Do programmable (as in basic or C programmable) calculators still exist? - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: alank2
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 27, 2016, 03:10:05 pm
content: Does any company still make them these days?

author: AlxDroidDev
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 27, 2016, 03:21:42 pm
content: If you consider languages other than Basic or C, there is the HP 50G. It has an easy to use structured language.

author: helius
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 27, 2016, 04:23:26 pm
content: Not only that, but cross compilers exist to write programs in C and download them to the calculator. The upper range from HP and TI both have that capability; I don't know about Casio.

author: janoc
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 01, 2016, 03:28:07 pm
content: You mean like TI-89?http://www.amazon.com/Texas-Instruments-Titanium-Graphing-Calculator/dp/B0001EMLZ2/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1454340372&sr=8-1&keywords=TI-89It uses their own dialect of BASIC for programming.And yeah, they are still made - many unis and school don't allow laptops in exams but allow calculators.

author: MrSlack
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: February 01, 2016, 10:13:20 pm
content: Casio 9750/9760 are still around. I use one from circa 1997 daily and write programs still. Lovely calculators that you can actually remember how to program unlike the RPL ones.TI8x rank second as they still have a shifted exponent key (wtf?!?)

author: janoc
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 02, 2016, 01:19:59 am
content: Quote from: MrSlack on February 01, 2016, 10:13:20 pmI wonder whether anyone actually programs on TI8x. I have tried it when I have bought my TI-89 Titanium and entering the BASIC code using the keypad and endless shifting and mode switching is really excruciatingly painful.

author: Nerull
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: February 02, 2016, 01:47:08 am
content: Quote from: alank2 on January 27, 2016, 03:10:05 pmTI still makes a bunch of the same ones they have for decades. Exactly how hard did you look? Most of the big names that were making programmable calculators in the past are still making the exact same or similar programmable calculators today.

author: MrSlack
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: February 02, 2016, 06:38:52 am
content: Quote from: janoc on February 02, 2016, 01:19:59 amDefinitely. The Casio ones are far nicer in this respect. Soft menus that make sense.Then there's the NSpire. That's a whole new mess.

author: NivagSwerdna
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 02, 2016, 08:17:45 am
content: Build yourself a WP42S?http://sourceforge.net/projects/wp34s/Just requires a HP business calculator,keyboard overlay, a re-flash (needs $2 RS232/TTL adapter) and an option addition of a clock crystal and load caps.http://commerce.hpcalc.org/34s.php

author: MrSlack
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: February 02, 2016, 08:30:00 am
content: That's the best HP calculator option out there although I'm not sure I trust the keyboard overlays to last very long.

author: AlxDroidDev
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: February 02, 2016, 09:35:13 am
content: I still have my HP 48G, from when I went to engineering school. I used to write the programs on the computer and then upload to the calculator using a serial cable which I made myself and a program called Kermit.Good times!

author: helius
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 02, 2016, 09:19:19 pm
content: I still have one as well (a 48GX). It could be faster, but programming it in RPL is very easy and flexible. I do not generally need to look anything up, although there is absolutely no online help. RPL also enforces structured, functional programming, which is aesthetically a damn sight better than BASIC.

author: AlxDroidDev
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: February 02, 2016, 09:47:23 pm
content: Quote from: helius on February 02, 2016, 09:19:19 pmTrue: RPL is a great and easy to use language. I did some cool stuff with it back then. A nice resource for all the HP scientific calculators ishttp://www.hpcalc.org/If I were to buy a scientific calc today, I'd probably get one of the HP 48/49/50 calculators, even a used 48G/GX.

author: rrinker
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 02, 2016, 11:18:54 pm
content: I always had a Casio in school, however I made it a point to learn how to use an HP RPN one, just in case. My Casio never failed, but others had their personal calculator fail during an exam and the professor gladly lent them his - an HP!

author: CatalinaWOW
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 03, 2016, 01:11:56 am
content: I have Casio's, HPs and TIs sitting in bins, virtually never used. Only slightly more often than my slide rule. With desktops, laptops and smartphones there is almost never a time when the calculator is the best or most convenient tool.

author: AlxDroidDev
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: February 03, 2016, 01:45:50 am
content: Quote from: CatalinaWOW on February 03, 2016, 01:11:56 amIf you ever feel like getting rid of those HPs to open up space for new stuff, let me know!

author: MrSlack
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: February 03, 2016, 07:01:59 am
content: Quote from: CatalinaWOW on February 03, 2016, 01:11:56 amI learned that entry accuracy was really important so always have a physical calculator at hand. It's an extension of the mind now.Also you really need to know how to do stuff by hand to develop some intuition. I still have a book from 1946 with log, trig lookups in it.

author: alank2
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 03, 2016, 01:04:31 pm
content: That WP42S project looks pretty cool. Actually guys I should have put "pocket computer" in the subject line. That is what I was thinking though I didn't do a good job of expressing it. I've got a Tandy PC-6, but truthfully it is too slow to do much that is meaningful. I know casio made a few stronger models, but I don't think they were popular in the US and I don't think they make them any longer...

author: CatalinaWOW
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 03, 2016, 05:48:42 pm
content: I agree with the immediacy thing. That is why I have the go41c app on my Smartphone. Just no need to carry two devices.

author: MrSlack
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: February 03, 2016, 08:36:19 pm
content: go41c is very nice. Gets rolled out when I fancy some HP action.

author: janoc
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 04, 2016, 10:05:56 am
content: Quote from: CatalinaWOW on February 03, 2016, 01:11:56 amI actually prefer an actual, tactile calculator over a phone, even when I am working on a PC. But I have bought a cheapo Casio clone, it is actually a lot more usable for a quick calculation than my TI-89. Than one sits in the drawer.

author: MrSlack
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: February 04, 2016, 10:30:01 am
content: Been using one of these this week. Actually rather good:http://www.poundland.co.uk/scientific-calculatorNot programmable though.

author: AlxDroidDev
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: February 04, 2016, 11:43:48 am
content: Quote from: MrSlack on February 04, 2016, 10:30:01 amThat goes without saying!How about a HP-48G emulator for Android? I've been using this one: Droid48:https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.ab.x48

author: nidlaX
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: February 04, 2016, 09:44:30 pm
content: Quote from: alank2 on February 03, 2016, 01:04:31 pmYou must have some really good reason not get a $5 Android phone then.

author: timb
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 04, 2016, 10:06:56 pm
content: There's a great Mac/iOS app called Calca that I use all the time. It's basically Notepad with built in calculations. You can define constants and variables and units and do all sorts of live calculations, right with text.The really great part is you can define a single formula (r=v/i for example) and it will automatically figure out how to change the formula to solve for "v" or "i" (or whatever).You can plot, do spreadsheets, unit conversions, live currency conversions, it can query Google, even basic for...else statements and Boolean logic! It will also format documents with Markup. The best part is it saves to plain text files.I've even got a file I made with all sorts of common electronics calculations in it!

author: alank2
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 04, 2016, 10:07:49 pm
content: Quote from: nidlaX on February 04, 2016, 09:44:30 pmI despise them. The little screen, the virtual keyboard that never chooses the right character, the UI, pretty much everything about them I despise.

author: nidlaX
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: February 04, 2016, 10:11:52 pm
content: Quote from: alank2 on February 04, 2016, 10:07:49 pmHehe. To be honest, I think the pocket computers of the late 80s / early 90s are pretty cool. What we need is a modern clamshell form factor Android / Linux handheld with a qwerty keyboard, ala the Shield with a keyboard instead of a game pad.

author: eugenenine
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: February 04, 2016, 10:57:30 pm
content: Quote from: CatalinaWOW on February 03, 2016, 01:11:56 amYou'll pry my HP48 from my cold dead handsBut seriously, even though I have droid48 and use it when its easier to grab my phone from my pocket, when I want to do real work nothing has the same feel as the Hp48 series.

author: alank2
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 04, 2016, 11:03:55 pm
content: Quote from: nidlaX on February 04, 2016, 10:11:52 pm- I agree - I loved those pocket computers (and still do). I wish they still made them.Quote from: nidlaX on February 04, 2016, 10:11:52 pmThat would be pretty cool.

author: eugenenine
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: February 05, 2016, 02:12:31 am
content: Quote from: alank2 on February 04, 2016, 11:03:55 pmSounds like we need an open source hardware project to 3dprint a case/keyboard with a raspberry pi zero inside.

author: AlxDroidDev
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: February 05, 2016, 02:58:03 am
content: Quote from: nidlaX on February 04, 2016, 10:11:52 pmThat's not hard to achieve at all. I have atiny bluetooth keyboardand atiny bluetooth mouseconnected to my Android Phone. I can put the phone on any position and use the k+m to control the phone as I would any tiny computer. The advantage is that each device has its own power.I often use that method with SSH clients like SSHDroid or ConnectBot.If your phone is rooted, there is also the option to install BusyBox, which gives a lot of power to shell scripts. Or you can simply program inPascal, for example!

author: bson
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: February 14, 2016, 09:12:05 pm
content: I'm not sure a programmable calculator is that terribly useful today, given how easy it is to use say google sheets on a tablet, storing it to gdrive so it's available anywhere and can use data also in gsheets on the same gdrive. A calculator today is more for bench tasks IMO (3.5V supply, 1.75V forward LED voltage, what resistor to pick for 3.5mA kind of thing). I have an HP35S which is absolutely perfect for this since it has native display and support for complex numbers, so allows very quickly and easily say find the cutoff frequency for a small passive network, or to switch it around and determine a specific component value to get a specific -6 or -3 dBV/dBm cutoff. For anything much more complex I either use a tablet and Wolfram Alpha or on a computer use python and numpy/scipy/sympy. I also have Mathematica for OS X but hardly ever use it; I like python better, in particular that it runs anywhere without license managers, doesn't cost a fortune, and doesn't cost a second fortune just to be programmable. (And to me programmability for this kind of software is more important than a good UI.) But for quick, simple calculations... HP35S. Good 2-line screen, small, lightweight, and a good nearly HP67/HP41 grade keyboard.This said, I'm a longtime handheld calculator fan and together with a few others reverse engineered the ROM in the HP48 in the early 90s. To that end I wrote an annotating disassembler with an emacs mode to edit the disassembly (comments, symbol names, pattern substitution for code segments into macros) and save the annotations in a sidecar file; a macro assembler that could reassemble the annotated disassemblies; and a debugger (MLDB) that could single-step ROM code (which is challenging because like a PIC the processor had a fixed hardware stack and no hardware breakpoint support), mainly as a reverse engineering aid. (The debugger was sold on an expansion card through EduCalc for a while, enough to recoup some dev costs and then open sourced a couple of years later.) Eventually, at a conference (in Corvallis, OR) that was well-attended by the HP calc engineers I chatted a bunch with them and it turned out they had bought a bunch of these and used it themselves.Before the conference was over someone had dropped a pile of floppies in my coat pocket with the calculator source code on it, with the comment that this never happened. Fun times! But the days of the handheld calculator as a numerical computing tool I think are long since gone. The best I think would be a release of something like Octave for tablets with a nice touchy UI.

author: eugenenine
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: February 14, 2016, 09:42:27 pm
content: Have you ever tried to use Google sheets? Even on a fast computer with a fast internet connection its barely useable. I can wait for AndropenOffice to load and do work on my tablet and its still faster than google sheets/docs.

author: bson
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: February 14, 2016, 09:55:10 pm
content: By the way, the new HP Prime looks interesting, but it's still very much targeting an educational environment as supposed to the lab bench. The Prime has wifi, so add LXI Host support to it, and make it a one or two button press to grab a reading from a DMM or the complex trace data from a VNA, like it is in python (using python-vxi11). Reduce the number of buttons (most of which have nothing to do with cascaded calculations) and increase the screen size. Drop the silly algebraic calculator mode (not Bressard's excellent algebraic solver) and rearrange the keys to target cascaded calculations. Add automatic script capture: turn a chain of calculations into a script and then let me point and say which values are inputs, which is a temporary result, and which are outputs. Let me attach methods to obtain the inputs (e.g. DMM reading, or decade series number generator), and methods of visualizing outputs (e.g. leave on the stack with a specific tag and unit, or graph relative to one of the inputs on a dB log scale).

author: bson
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: February 14, 2016, 09:56:21 pm
content: Quote from: eugenenine on February 14, 2016, 09:42:27 pmReally? Works just fine for me. I do a lot of macros and calculations in them, no problems at all.

author: eugenenine
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: February 14, 2016, 10:14:11 pm
content: Quote from: bson on February 14, 2016, 09:56:21 pmIts not the calculations, its just typing and/or navigating. I've not bothered with it recently but tried both Firefox and Chromium and it was just sloooow in either.

author: MrSlack
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: February 20, 2016, 09:21:28 pm
content: I've actually just installed RealCalc (paid up version) on my android handset, stuck it in RPN mode and it's just about perfect.That and google sheets for me now.

author: eugenenine
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: February 21, 2016, 02:09:14 am
content: Anyone ever tried to 3dprint a keypad similar to a calculator?