[comp.sys.handhelds] HP48 CONIC plot features

jurjen@cwi.nl (Jurjen NE Bos) (06/30/90)

The manual doesn't say very much about the CONIC plot, but it is a lot more
useful than they claim.  The truth is:
CONIC plot will plot any curve in variables X (independent) and Y (dependent)
as long as Y occurs in the equation as a polynomial of degree two.  This means
that the degree of X does not matter at all!
In fact, the calculator will just do 'Y' QUAD on the equation, and plot the two
curves you get when -1 and +1 is substituted for s1.  If the result is complex,
nothing is plotted.  This means it will do something if Y occurs in a degree
higher than two, but not what you want!
A nice example is the strophoid, a cubic curve:
'(A+X)*SQ(Y)=(A_X)*SQ(X)'
Suggested value for A is 5. (Default PPAR, don't forget the plot type!)

By the way, isn't it a "bug" that the Right shift is bLue and the Left shift 
is Red?
--
|                 | "Never imagine yourself not to be otherwise than what |
| Jurjen N.E. Bos | it might appear to others that what you were or might |
|                 | have been was not otherwise than what you had been    |
|  jurjen@cwi.nl  | would have appeared to them to be otherwise."         |