50g

Hey Guy,

There is some work going on approaching that for which you are asking. Find someone
you know that has an iPhone that's had "Installer" set up on it and have them install
"Converter." It's a one trick pony app for the iPhone for converting. It is amazingly
intuitive, fast and nearly fun to use. It took me quite a while to find the fast way to convert
on the 50g (the way detailed in the manual is less than elegant), and while I'm happy to
have finally become "able" to do conversions on the 50g the iPhone app kicks its butt.

-Rob-

--- In 50g@yahoogroups.com, "Guy Teague" <accts@...> wrote:
>
> i've used prog calcs since the hp55 and the ti57/59 and i find the hp50 an
> absolute nightmare to use--only an engineer would need it enough to put up
> having to use it. i'm not an engineer, but i'm a computer hobbyist from way
> back and am nearly immune to pain.
> i also have the ti89 titanium and it is no walk in the park either in that
> even if they put pretty icons of the apps in a menu, once you're in that app
> you still have to go look up what it wants for inputs and how to generate
> output.
>
> hp used to be renowned for their quality and it was a sad day to see 'made
> in singapore' on an hp27s i bought although it's still one of my favorite
> calculators as to operation even though it literally eats expensive
> batteries and you can barely see the display. i wonder if any of the folks
> praising the 'quality' of the hp50 have even worked on an hp35, 45, 55 &c.
> the new hp35 're-issue' was a welcome attempt and it indeed brings back fond
> memories of when hp wrote the book on calculator quality, but the interface
> and programming are not good and i myself found a bug in it and when it
> comes down to me finding a bug hp missed, they are indeed in trouble.
>
> anyway, why is he bitching so much i hear you say? i use symbolic algebra on
> both the ti and the hp and the hp50 is worth every penny for symbolic
> algebra and the equation library alone. but i'm getting way too old to
> memorize all these methods of keeping track of saving personal equations and
> adding and manipulating libraries. perhaps if i used the calculators on a
> daily basis i could keep up with all that, but just grabbing it once or
> twice a week to run some scenarios i'm reading about in a book i've gotten
> frustrated with having to go look up the simplest of operations. the ti89 is
> hardly any better and the keys and display are not as good as the hp50.
>
> an analogy lies in ham radio handheld radios which are barely larger than a
> cigarette pack and have hundreds of modes and settings and functions and
> host rarely more than a telephone keypad and a few stray function keys. no
> one can remember all these operations either, but there are computer
> programs that are marvels of simplicity--you hook your handheld via usb and
> set it up the way you want it via the computer and then you only have to
> remember a minimum of keystrokes out in the field or there's usually no
> problem finding a laptop so you can re-program if needed.
>
> and that's my complaint, why aren't t simple computer interfaces available
> for the calculators? the only ones i've found so far are barely more than
> file transfer, backup, or to run some simple commands. i want a program
> where i can simply type 'a=b/c' and tell it to re-arrange for 'c'. on the
> hp50 i have to take into account what mode i'm in, then i have to remember
> whether i have to put the input on the stack or not, and when to issue an
> 'isolate' command that is godknows where. and whether to delimit my entry,
> and, if so, with what characters. i can't remember what the procedure is on
> the ti59, but i know it's not intuitive either as i have to look up how to
> do it each time.
>
> /guy
>
>
>