Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ucbvax!hplabs!hp-pcd!hpcvlx!pam
From: pam@hpcvlx.HP.COM (Pam Raby)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.misc
Subject: Re: HP Function Comparison
Message-ID: <101900005@hpcvlx.HP.COM>
Date: 13 Mar 89 19:17:17 GMT
References: <26757@apple.Apple.COM>
Organization: Hewlett-Packard Co., Corvallis, OR, USA
Lines: 36


I thoroughly enjoyed your comparison of HP calculators - it was a
lot of work!

> BINARY
> The 42S actually feels the best for interactive bit operations, but
> its wordsize is fixed at 36 bits.

We chose 36 bits because it is divisible by both 3 and 4.  Thus it
works out nicely for hex as well as octal.  We couldn't afford to
implement 64-bit binary operations/display (ROM constraints) and felt
36 bits was a reasonable compromise.

> COMPLEX
> The 42S is the best of the pack, however, as it is the first to display
> complex numbers in polar as well as rectangular coordinates.  ...
> The 42S particularly is a great complex arithmetic machine ...

> MATRIX
> The 42S is the winner again for incorporating matricies smoothly with
> other types of numbers and overloading the operators ... The 28S does
> pretty good as well, but it is not near as slick as the 42S.

> MENUS
> The 42S is an improvement on the 28S with it automatically popping
> back out of a menu after you have used it, but menus still are slow to
> use.

> STATS
> The 42S has done the best job of generalized curve fitting, with its
> BEST fit function.

Not bad for *half* the ROM !!!!!!!

Pam "I couldn't resist - I worked on the 42" Raby
pam@hp-pcd