ahdinw01@ULKYVX.BITNET (05/31/90)
HP land:
I will probably be flamed for this BUT:
Do any of you hp48sx owners actually use the equation writer? I think the 48sx
is GREAT but the equation writer seems too slow and cumbersome for practical
use. Am I missing something here? I can key in equations directly faster and
I can simplify equations much faster. Mistakes are painstaking to correct and
the rules can't be executed from within a program.
Case in point: (from example on page 412 of owners manual)
I can solve for n MUCH faster than by following the steps given. Also this
problem seems to be highly suited for use with the rules. As an example in
frustration, try to solve the example without looking at the optimal path
given. If you go about it with slightly different approaches, the equation
becomes larger and things tend to grind to a halt.
So, what your opinion? Is the equation writer still in it's infancy destined
for a future hp with much higher throughput, or just a saling feature. Don't
get me wrong, I'll take any features you can put in, but with "rom being so
full and time so short", might other features be deemed of equal or greater
importance?
I for one would trade the equation writer application for a several times speed
improvement in cursor speed while doing a conventional edit.
Enough Ramble,
Aaron Dinwiddie
==> Agima <==
P.S. Flames and comments welcome, if I am missing something major in the
equation writer I DO want to know.
===============================================================================
Disclaimer:
One man's opinion, but my Amiga agrees with me as well!
===============================================================================smasters@gmuvax2.gmu.edu (Shawn Masters) (05/31/90)
I have found the equation writer to extremly useful for complex equations that I work with in class. On older machines (even the PC) that has no utility like this I often make mistakes in counting how many pairs of groupings I have. Then when I fix that I find my grouping is wrong. I don't have this problem with the hp48 , because I enter them as I see them, not some mental conversion. Your right though, for simple equations(ie X^2+SIN(X^.5)) it is easier to enter in the algebriac format. I even simplify on paper, although the form stuff for algebriac manipulation looks really interesting, it is much easier for me to waste paper and do the algebra on paper(probably because I do a lot of deriving, and pull out some really off the wall tricks I learned elsewhere). The other nice thing about the equation writer is the editing. Yes, it takes forever. Yes, it drops you back do into the standard algebriac line edit, but it allows you to take one component of a very nasty equation and work on that simplified component alone(I can come up with some nightmares to edit on the command line). All in all the equation writer is a tool that has a lot of room for growth. If the clock speed was upped yet again maybe the tool would be easier to use for the microwave generation:-). Of course I wouldn't mind going through batteries at an exponential rate compared to now. Shawn Masters
Stephen_J_Thomas@cup.portal.com (06/01/90)
I think the EquationWriter, while clever in theory, was added to sell HP48's to people who may not yet be addicted to HP handhelds, as many of us are!! It was probably a good marketing decision, though. Stephen J Thomas
pacolley@violet.uwaterloo.ca (Paul Colley) (06/01/90)
In article <30397@cup.portal.com> Stephen_J_Thomas@cup.portal.com writes: >I think the EquationWriter, while clever in theory, was added to sell >HP48's to people who may not yet be addicted to HP handhelds, as many of >us are!! I was already adicted to HP handhelds, but I think the EquationWriter is great! I normally write, read, and think about equations in text book form, not as some mess of brackets on a single line. The translation between text book form (in my head) and calculator form (and back) is error-prone and time consuming. The equation writer makes it automatic and painless. I can live with the slow speed, since it is much faster than me doing it for a complicated equation. but the editing gets on my nerves. Basically, I don't _want_ to go to the line editor to make changes, so it is even worse when the round trip to the line editor takes so long. Maybe a more accurate statement would be that the EquationWriter was added to sell HP48's to people who don't like to squeeze complicated expressions into a single line. - Paul Colley Department of Computer Science, University of Waterloo Waterloo, Canada pacolley@violet.waterloo.edu or .ca
adamsd@crash.cts.com (Adams Douglas) (06/05/90)
It's also great for showing off the integration and differentiation results to HP neos. :-)