Mar 2001, John H Meyers wrote:

> Wolfgang:
>
> > Well, independently of interchanging the RCL and STO
> > functionality of the menu keys, assigning the quoting of
> > variables to the presently unused right-shift-hold menu
> > keys is extremely useful. With this, the suggestion to
> > interchange EQW and quoting becomes useless :-)
>

> Ever type an algebraic expresssion?

I never use short algebraics in programs. For involved algebraics,
double-integrals, say, I use the EQW :-)

> Ever use a menu other than VAR?

Did you try the proposed rightshift-hold assignment? Maybe I forgot to
say that it quotes from e v e r y menu being a VARS, a lib or a Port.
In particular, quoting with it from ports is much more convenient than
in the standard operating system where you have first to press ENTRY.

IMHO, the proposed key assignment is one of most useful ones one can
imagine. The only exception are CST-names or TMENU-names which do not
appear elswhere. But such names are never needed on the stack because
you cannot use them in programs or key assignments!

Regards Wolfgang

[Aristotle Zoulas]

I HAVE A JORNADA 548 DEDICATED TO PICTURES LIKE THAT--)

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[Max]

> Left-shift, variable softkey (F1 - F6) - stores into the variable
> Right-shift, variable softkey - recalls the variable
> *Hold down* Left-shift and press a softkey to access graphing and
> table windows

As J.H.Meyers posted it would be better the reverse

>>
You can "shift-and-hold" before pressing those keys, but you should be
careful when so doing, since if you fail to HOLD the shift key down
securely, you might end up unintentionally *storing* into a variable.

If it were possible for the *other* [red] shift key to invoke those
special functions, then it would be safer (any slip-up would only recall
something, rather than clobber something); this is a fine point in the
field of Human Factors design.

Note also that RCL command on HP49 keyboard uses the same shift key as for
directly STOring into VARiables (HP48 more consistently used the same
shift key as for RCLing from VARiables).
>>

Is there a way to define such user-keys? (the manuals don't address
"multiple-keys-pressing")

It would be nice if you can open the appropriate editor (EQW, MTRW...) in
interactive stack mode too (by pressing EDIT). If you use RPN it works
(down arrow) only with level 1: if you press EDIT it opens only the text
editor :-( In algebraic mode it's already well integrated.

There are also other areas where pressing EDIT doesn't open the
appropriate editor. I don't know if it's easy to implement such feature,
but it would be very cool.
(I work with matrices of fract-poly, if EDIT an already existing element
it opens the text edtor...)

Ciao

max

[Wolfgang Rautenberg]

Max wrote:
> > Left-shift, variable softkey (F1 - F6) - stores into the variable
> > Right-shift, variable softkey - recalls the variable

> You can "shift-and-hold" before pressing those keys, but you should be
> careful when so doing, since if you fail to HOLD the shift key down
> securely, you might end up unintentionally *storing* into a variable.

This is infact a bad feature of the 49. It will probably be
impossible to change the keyboard's in-print. But it would be
no problem to make left-shift (non-hold) softkey the RCL, and
right-shift softkey the STO feature. That would be a radical,
but consequent and consistent change. The decision was made
to put the RCL-command on left-shift STO - on the 48 it is on
right-shift STO. Thus, two birds would be killed with one
stone: the danger of unintensionally storing in a variable
is minimized, and keyboard-consistency is regained.

Doing all this is no serious problem for users of Keyman, but
the internal assignment list will become fairly large on cost
of the user's RAM -:)

And at this occasion one may do a nice additional assignment
to the presently unused right-shift-hold softkeys: Quote a
pressed variable var, i.e., put 'var' on the stack.

- Wolfgang

[Neill McKay]

Wolfgang Rautenberg wrote:

> This is infact a bad feature of the 49. It will probably be
> impossible to change the keyboard's in-print. But it would be
> no problem to make left-shift (non-hold) softkey the RCL, and
> right-shift softkey the STO feature. That would be a radical,
> but consequent and consistent change.

Have you any idea how much grief that would cause to those of us using
both 48s and 49s? There might be quite a number of heart attacks as a
result.

:)

Neill McKay

[Tom Sears]

I still occasionally accidentally store over a variable and have a
mini-heart attack. Some of the newer 48/49 owners may not realize
you can recover if you haven't pressed any more keys after the
accidental left-shift soft key. Fortunately I usually realize
immediately that I've screwed up, so I STOP to think about the
recovery.

The magic sequence is LASTARG STO LASTARG. (On the 49, LASTARG
is labeled ANS on the keyboard - left-shift ENTER. On the 48g,
LASTARG is labeled ARG - right-shift EEX.) Explanation: after
a manual store, LASTARG recovers what was stored over, Not what
was on stack level one, along with the name of the variable. Then
STO LASTARG puts the original object back in the variable and
recovers what you originally had on level one. You can then
just drop the name of the variable. (Thanks to Bill Wickes.)

Tom

[Wolfgang Rautenberg]

> result :)

Well, independently of interchanging the RCL and STO
functionality of the menu keys, assigning the quoting of
variables to the presently unused right-shift-hold menu

keys is extremely useful. With this, JHM's suggestion to
interchange EQW and quoting becomes useless :-) The program
below assigns all six keys automatically at one go.

In addition, the right-shift-hold menu keys will put also
library commands like EULER, RE, IM, ... onto the stack,
the time-devouring { EULER } HEAD procedure is dispensable
now. The above also holds true if the editor is active and
this does not affect the command line. All very usefull.
::
7 ONE_DO
' TakeOver
INDEX@
' GETPROC
3 ::N
INDEX@ 9
PTR 2F3B3 (AsnKey, stable)
LOOP
;
Store this in 'AsnRSHM', say. Execution time about 6_s.
Omitting the TakeOver, the assignment is 2.5 bytes shorter
but right-shift-hold menu keys would then beep in edit mode.

- Wolfgang

PS. I'll put AsnRSHM also on my site, and a small program
RStog that swaps the RCL with the STO functionality of menu
keys (but which will toggle back to the normal). Ideal for
all those who are using the HP49 only.

[John H Meyers]

Background:

The top-row Graphing app keys all require left-shift,
which, in RPN mode, is also used for STO in the VAR menu
(and related functions with [M]SOLVR, TVM, etc.),
so that if you fail to securely hold down the shift key,
you'll perform STO instead of a graphing function.

Tom Sears:

> I still occasionally accidentally store over a variable and have a
> mini-heart attack. Some of the newer 48/49 owners may not realize
> you can recover if you haven't pressed any more keys after the

> accidental left-shift soft key, using ANS STO ANS (48: ARG STO ARG)

There are also other, safer alternatives, in HP49 RPN mode,
to using the top-row Graphing keys at all:

o Press APPS OK (or APPS ENTER),
to bring up the "Plot functions" choose box instead.

o Find the LIBEVAL [?] to bring up the "Plot functions" choose box
and put that into a small program (possibly assigned to a key).

o Assign the graphing functions to the RIGHT-shift-hold keys as well
(requires ROM 1.19 and User mode), using either OT49 or this:

\<< -16.21 -11.21 FOR k k { KEYEVAL } + \->PRG k .1 - ASN NEXT \>>

\->PRG is in library 256, which first you should have attached :)

If you "slip" while trying to hold down the RIGHT-shift key,
rather than the left-shift key, now the worst consequence is
that you'll *recall* a variable, rather than *store* into it!

You can even set up right-shift-hold RCL, if you prefer,
so that every type of RCL would use the same shift key,
and your brain need not shift gears all the time
(except to remember to hold down the shift key :)

\<< RCL \>> 32.31 ASN

"10 Gems of Conventional Wisdom" (scroll down to it):
http://www.jaslin.com/WSB

-----------------------------------------------------------
With best wishes from: John H Meyers <jhme...@mum.edu>

[Carsten Dominik]

>>>>> "WR" == Wolfgang Rautenberg <ra...@math.fu-berlin.de> writes:

WR> This is infact a bad feature of the 49. It will probably be
WR> impossible to change the keyboard's in-print. But it would be no
WR> problem to make left-shift (non-hold) softkey the RCL, and
WR> right-shift softkey the STO feature. That would be a radical, but
WR> consequent and consistent change. The decision was made to put the
WR> RCL-command on left-shift STO - on the 48 it is on right-shift
WR> STO. Thus, two birds would be killed with one stone: the danger of
WR> unintensionally storing in a variable is minimized, and
WR> keyboard-consistency is regained.

It would probably be much better to assign the plot functions to
rightshifthold, and maybe even RCL to a rightshifted key. Certainly
for people who use both 48 and 49.

- Carsten

--
Carsten Dominik <dom...@astro.uva.nl> \ _ /
Sterrenkundig Instituut "Anton Pannekoek" |X| _
Kruislaan 403; NL-1098 SJ Amsterdam /| |\ _ _ _/ \
phone +31 (20) 525-7477; FAX +31 (20) 525-7484 __|o|___/ ~~ \___/ ~~~

[John H Meyers]

> It would probably be much better to assign the plot functions
> to rightshifthold, and maybe even RCL to a rightshifted key.

http://groups.google.com/groups?q=x&seld=913604327&ic=1

> Certainly for people who use both 48 and 49.

I hold one up to each ear, but they are never in harmony :)