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From: akcs.joehorn@hpcvbbs.UUCP (Joseph K. Horn)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.handhelds
Subject: Re: hp48 misc Qs
Message-ID: <286d6553:3598.1comp.sys.handhelds;1@hpcvbbs.UUCP>
Date: 30 Jun 91 05:40:06 GMT
References: <1991Jun28.181826.17709@watserv1.waterloo.edu>
Lines: 30

Terry Dick writes: 

> is that overscore supposed to make them look like file folders?

Although you'd never know it from the Owner's Manual (it says on page
120, "A bar over the left side of each label indicates that they are
directories."), Bill Wickes' excellent book "HP 48 Insights", Volume 1,
page 89, says "The little 'tab' above the label, which makes it resemble
a file folder, indicates that the corresponding variable is a
directory."  

> Does anyone actually use EquationWriter?  I have spent years typing
> math expressions into command lines and fint it much quicker to just
> keep doing this.

The Equation Writer application's history will answer your question.
So many HP 28 owners complained that the syntax for complicated
functions was impossible to remember (like integrals), that HP decided
to write a syntax helper.  Rather than putting huge "online help"
screens into ROM (yuck!), they decided to create a user interface that
was so intuitive that no help was needed.  You would just type in math
the way you'd write it, and press a key, and it would be translated
into the proper algebraic syntax.  Their ideas mushroomed, and soon it
became the powerful and ponderous beast we have now.  Keep in mind
what it's for, and it'll serve you well.  (This history is gleaned
from the HP Journal; I hope I did it justice.)

Your other questions have been covered in the FAQ lists by Darryl
Okahata, posted here, and available on EduCALC Goodies Disk #3.

--  Joseph K. Horn  --  Peripheral Vision, Ltd.  --