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The R47: A new physical RPN calculator

swissmicros.com

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Re: The R47: A new physical RPN calculator

#61

Post by kstrauser »

jerkstate wrote: post #51
crims0n wrote: post #49

I have an embarrassing question... math has always interested me but by luck and circumstance I have had a pretty successful career without needing anything beyond college Algebra. Can anyone recommend a curriculum that a busy adult may be able to follow in their spare time? I just want to fill in blanks and explore what is possible.

mathacademy.com is pretty awesome IMO. one hint: don't take notes/allow yourself to refer to notes during quizzes and reviews, the point is to be able to recall using just your brain, even if your progress is much slower that way, you'll learn a lot better.

Many studies concur that the act of taking notes dramatically improves your ability to remember what you wrote, even if you never look at the notes again. You generally don't have time to transcribe a lecture like a stenographer would, so note taking requires you to understand the material enough to summarize it and describe it in your own words.

Don't rely on your notes come quiz time, if you can get away with it, but by all means do take them during the learning process. And in the real world, you're allowed to refer back to your notes as often as you want to.

Re: The R47: A new physical RPN calculator

#62

Post by JKCalhoun »

crims0n wrote: post #49

I have an embarrassing question... math has always interested me but by luck and circumstance I have had a pretty successful career without needing anything beyond college Algebra. Can anyone recommend a curriculum that a busy adult may be able to follow in their spare time? I just want to fill in blanks and explore what is possible.

For me, I set out to write a flight simulator from scratch following a book [1]. I learned a lot of linear algebra that way. Such that when I later took Calculus III in college (it was linear algebra) I aced the class.

(Also, reinforced what I remembered from Trig, I finally fully grokked it. Except for trig identities, ha ha.)

The book was targeting DOS and C++. I wrote it in C for the Macintosh. (That required that I figured out what was going on.)

Go write one in JavaScript using an HTML5 canvas as your buffer. (I made a quick pass at doing something similar [2] — but do it on your own, don't follow my link below or look for the sources for Phosphor3D on GitHub.)

[1] https://archive.org/details/build-your-own-flight-sim-in-c-d...

[2] https://engineersneedart.com/Phosphor3DTest/

Re: The R47: A new physical RPN calculator

#64

Post by shtzvhdx »

7thaccount wrote: post #39

I have a few Swiss Micros, but rarely use them. Beautiful devices though. Built to last forever.

Terrible keyboards though. At least compared to my beloved 48s and 28.

How Id love for SM to do a straight 48G with more memory and a good keyboard. (But keys are hard to do)

Re: The R47: A new physical RPN calculator

#65

Post by stackghost »

_verandaguy wrote: post #41

Maybe it's a generational thing -- I haven't had to use a standalone calculator in my professional life -- but what's the benefit of using RPN as opposed to the more common infix notation? Beyond that... do RPN calculators like these usually include the option to use infix notation?

I have an HP50G that lets you switch to infix notation, but for most operations RPN is faster due to fewer keystrokes.

Like many others here, I rarely use my calculator any more. My phone is just so much more powerful with a lisp REPL and python.

This is cool technology, though.

Re: The R47: A new physical RPN calculator

#66

Post by a3c9 »

rickz0rz wrote: post #46

Looks like it might be the same Sharp memory LCD screen that's on the Playdate? 400x240 monochrome LCD display, roughly 2.6-2.7" diagonally?

I think it's likely - from what I can tell only Sharp makes these displays. I've been looking for displays like these (no backlight, fast refresh) for a project and all I could find was the Adafruit breakout of that one.

Re: The R47: A new physical RPN calculator

#67

Post by bombcar »

Elfener wrote: post #32
PopePompus wrote: post #9

There was a time when I would have salivated over this. But now I can run iPython on my phone, and have numpy, sympi, scipy, astropy and countless other packages. Physical keyboards are great for calculators - much better than virtual keyboards on phones. But the keyboard advantage seems to me most valuable for quick calculations, not elaborate things like this calculator offers. If I'm going to do matrix calculation…

Same. Although I have a few physical calculators, I rarely use them, because although for a simple calculation they're faster, when I'm already at a computer/phone, using that is faster, and when I want to do anything involving programming an actual programming langugage is better.

Physical devices can be great where you have dust and water issues that can make a phone nearly impossible to use.

Of course, then a $5 calculator may serve you better ...

Re: The R47: A new physical RPN calculator

#68

Post by DanTheManPR »

_fat_santa wrote: post #16

Honest question but who would need this these days? Would this calculator still be useful for professors/mathematicians/etc or is this more for HP calculator enthusiasts?

It's probably not a necessity - I'm sure I could adapt to just using my smartphone if I put the time into learning some of the math apps. I still use my ti-89 for everyday calculations. It's a handy device; more portable than a laptop, and better UI than a smartphone. I don't deny myself from using a tool I like.

Re: The R47: A new physical RPN calculator

#70

Post by Jach »

speedgoose wrote: post #31

I think I will stick with a TI-89. No RPN, but that’s not necessarily a problem. More importantly, it has a CAS (Computer Algebra System). I wonder why CAS aren’t more common on such calculators. The technology exists since decades and it’s great. I know it’s not allowed in some school exams, but calculators already have exam modes.

Yeah I won't give a serious thought to anything that doesn't have full symbolic support. I gave my nephew-in-law my old TI-89 Titanium last year, he was entering 8th grade and I got it midway through 9th grade and it served me well all the way through my CE undergrad. Arithmetic, trig, statistics, basic calculus, differential equations, laplace transforms, vector calculus, it handled so much, and it was easy to use TI Basic to add new functionality/shortcuts... Prior to that I was happy with a cheap non-graphing scientific calculator (I think it was a Sharp EL-531WBBK Translucent Blue). It was fine for algebra, trig, geometry, and pre-calc science courses.

My dad has an HP-15C that I've always thought was cool but I never really liked to use it for anything. This new calculator is also really cool but I can't imagine ever owning one. I don't need to do much calculation anymore anyway so it's not like I need any calculator at all (hence giving away my old calc). I'm also usually at my PC, or a laptop, or I can ssh to my home system with my phone (if the phone's basic calc app is insufficient). For simple calculations I've most commonly used a Python repl since like 2007, but for anything more advanced these days I'd pull out one of the PC programs I was exposed to in the later parts of college (e.g. matlab or octave+symbolic and other packages, or maxima). But I also have used Python + libraries or Lisp + libraries, and would like to someday redo my Stats education with R. Hand calculators just seem really antiquated to me now.

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