More H-P Calculator Questions

[jyl]

Anyone have either a HP41C/CV/CX or a HP48G/GX?

How easy/hard is it to download programs from the Internet and load them on the calculator?

I'm thinking of getting a 41C_ but am reading that getting programs into the thing would require me to find a 20-year-old HP-IL interface card, a 286 PC, and to somehow connect that 286 PC to the Internet . . .

The 48G_ seems easier to download to, but I had one once and found it not at all user-friendly.

Looking for a RPN programmable calculator to write and run programs for stats, TVM, derivatives valuation, simple electrical circuits, other things that strike my fancy . . .

Since HP seems deeply uncommitted to the high-end calculator business, and I can't use algebraic, I'm thinking I need to get my calc now - in ten years they won't be around.

I dunno, maybe the idea of a programmable calculator is obsolete, now that you can carry around a full PC in your shirt pocket and simply fire up Excel VB, Mathematica, whatever PC app you want.

[addictionMS]

I use a little app called winHP that is a windows based HP Calculator, if that would work for you, email me and I will send you the file, it is only 61kb so it is small.

Jim

[jyl]

Jim, thank you. I have some HP calculator emulators already (sounds like that is what you use?)

What is happening is that I am getting an unexplainable desire to delve into programming an obsolete 20 year old handheld calculator - very disturbing.

[vash]

i have the moody diagram programed in my 48GX. no looking up charts for me! it took a day to put it there.

i dont think i can remember how to do it anymore. last week i thought one of mine was stolen, and i was more sad of all the lost "cheater programs" i lost, instead of the actual calculator which is easily replaceable. i would never have earned my PE without it. now you cannot use tech calculators! phew!

[IROC]

I have a 41CV that I use every day. I have never downloaded programs off the internet, though. I am an idiot, for the most part, when it comes to programming, but HPs (at least the 41 series) are pretty easy to program. You can also buy application packs to do most typical things. I have a Math pack in mine that does matrix operations, triangle functions, simultaneous equations, etc. Pretty handy. I use the triangle functions probably once a week.

Vash - good for you on the PE. I passed the EIT about 20 years ago and never followed through on it...

Mike

[jyl]

I'm wrestling with what I'd actually use the programmability for? I'm not a PE like vash or an EE like some of you other guys. If I don't have some perceived use for a program, even just for entertainment value, I won't be motivated to write it.

Lets see, what programs would be interesting to have in a 41 or a 48?

It would be fun to estimate horsepower from full-throttle constant-gear acceleration. Sit in a buddy's car on the freeway, tell the calc that at X mph the engine is doing A revs and at Y mph the engine is doing B revs, then time him accelerating from X to Y mph and tell him "gee, you've only got __ HP". I doubt this has been written for the HP calcs.

I'd also like to know where the visible planets and constellations are, given location, date, and time. My kids are always asking "what's that" and I have no idea so I always mumble "Jupiter". This probably exists.

For work, I suppose a stock valuation program would occasionally be handy. Enter EPS for the next 5 years, share count, FCF to NI ratio, terminal growth, some interest rates, and get a back of envelope valuation. Pretty simple stuff.

I'm hoping to build some loudspeakers DIY style. So maybe some simple cross-over design, and horn design, stuff like that.

There's some darkroom stuff that I can never remember, would be handy to have that programmed in too.

What about you other calculator users - what programs do you actually use for work, or use for fun, or think would be neat to have, on a calculator?

[jyl]

The H-P business calcs like 12C are great. I have 4 or 5 of them.

The H-P high-end programmable calcs have dwindled to a few models, seldom seen in stores, mfg'd by Korean ODM.

There's rumours that HP will introduce a new high-end calc, there's also rumours that they'll get out of the business.