[comp.sys.handhelds] HP-48 autoscaling/units bug?

edp@jareth.enet.dec.com (Eric Postpischil (Always mount a scratch monkey.)) (02/27/91)

Try this:  Purge PPAR, put 0_\^o in X (that's 0 degrees, the first symbol in the
ANGL units menu), put 'X' in EQ, go to the plotter, and ask it to autoscale. 
You will get a steep diagonal line in the lower right-hand corner -- autoscaling
failed.  It computed bogus values.

I might guess this has something to do with the fact that units of degrees are
actually dimensionless, so they can be converted directly to numbers.  (E.g.,
180_\^o 1 CONVERT will return .5 because 180 degrees is half a circle.)  But I
don't see exactly what calculation the autoscaling is doing that causes it to
set the values it does.


				-- edp (Eric Postpischil)
				"Always mount a scratch monkey."
				edp@jareth.enet.dec.com