50g

Hello all. Just got my 50g today. I'm moving on from my 41cx and 42s.

The first thing I did was to configure it for Engineering Units. Pressing MODE then choosing the associated NUMBER TYPE as "ENG" all went smoothly. However the behavior of the calculator is puzzling.

With the NUMBER FORMAT set to ENG and 4 significant digits I get the following....

Type 12345678 <ENTER>
Display shows: "12345678" instead of "12.346E6"

I was expecting to see the number in the ENG format after I hit <ENTER> since that is the number format I selected.

Curiously if I multiply by "1E0" then I get "12.346E6" whereas mutiplying by "1" gets "12345678".

Is this normal behavior? I'd like set the calculator so that it always shows in ENG format if possible.

Thanks

I think I discovered the answer to my question on page 2-1 of the user guide. If you enter a number without EEX or a decimal point, then its an integer object. Integers are shown in full precision. In order for the number to show in the ENG format, it needs to be a floating point type (real).

Try the following:

Press MODE
Set your Number Format as you like
Press F3 (CAS)
Ensure that Approx is checked.
Press F6 twice (OK)

This should have the effect of making all future numbers input become reals (floats with a decimal) and causing them to all be displayed in the number format you like. It will have the side effect that you will lose accuracy in some calculations, however, so it's not ideal (which is why there's a difference in the first place).

--- In 50g@yahoogroups.com, "hvdave2000" <hvdave2000@...> wrote:
>
> Hello all. Just got my 50g today. I'm moving on from my 41cx and 42s.
>
> The first thing I did was to configure it for Engineering Units. Pressing MODE then choosing the associated NUMBER TYPE as "ENG" all went smoothly. However the behavior of the calculator is puzzling.
>
> With the NUMBER FORMAT set to ENG and 4 significant digits I get the following....
>
> Type 12345678 <ENTER>
> Display shows: "12345678" instead of "12.346E6"
>
> I was expecting to see the number in the ENG format after I hit <ENTER> since that is the number format I selected.
>
> Curiously if I multiply by "1E0" then I get "12.346E6" whereas mutiplying by "1" gets "12345678".
>
> Is this normal behavior? I'd like set the calculator so that it always shows in ENG format if possible.
>
> Thanks
>

Appendix C in the 50G users manual explains what the reasoning is behind this. From that you may be able to extrapolate something. Approximate mode doesn't allow maximum precision but you have to have it on if you want to use engineering format. I work with nanoseconds with 3 significant digits and I've never been beat in accuracy yet. I'd be interested to know just how accurate this is, in engineering format at 10-12.

Thats good info - Thanks. I'm going to try both Exact and Approximate modes and see how I like them. I can see good points to both - its nice having that sort of option.

As far as accuracy goes.... I'm an EE, so if I manage to get myself within a few percent I'm calling it good!

I'm into electronics myself as a hobby. I think when they talk about precision with this calculator, their talking about some crazy scientific accuracy on an atomic scale. I'd just stick it in approxamate mode and complex mode and leave it. If you go through the CAS functions you'll see that you have more options in those modes. I never got how to do the for, while, and looping programs. That's what I'm working on right now. I have some basic stuff in my files section as well as a bunch of stuff you can download here. Check it out...

Believe I read in 50g material that the calculator always does things to
12 place accuracy but only displays as whatever the operator configures
the display (it is their preferance).

rickwendel763242 wrote:

>
>
> Appendix C in the 50G users manual explains what the reasoning is
> behind this. From that you may be able to extrapolate something.
> Approximate mode doesn't allow maximum precision but you have to have
> it on if you want to use engineering format. I work with nanoseconds
> with 3 significant digits and I've never been beat in accuracy yet.
> I'd be interested to know just how accurate this is, in engineering
> format at 10-12.
>
>

Thanks.

> Believe I read in 50g material that the calculator always does things to
> 12 place accuracy but only displays as whatever the operator configures
> the display (it is their preferance).

Actually a large number of operations take place internally at 15 digits - especially matrix, trigonometric and exponential operations.

Also, on some operations the final resulting answer is determined by the current display setting. I think integration is the only one like this, but I could be wrong. If you set display to FIX 3, your integer is within 1 digit of the third decimal place. Set it to 9 and the answer will take longer to compute.

TW