toms@oakhill.UUCP (Thomas Spohrer) (01/08/91)
Does anyone know of a spread sheet type application for the 48sx ?
What I feel is missing from the 48 is the ability to have arrays of
arbitrary data types like a single array that can contain strings,
algebraics, constants (real or binary integers), etc.
Surely someone has written a simple program that allows you to create what
looks like a spread sheet putting the data into a directory but accessing
it somewhat like an array.
--
===========================================================================
Thomas Spohrer UUCP: {harvard,utah-cs,gatech}!cs.utexas.edu!oakhill!toms
===========================================================================peraino@gmuvax.gmu.edu (01/11/91)
A while back, before the 48 came out, I started working on a spreadsheet
for the hp28. I made some pretty good progress, but that progress halted
just prior to the release of the 48, for two reasons;
1. Anticipation of the new machine.
2. I started contemplating some design changes.
Indeed, what I have been working on will be much better on the new
machine. Here's as far as I got;
A basic spreadsheet environment, that displayed 3 X 3 cells, with
slim (one pixel wide) lines separating the rows and columns. The bottom
line below the cells was the status line, like in many big-time spreadsheets.
When you move from cell to cell, that cell goes inverse, which represents the
cell cursor. The contents of the highlighted cell are displayed on the
status line, and the results of evaluating it would appear in the
actual cell. For example, if cell B2 contained 'A1+9' and cell A1
contained 5, cell B2 would show 14, and moving the cursor to cell B2
would display 'A1+9' on the status line. The status line turned into an editing
line when you needed to modify cell contents. The power in the design is that
ANYTHING could be in a cell. I could drop a program object into a cell,
and it would get evaluated. This, of course, has trhe potential to be
dangerous. The spreadsheet did error-trapping, and if evaluating a cell
generated an error, the cell would show ERRxxx where xxx is the HP error
number, which you could of course look up. You could jump to any cell address
directly, to save scrolling time, which was a little slow. For example, to
scroll past the right side of the screen requires moving the screen to the
left, and evaluating and displaying three new cells for the columns.
All in all, it was pretty nifty, and not TOO slow. But really,
the 48 is where this thing should run. I need to add more rudimentary
features, like block move/copy, sort, etc. The 48 will be faster, and
I can get more cells on the screen by using the small graphic font.
I think I'll wait for the Development Link before I revisit this
beasty.
peraino@gmuvax.gmu.edu