Hi, all:
-
As the Forum's really quiet these past few days, I think you'll welcome
the opportunity to engage this little mini-quiz I've concocted in a hurry for your
leisurely HP-calc pleasure. It's quite simple, actually:
The mini-quiz
Assuming the correct FIX mode to display the decimal places shown,
and assuming nothing else unless otherwise stated, find the minimum number of steps required to generate the following displays:
----------------------------------------------------------------------For the purposes of this mini-quiz, a 'step' is defined as any
Display Extra assumptions, if any My HP-15C solution
-----------------------------------------------------------------------0.1416 assume 42 is in X, can't use Pi 3 steps
0.1717 assume master-cleared machine 2 steps
0.1122 assume master-cleared machine 4 steps
1.43143 assume nothing else 4 steps
22.755533 assume nothing else 5 steps
----------------------------------------------------------------------
sequence of keystrokes that could be stored in a single program step if
programmed, no matter how many or how few keystrokes it does take.
For instance, to achieve a 0.5678 display, assuming nothing but
the proper FIX 4 display mode, an allegedly minimum solution would be:
31, SQRT, FRAC -> 0.5678which is four steps long: 3, 1, SQRT, f FRAC
Though this mini-quiz is intended for the HP-15C, and I'll give
my original solutions in the stated number of steps exclusively for this specific machine, you can
try your hand with any other classic HP calc models such as the 11C, 34C, etc. Newer models such as the 41C or 42S, say, that can store a whole multi-digit number in a single program step are not eligible, as the quiz is utterly trivial for them, of course.
I'll post my solutions next Monday. Enjoy, see what you can do and ...
Best regards from V.
Edited: 5 Oct 2006, 9:15 a.m.