DIY calculator: HP30b to WP34S | Hacker News Reader

DIY calculator: HP30b to WP34S

thereminworld.com

33 pointszdw17 comments

$4 FTDI cable? That's obviously counterfeit.

Newegg even says "Chipset: PL2303HX". That is not made by FTDI: http://prolificusa.com/portfolio/pl2303hx-rev-d-usb-to-seria... Despite that, Newegg still calls it an "FTDI cable". Amusing. Looks like FTDI is heading down the genericized trademark wormhole.

Calling a cable "FTDI" is like calling a vacuum cleaner "a Hoover". Its name is synonymous with USB cabling in the DIY circles. But I guess, when commerce is concern, the correct attribution should be used.

For those longing for these nice HP RPN calculators of yore, have a look at http://www.swissmicros.com/ . I myself have a DM-16. They're small (credit-card sized) and come with a membrane keyboard, but otherwise are 100% compatible with the corresponding HP models, and have a USB port for serial link.

Sigh. I'm tempted, especially by the 16 model (have been kicking myself for a very long time for not getting one or three when they were in production), but the membrane keys are a killer. Next to RPN, the greatest feature of HP calculators were their solid, no doubt keys. I did a math heavy semester of general chemistry with my 28S (which I still have, along with a backup I got on eBay) without making a single error, which rather surprised me.

I love this story, and it's sad to hear about companies abandoning features that users care a lot about such as RPN.

Personally I think the textbook style entry on the newer nSpires is a better interface than RPN for a lot of math - it isn't hard to get very fast with the nSpire menus and the display is pretty much as close to actual math notation as you can get. But RPN feels better for engineering tasks to me.

How does the "textbook style" entry on the nSpire compare to the equation writers on HP's graphing calculators? I've never found the equation writer to be quite as efficient for input as RPN.

I'm not an RPN expert, but I think the nSpire is holistically better between "good enough" speed and readability. I use Lisp so it's not like I hate alternative notation, I just think classic math notation makes more sense for math.

The HPs display symbolic expressions as pretty-printed standard math notation even when the input method is RPN. That's why I'm wondering if the nSpire has any improvement to offer, since HP already has the combination of efficient input and good readability.

Only problem with the nSpire is its a usability disaster. Great for education but as a productive device its horrible. I tried using one (nSpire CAS) for a bit but I felt like I had to do battle with it, not use it.

Nice. I've been using a HP30b with the WP34S firmware for a little over a year now. It's a great RPN calculator. I don't use it much, but for the few times that I need a calculator RPN feels just so much better.

This sent me through a little search session and found these http://www.datamath.org/Album_Related.htm http://www.keesvandersanden.nl/calculators/hp32sii_repair.ph...

Several years ago, as soon as I heard HP dropped the 32sii, I went (ran) down to Microcenter and bought all they had, so now I have four still sealed in clamshell packaging.

Fortunately they came out with the 35s so I have not needed to raid my stash. It's not as nice as the 32sii but I have gotten used to it.

Now the question is do I buy a bunch of 35s while they are still available?

Slightly embarrassed at two years of lurking on HN and the first post being critical of HP...

I've had two HP35s units and they are buggy as hell. Ended up with an old TI86 after trying every calculator in existence.

What kind of bugs were you seeing? I'm use it for EE so it's primarily trig ang log functions. I'll never use the advanced features, but I can't use anything but RPN.

Mainly complex values wrapping in the display, memory corruption and annoyingly, really poor trig accuracy.

$700 new...

http://www.amazon.com/HP-HP32SII-32Sii-Scientific-Calculator...

anyone has suggestions for sourcing/making custom number pads?

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