50g

Hello all.
As these calculators are highly advanced, I found after wasting time and money on the HP 33s, I needed to buy one. For me, I like complex numbers and matrices for use in electrical engineering.
It is something I had to learn about whilst at night school, and I continued to use ever since.
I soon discovered that the HP33s was seriously limited when it came to complex numbers. I then went out and bought the HP 50g.
However, I soon realised that this machine was very complicated in deed. I spent a great deal of time trying to learn how to set the calculator up for my purposes rather than use it for what I intended. This I found rather frustrating.
After some time I sadly gave up on the HP50g and bought the Texas TI89 Titanium. This is also a complex beast. It has a nice quality feel to it and a nice display. Also it has built into it a program which covers just about everything imaginable to electronics engineers.
After some time in use, I find it is no easier to set up than the HP50, and I DO NOT like Algebraic notation. I am a RPN type and that's it.
Returning to the HP 50g, I have persevered and finally got to grips with it just enough to do what I want.
I just wish that the documentation for the HP 50g was as good as the TI 89 and that there was some other support out there in the way of good books that I could obtain.

Join the club.  I see book everyday in Barnes and Noble or on Amazon which help owners of the TI 89 program or use all the basic functions.  Until HP gets the HP 50(g) will have problems.  More importantly, the owners like me will just sit the thing on a shelf and go back to using whatever we were using before we purchased this Titanic.

--- On Mon, 5/4/09, drskeptical <drskeptical@...> wrote:

From: drskeptical <drskeptical@...>
Subject: [50g] HP 50 G or TI 89 Titanium
To: 50g@yahoogroups.com
Date: Monday, May 4, 2009, 1:52 PM

Hello all.
As these calculators are highly advanced, I found after wasting time and money on the HP 33s, I needed to buy one. For me, I like complex numbers and matrices for use in electrical engineering.
It is something I had to learn about whilst at night school, and I continued to use ever since.
I soon discovered that the HP33s was seriously limited when it came to complex numbers. I then went out and bought the HP 50g.
However, I soon realised that this machine was very complicated in deed. I spent a great deal of time trying to learn how to set the calculator up for my purposes rather than use it for what I intended. This I found rather frustrating.
After some time I sadly gave up on the HP50g and bought the Texas TI89 Titanium. This is also a complex beast. It has a nice quality feel to it and a nice display. Also it has built into it a program which covers just about everything imaginable to electronics engineers.
After some time in use, I find it is no easier to set up than the HP50, and I DO NOT like Algebraic notation. I am a RPN type and that's it.
Returning to the HP 50g, I have persevered and finally got to grips with it just enough to do what I want.
I just wish that the documentation for the HP 50g was as good as the TI 89 and that there was some other support out there in the way of good books that I could obtain.

Hello dr, Using complex with your HP 50g is really easy, First thing you want to know is to toggle from real to complex, for this just press and hold [left-shift] and then press [TOOL], on top of the screen toggles from C to R (leave it in C). For example, let's say you want to calculate the parallel combination of Z1= 120 + j95 and Z2 = 150 – j80, that is: Zp = (Z1*Z2)/(Z1 + Z2).
Make sure you are working with soft menus. (flag -117 must be set).
Let's work with just four decimal places:
Press and hold [left-shift] and then press [MODE] press [F1] to choose FMT then press 4 and [F2] to choose FIX.
In the math menu let's choose complex
Press [left-shift] [SYMB] then [NXT] and [F3] to choose CMPLX.
Let's enter the first impedance:
120 [SPC] 95 [F4] (R->C combine two real numbers in a complex number)
Let's enter the second impedance:
150 [SPC] 80 [+/-] [F4]
Find the product
[*] (this means the product key)
Let's retrieve the two impedance values:
Press [left-shift] [ENTER] (ANS in RPN retrieve the last argument(s))
find the sum
[+]
finally divide the two values
[/]
And there you have it, the value of Zp.

--- In 50g@yahoogroups.com, "Juan C." <jcbuchin@...> wrote:

>
> Hello dr, Using complex with your HP 50g is really easy, First thing you want to know is to toggle from real to complex, for this just press and hold [left-shift] and then press [TOOL], on top of the screen toggles from C to R (leave it in C). For example, let's say you want to calculate the parallel combination of Z1= 120 + j95 and Z2 = 150 – j80, that is: Zp = (Z1*Z2)/(Z1 + Z2).
> Make sure you are working with soft menus. (flag -117 must be set).
> Let's work with just four decimal places:
> Press and hold [left-shift] and then press [MODE] press [F1] to choose FMT then press 4 and [F2] to choose FIX.
> In the math menu let's choose complex
> Press [left-shift] [SYMB] then [NXT] and [F3] to choose CMPLX.
> Let's enter the first impedance:
> 120 [SPC] 95 [F4] (R->C combine two real numbers in a complex number)
> Let's enter the second impedance:
> 150 [SPC] 80 [+/-] [F4]
> Find the product
> [*] (this means the product key)
> Let's retrieve the two impedance values:
> Press [left-shift] [ENTER] (ANS in RPN retrieve the last argument(s))
> find the sum
> [+]
> finally divide the two values
> [/]
> And there you have it, the value of Zp.
>

Hi
Well, many thanks for the method. I will try that later. On the face of it it has simpified things. Still its a lot to remeber practice makes perfect I suppose.