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From: folta@tove.cs.umd.edu (Wayne Folta)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.handhelds
Subject: HP48SX questions
Message-ID: <26470@mimsy.umd.edu>
Date: 10 Sep 90 19:52:04 GMT
Sender: news@mimsy.umd.edu
Reply-To: folta@tove.cs.umd.edu (Wayne Folta)
Distribution: usa
Organization: U of Maryland, Dept. of Computer Science, Coll. Pk., MD 20742
Lines: 35

I played with a HP-48SX for about 15 minutes today, and I have a couple of
questions (I did not have access to a manual):

1. Can it be locked in alpha entry mode? (I think I did it once, but otherwise
   it always shifted out of alpha after one character). And can it be locked
   in lowercase alpha?

2. Is the user interface slow? I was struck by how slow it was to drop items
   from the stack and to delete the previous character with the back-arrow
   key. But then maybe I had it in a weird mode that slowed it down.

3. It seems to have calendar functions. Could it be used as a mini-Wizard to
   keep track of a few dates and phone numbers? Can you set alarms that
   beep (even if the calculator is off) to grab your attention?

4. Does the serial interface software (for the Mac) include any value added
   over a simple kermit program?

5. I saw it mentioned somewhere that you could print nicer graphs on the Mac,
   from the HP. Is this literally true, in that you literally get better
   (more detailed, etc.) graphs, or does it simply mean that you can print
   the same graphs to a nicer printer?

6. It says you can add your own measurement units. Are they treated exactly
   like built-in units in terms of power and usage? (If they don't have them,
   I'd like to add points, picas, and other printing units, among others.)

7. Last, I wore the wrong shirt, so I couldn't tell... Can it fit in a 
   ANSI-standard shirt pocket :-), or at least a Land's End shirt pocket?

Thanks.
--


Wayne Folta          (folta@cs.umd.edu  128.8.128.8)