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| What's the current go-to calculator for electrical engineers? |
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| Just_another_Dave:
--- Quote from: Berni on November 10, 2021, 06:27:53 am ---They are built from various applications like an imediate calculator, graph, spreadsheet, text editor...etc that can open up in tabs to let you quickly switch between them and copy paste data around. One of them is a script editor that lets you write programs in a scripting language (lua i think).I don't think it ever supported running native ARM code, but as always with these calculators people have created a custom bootloader that allows you to do that. --- End quote --- I’m not sure, but the limitation to run compiled code might be related to the exam mode (running native code might allow bypassing it). Those limitations are a bit annoying, as those calculators could be more useful for engineering if they could interact with lab equipment or run completely custom programs (the hp prime can actually be used as a data logger using HP StreamSmart 410, but just with some Fourier sensors, making it almost useless in a real lab). It would be interesting if TI or Hp created a model targeted towards engineers without any of the limitations imposed for allowing it being used in exams |
| Berni:
The decision to not run machine code executable is probably more because they don't want to put the effort into developing it as a feature. If this was a feature then they would need to provide a SDK for developing apps, create friendly APIs for interfacing to the hardware, document all of it, make it all robust enough to not blow up if an app does something stupid. The thing probably runs on more of a RTOS type OS in there so if an app crashes it would likely take the entire calculator with it. Or even worse an app could probably mess things up enough where it runs but other features of the calculator do weird stuff and bug out(making there own product look bad). Putting in lua scripting instead gives you a "walled garden" where the program can only talk outside where you provide an means to do it. As a bonus you can also write the script on the calculator itself without having a compiler on board. |
| tooki:
The two major generations of HP Prime hardware run different software stacks. The G1 runs some proprietary OS from the OEM who manufactures it, the G2 runs FreeRTOS. Presumably atop that is the interpreter or whatever it is that actually runs the Prime “OS” if you will. My hunch is that they basically have 4 lower-layer host OSes: the G1’s thing, FreeRTOS, Windows, and Mac. Above that I think it’s the same software, since software versions are the same across them, even bugs apply equally to all of them. Probably makes sense to ensure mathematical results don’t vary depending on the underlying hardware, as well as allowing for exam mode, etc. |
| armandine2:
--- Quote from: armandine2 on November 10, 2021, 07:37:10 am --- Museum of HP calculators has some good HP Prime programs - just programmed BESS1 into my HP Prime - simple program for Bessel functions of the 1st kind. --- End quote --- Graphing with it though was beyond me - Excel (Ed. for me) was unsurpassable! |
| Berni:
--- Quote from: armandine2 on November 11, 2021, 09:04:32 pm ---Graphing with it though was beyond me - Excel (Ed. for me) was unsurpassable! --- End quote --- I don't think i ever used the graphing functionality of my TI Nspire graphing calculator to ever do anything useful. For me it was mostly a machine for solving systems of equations no matter how weird and complicated of a system. |
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