HP Forums - HP Prime pictures with video !

Hello, here are HP Prime pictures :
http://mic.nic.free.fr/prime.htm

and Youtube video :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xTF7Q1ONVzs&feature=youtu.be

New :
* Video : a few examples of HP Prime drawing :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VPlbZSC_jt0

Edited: 22 June 2013, 12:26 a.m. after one or more responses were posted

The "review" is just pictures. and the YouTube video is 1:06 of wasted time.

Edited: 21 June 2013, 2:09 p.m.

Quote:
and Youtube video : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nHW0qNbUVlQ&feature=youtu.be

Sometimes nothing is better than something, here is the case :(

That's the kind of video that a competitor would have made - yikes! I sure hope all that trouble touching the icons and the lack of screen response are not for real...

Edited: 21 June 2013, 3:50 p.m.

Please a review based on the following links

Thanks

0: [HP-Prime] Automatic Simplification (AUTO), EXACT, APPROX (~) & ASSIST MODES)

http://www.adictoshp.org/topic/300-hp-prime-automatic-simplification-auto-exact-approx-assist-modes

1: [HP-Prime] String commands

http://www.adictoshp.org/topic/311-hp-prime-string-commands-instring-left-right-mid/

2: [HP-Prime] Sequential & Parallel Processing with List

http://www.adictoshp.org/topic/293-hp-prime-sequential-parallel-processing-with-list/

3: [HP-Prime] Data Types

http://www.adictoshp.org/topic/291-hp-prime-data-types/

4: Programming, CAS, PC Connection etc ...

/!\ Note: Best to use a touch pen

Edited: 24 June 2013, 3:17 p.m.

At least the video wasn't an 'un-boxing'.

Hey Mic! Can you record 5 to 15 minutes of (HD?) video of you doing some calculations? I would like to see CAS, some graphing, and how did the Exponents turn out? Do they look correct, or are they floating above and away from the Base?? Some suggested a graphic artist contributed to early looks at the software. What does the actual software look like?

Also, can you show us the Programming interface?

I don't know about the touch screen press misses. It could have been due to the (high) angle of the touch screen to the viewer. Sometimes when my iPad is at a high viewing angle screen presses do not register due to my finger being 'off' enough.

Winter is coming...

Hi, it is just a FIRST video just to present the calc. More videos with calculation and many other uses will come ! If you want some particular reviews, tell me.

Theme editor :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g2IAzaezRKo

Quote:
If you want some particular reviews, tell me.

I thought I did. I asked to see CAS, graphing, and numbers with exponents.

Or anything else, longer than 1 minute would be great. Unless you signed an NDA or something..

Touch screen looks a bit clunky. Several presses not registered by the looks. Also scrolling vs touch appears to be a little non-deterministic.

Looks pretty though :)

Mic, with such videos you make matters worse.

missed again an opportunity to do nothing.

Mic should not make the HP Prime to a laughingstock. This could backfire.

You know, I wonder whether any NDAs are being violated here, videoing a design verification unit that may well be running beta firmware.

(And, beta firmware can very easily have touch vs. scroll sensitivity very wrong, and that may not be fixed yet.)

You are always bad. What is your problem with me ?

I find that your posts are rather self-promoting. That's all. And, I've made, what, two or three posts ever that are negative about you, on any forum.

In any case, the comment about the beta software wasn't even meant as negative against you, it was meant for those commenting on the poor behavior of the touchscreen, saying that this may get better with time, so judge the product based on the release firmware (if it still sucks then, then panning it is fair game), not based on what you're showing now.

The NDA thing wasn't meant as entirely negative, just that it may be a NDA violation by someone (but plenty of leaks online are NDA violations).

And, finally, re: the e-mail that you sent (I might as well post this publicly for the record), no, I did not attack your site in any way.

Hello Mic,

don't feel sad or upset due to some negative comments some people post. I personally do like what your do. Of course, your footages and pictures could be of better quality, "professional quality" as some would like you to do, but are you a professional calculator tester and photograph? I guess not.
So, taking this into account, I'm always happy to see pictures and read comments about calcs coming from you. Keep on posting and do not consider bad comments."De minimis non curat praetor" .
Last thing: if anyone is able to do better footages and better reviews about this soon coming calculator: do it! I guess everyone here would be happy to see them! If not, what do you think about giving Mic some friendly advices to improve the quality of his "job"?
Let's all work to keep this forum a friendly and peaceful place.
Amicalement.

The question is: Why does Mic do this? Craving for recognition?

He (and we) should wait for the final release. Anything else make things not better.

Mic: I welcome your postings here. They are brief and they often point to interesting calculator news that I might otherwise miss. I think that people are a little disappointed by what I think you originally called a "review" because it promised more detail than it delivered.

Nigel (UK)

Having knocked out a number of products over the years, I can safely say that ignoring early feedback, even if your product is incomplete, is dangerous.

Windows 8 is a monumental example of how badly that attitude can screw a company.

We should not wait for the final release to pass judgement.

If I was developing a product and someone said "X sucks", I'd take it on board, provide information on what we were doing to mitigate the problems and provide some guarantees that it wasn't going to be there in the first live release.

Waiting is fine 20 years ago but we're all connected via the Internet so information travels fast, particularly bad information and negative comments.

They need to be on top of that.

My review in spanish (perdon)

translate.google
http://www.adictoshp.org/topic/314-hp-prime-primeros-videos-reales-de-su-funcionamiento/#entry1900

Por que se suprimió el primer vídeo? , quien lo guardo, se notaba por ejemplo que la barra de desplazamiento no respondía al tacto, debía ser mas ancha

Otros videos

0:
HP Prime Programming
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SO-Tk6r-4Ec

En este vídeo se aprecia que el usuario aveces desiste de usar la pantalla y mejor se dirige al cursor minuto 0:52,

Yo tengo una pocketPC de 240*320 pxls igual a la HP-prime, y nunca la uso sin lápiz táctil, y si la uso con la yema de los dedos tengo que hacerlo inclinando el dedo, o con el dedo meñique

image001.png

1: HP Prime graphing calculator presentation
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xTF7Q1ONVzs

En el minuto 2.48 del video #1 se nota lo que sospechaba, La HP-Prime parece que no tiene simplificación automática, esto me decepciona muchísimo y para mi no esta a la altura de la competencia, espero equivocarme rotundamente.

Como va ha ser posible que 4*x+3*x no coloque en el historial 7*x, hay que decirle siempre, simplifique, expanda, agrupe, etc, ans [ENTER] mientras se hace todos estos pasos, por mas que tenga un buen procesador x MHz, implica gasto de tiempo y confunde al usuario principiante, que tan difícil es hacer incorporar un flag para simplificación automática

2: HP Prime : drawing
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VPlbZSC_jt0

En este video se nota que el reloj se superpone al titulo :( , minuto 0:04, era mejor separar la barra de estados fuera del titulo de la "ventana"

Otras expresiones algebraicas se ven cortadas minuto 1:54
En el minuto 0:11 se aprecia que la expresion 8*atan((y/x)) le sobra un paréntesis, esto es un falla del procesador y visualizador de expresiones algebraicas, lo correcto es 8*atan(y/x), los exponentes estan muy arriba, como si estuvieran en una linea independiente, afortunadamente la ROM es actualizable y se puede mejorar

En los vídeos se nota la mala respuesta de la pantalla táctil (por que es muy pequeña), o se requiere de una GUI con botones mas grandes y menús mas amplios, tipo de fuente mas grande ... para un optima ejecución se debe usar mejor un touch-pen y creo que la HP-Prime no lo trae, esto genera muchas criticas como ya se están haciendo en otros foros).

Que difícil sera operarla con la yema de los dedos, una de la razones del éxito de Android-OS and i-OS es que requieren de una GUI con botones grandes, menús operables con el área de nuestros dedos ...

Esperemos que todo mejore en la HP-Prime, en especial que tenga simplificación automática como en la TI92,(1995)/TI89,V200/nspire ClassPAd400

Edited: 26 June 2013, 4:06 p.m. after one or more responses were posted

Afortunadamente, Tim Wessman will be able to read this review and (one hopes) take appropriate action.

Nothing new here.

Auto-simplification all the time is bad. You lose control to do what is wanted. It just doesn't match the HP calculator philosophy.

Taking up a whole extra row of your limited screen for indicators is questionable. This is not a windows based device where you have sized boxes dragged around with a mouse. It is a single task switching OS - not a desktop computer.

That has, at minimum, debugging left on, no power management turned on, very slow checked memory allocations and so on...

About the only decent thing was showing the advanced grapher, although it was quite a bit slower and less responsive then it actually is of course.

Edited: 22 June 2013, 9:12 p.m.

And Apple is the counterexample. They never communicate details of a preliminary version of a product with the public (least of all via Youtube). That would be amateurish.

I was wondering if that would be the almost canned reply...

Apple products are awful and dangerous. The underlying UNIX implementation is terrible, has serious POSIX compatibility issues and naff libraries that just refuse to link consistently between releases. Their stuff only works until you have an opinion other that theirs on how you need to perform a task (iCloud, Automator, iPhoto, aperture, iwork). Half the features don't work and their web proposition is consistently problematic.

Not only that, their hardware is terrible. It looks pretty but is poorly engineered. I mean glued in batteries and components with no hope of repair apart from replace the whole unit or resort to some shit crock involving suction cups and heat guns. As for the iPhone, glass to the edges? Instant smash from a 4" drop. Silly design.

I mean design flaw: I had a 2010 MacBook pro. Spilled a drink on the table. A small amount got under it. Fair enough - should be ok. Nope. Capillary action due to the two part alu assembly drew the liquid inside the bottom of the chassis. Few minutes later, bang! Flames, smoke and all sorts coming out.

Power isolation possibility? None. Battery inside, screwed in. Even worse now as its glued in.

Threw it in the garden. Burned for 15 minutes.

No MacBook pro, £1k down and Apple didn't want to know. Solicitor sorted it out with them in the end and I bought an old Lenovo.

I've used apple stuff for 20 years and its all consumer landfill junk. Don't confuse good marketing and products rolled in glitter with quality or reliability.

Because of this; don't assume their strategy is correct or professional.

Perhaps they should listen to their customers first so they can avoid all this rather than prescribing what you are getting?

Arrogance is all it is.

Edited: 23 June 2013, 6:49 a.m.

HP seems serious about this product and they have clever people working for them. I won't judge it before it's released.

Nigel (UK)

Yet if that GUI is meant to be operated through the touch screen, maybe users will end up with a stylus. Too many small contiguous checkboxes IMHO. (It is kind of interesting that the new videos show much more keyboard action.)

I wouldn't show the seconds in the timer, apart from the overhead it's distracting. Most screen timers do without.

I think that any colour different than white for the backside would look better. Maybe grey, or even black.

The display looks fantastic though.

Quote:
Yet if that GUI is meant to be operated through the touch screen, maybe users will end up with a stylus.

Good thing it isn't then. :-)

The goal was to make a high end calculator - not a smartphone. That being said, every effort was taken to give users familiar things that they would recognize or feel familiar with. You can operate the entire calculator using nothing but a keyboard if desired (excluding the menu buttons), or you can operate it using the touchscreen for everything.

As a general rule with touch on any device, there are some things that it is great for, and some things that aren't very good no matter how perfect the implementation. Some examples of bad things include selection inside a grid data or a spreadsheet, repositioning a cursor in text or mathematical expression, or fine control to zoom to an exact point.

Notice that that doesn't even include soft keyboards. Everyone knows those don't work. Hence the need for autocorrect and all sorts of tricks to even approach a standard keyboard.

Quote:
I wouldn't show the seconds in the timer, apart from the overhead it's distracting. Most screen timers do without.

Indeed. That was left on for early builds in debugging mode to aid with wireless and exam mode debugging.

Edited: 23 June 2013, 10:00 a.m.

There's not much to be gained by accurately describing Apple products. Apple-Love is a market-hype religion. As such it is completely immune to arguments based on reason, logic, and science. :-)

Isn't it a bit childish? I assume half of our forum members are using some Apple products of some sorts - so half of us are brain-dead? :-)

I for one would be happy if this HP Prime is only half as good as my iPhone... ;-)

Hmmh, shall I suggest replacing the word 'Apple' by 'HP' in your post? No, I won't.

d;-)

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Not only that, their hardware is terrible. It looks pretty but is poorly engineered.

I can't speak for their notebooks, but I bought a Mac mini some time ago, and this little but powerful PC is very well designed and very quiet.

Quote:
I mean glued in batteries and components with no hope of repair apart from replace the whole unit or resort to some shit crock involving suction cups and heat guns. As for the iPhone, glass to the edges? Instant smash from a 4" drop. Silly design.

I have to confess that the 3GS was somewhat more conservative in that way, but my wife now has a 4S, which she sometimes drops, but there is no broken glass part so far.

And for the batteries: We had (and have) some Apple products (some iPads, an iPhone, etc), and none of them has battery problems, except the very old 1st generation iPod mini. Even the 1st generation iPad of my wife runs several hours on a battery charge.

So at least for our iDevices, a battery problem simply doesn't exist.

Quote:
I mean design flaw: I had a 2010 MacBook pro. Spilled a drink on the table. A small amount got under it. Fair enough - should be ok. Nope. Capillary action due to the two part alu assembly drew the liquid inside the bottom of the chassis. Few minutes later, bang! Flames, smoke and all sorts coming out.

This is a typical case of user error. Why did you leave the notebook on if you _knew_ there was water running under the case?

Quote:
I've used apple stuff for 20 years and its all consumer landfill junk.

So why did you use their stuff for 20 years?

Quote:
Isn't it a bit childish? I assume half of our forum members are using some Apple products of some sorts - so half of us are brain-dead? :-)

Explain where you found any part of your "half of us are brain-dead" characterization in my posting. Perhaps your response most clearly shows the easily-triggered perception of persecution often exhibited by the true religious fanatic.

FWIW, I don't consider religious people to be, as you imply, "brain dead". Thus you are safe from ever being termed that by me, much as you seem to wish for it. But you should reflect on the appearance your response presents. You did much more to make my point than I could have. Thanks! :-)

Except I am not impressed with the exponents. The font size of exponents should be slightly smaller. As is, they look almost as bad as the ones in the original HP introduction video (at least here they have the correct alignment). The exponents are too big and too high from what I can tell.

Quote:
Except I am not impressed with the exponents. The font size of exponents should be slightly smaller. As is, they look almost as bad as the ones in the original HP introduction video (at least here they have the correct alignment). The exponents are too big and too high from what I can tell.

I doubt there will be that much flexibility with this screen resolution. As much as I like the Prime so far (based on the info here) I think they should have upped the resolution. I'll bet they will in the next generation assuming they have some success with this one.

Quote:
I doubt there will be that much flexibility with this screen resolution

Imo, it's not essentially a problem of size but a question of location. You can compare with the 50G : the size of exponents is the same but they are placed such a way that it is more readable (not totally in a upper line but few pixels lower).
If this could have be done on the poor HP50 resolution, there is no reason it can not on the Prime. And if, in bonus, the size can be managed it would be perfect.

For what I see, the prime could be a great calculator...
But we need a complete review, with the last OS ( Just by reading the french translation I doubt the version tested by Mic is the final release)

As I say in a previous post, I don't see much interest in greater resolution...

Edited: 24 June 2013, 3:36 a.m.

The issue with changing size on exponents is a complicated one.

Do you reduce the size of the exponent? If so, by how much? If so, does it decrease more each level? If so, what is the lower limit?

What about the users that have vision difficulties and for this reason run the calculator with the "LARGE" selection on the font?

Should that setting just be ignored and I keep shrinking the exponent until they can no longer read it?

One of the things we've had quite a bit of good feedback on from, -lets say- more experienced educators, is how the can actually *read* the expressions and greatly appreciate the ability to have it draw large enough to see.

Does it turn into another flag or setting? At what point do you end up with another 128 flags of which nearly nobody understands what they all do?

Believe me, there has been plenty of discussion on this topic.

This appears to be an interesting and novel issue as, for instance, the HP 50g and the TI 89 use the same font size for both base and exponent (and next exponent, and so on...) I had to count the pixels: couldn't believe it as they always looked smaller to me. I guess they look that way because of some kind of perception trick having to do with them not being completely above the base line as it seems to be the case on the Prime.

I really appreciate you took the time to explain the rationale behind the touch-aware UI, it makes sense. I guess marketing will emphasise the dual operating mode so that the smartphone-conditioned users won't bypass the keyboard... when they shouldn't ;)

Quote:
This appears to be an interesting and novel issue as, for instance, the HP 50g and the TI 89 use the same font size for both base and exponent (and next exponent, and so on...) I had to count the pixels: couldn't believe it as they always looked smaller to me. I guess they look that way because of some kind of perception trick having to do with them not being completely above the base line as it seems to be the case on the Prime.

Same for me ;)

The base and exponent use the same font size, but it's very readible.

The same idea with Prime would be great...

Sorry for the bad English

>> Auto-simplification all the time is bad. You lose control to do what is wanted.

Ans: Please show me examples where auto-simplification is bad

>> It just doesn't match the HP calculator philosophy.

this philosophy can keep a flag, as does the classpad300/400

See imagen Auto-simplification (Alg On) and assistant Mode (Auto-simplification off)

>> Taking up a whole extra row of your limited screen for indicators is questionable

idea, hide or show the status bar

Edited: 24 June 2013, 3:33 p.m.

Hopefully, the equation typesetting can be fixed in firmware as the current version looks like something from the era of teletype terminals. The HP50 did some things better as Gilles shows above.

The choice of BASIC as what may be many user's first programming language is truly lamentable. Given the kind of innovative developments in the original RPL for the HP-28 calculators, perhaps we might have seen something like the Dylan language adapted for calculators, to keep with the Lisp theme but using an in-fix notation. Alternatively, the Raspberry Pi project uses Python, as does the One Laptop per Child initiative (along with Smalltalk language).

Nick

Edited: 25 June 2013, 5:29 a.m. after one or more responses were posted

BASIC in its modern implementation is not bad at all, just have a look to FreeBasic to see that it is a very usable language, specially if it had to be on a calculator. I'm not specifically talking of the Prime version as I haven't yet been able to get one in hand ;-).

That said, Python is very nice and it seems that it is more and more replacing BASIC for first language. I would love a calculator implementing Python. The drawback of Python is the very high number of libraries needed. Could be troublesome on a calculator.

From a very general standpoint, maybe the best option would be a calculator built on a tablet harware with Android OS and some software like Geogebra on it. With an additional claculator keyboard it would make my day. Something like a Classpad 400 on Android (made by HP of course...;-)

Agreed, changing the font size is unnecessary, just moving the exponent down a few pixels. It'd be more readable that way (the current way looks like it's another line, honestly, not an exponent).

How about Lua? Just stumbled upon CalcLua. Learn Lua in 15 Minutes

Took me only a few minutes to write my first macro:

while b > 0 do

  c = a % b

  a = b

  b = c

end

return a

Cheers

Thomas

The only reason it hadn't already been done comes down to timing.

Things like this are very small from a programmatic sense (small constant change, or 1 line or so), but cause a lot of other problems in other areas. There are test scripts, comparison screenshots, documentation screenshots and similar type things that require additional time/work to get them synced up again. No while it isn't a huge amount of time, it definitely does cause extra work.

As a general rule, we try to batch up all the changes that might impact some visible part of the UI screen at all and then make 1 change to avoid needing to redo that synchronization process multiple times.

So yes, we do know the exponents are too high (they looked fine before with the pixel based font, but when we switched to rendered TTF using ft2 they really appear too high).

If there are other 2d printing improvements, please point them out. Some may change, some may already be known about and resolved, others may be things not really though about. So thanks in advance.

Lua is attractive for quite a few reasons.

1. It is a very lightweight language from the compiler/interpreter standpoint. I think it took up ~150kb or so.

2. It is very easy to get running. A few months back I had a bit of time on the weekend and out of curiosity decided to see how hard it would be to put in. It took about 5 minutes to have it compiling in, and another hour or two to have the lua terminal up and running and be executing code in the emulator. (No, it is not in there now. I was just playing around and experimenting.)

3. It does not expose all the calculator internals that would make it easier to bypass exam mode.

4. It is very easy to limit the amount of memory consumed and does not thrash the RAM. On small embedded systems like that, this issue is very important.

5. It runs very fast.

6. It is really simple and easy to learn.

I really don't think the way to go with Lua would be like what TI has done for the nspire. They have "lua" support, but it is so non standard and has so many darn functions/variables and extensions it hardly resembles standard Lua anymore.

The way I envision something like Lua in a calculator working would be more like the Lua would be standard Lua, with a few extensions allowing it to get/return data from a few well defined locations or variables, and maybe a few UI calls for drawing lines, pixels, text and so on. I think with maybe 20-30 extension commands would be enough to really give you all the access needed to exchange things back and forth. I don't think trying to allow it access to the entire calculator, or do every possible function in the calculator is a great design.

I really envision it more like a way to do high speed calculation/drawing or full applications, with smaller well defined interactions to the rest of the calculator system allowing results/data to be returned. In some ways, it would work more like HPGCC or similar.

Lua is not in my opinion a good base language for something like a graphing calculator. It would really feel like a separate different environment and work differently then the rest of the system.

Tim, your item #3 hints toward a fear I've had about the Prime ever since I first read about "exam mode". Namely, that the availability of programming tools would be restricted to the built-in coding features so as to hinder people trying to work around the exam-mode settings.

Am I right to assume that we won't see any SDKs or published APIs being made available? Or has the Prime OS been constructed in such a way as to protect the integrity of those settings while still allowing access to things like the display, touch screen, etc.?

Quote:
Lua is not in my opinion a good base language for something like a graphing calculator.

How would you compare Lua to the programming languages of the HP39GII or HP Prime? What makes them a better choice for a graphing calculator?

I'd prefer Lua or Python to a proprietary language.

Quote:
It does not expose all the calculator internals that would make it easier to bypass exam mode.

And that's probably the reason we will never be able to run native code on the HP Prime. At least with official support by HP.

Kind regards

Thomas

These Hp-Prime sound like a very good new for me. Many thanks for these great job !

As you suggest here is my complaint :

Is there a way to have a beautiful dot product in place of these ugly "*" ? I known there is no Latex inside but these screen need beautiful font math typo and it is good for eyes ! ;o)

I have one more question : In the HP39GII we can't make custom soft menu to launch user program... What about these prime ? Is there a way to use custom soft menu in RPN mode in combination with user program (one soft key can then execute a custom function using multiple var already placed on screen ? Same use as build in function...)

Thanks

Lua would be an interesting language to provide in this context having quite a few Scheme like features such as first class functions, closures and lexical scope, as well as an object system based on prototypes like SELF.

Nick

Hello, Tim (it's been a long time!)

Quote:
Lua is attractive for quite a few reasons.

Agreed. Lua is a great language, however you look at it.

Quote:
The way I envision something like Lua in a calculator working would be more like the Lua would be standard Lua, with a few extensions...

Some modification could be warranted, for example I have Lua patched with units support, so you can type:
a=4_[km/h]
b=5_[kN/m]

It's not standard LUA, but nice for an engineering calculator (which is what I developed it for).

Quote:
In some ways, it would work more like HPGCC or similar.

So here comes the question: did you leave us a backdoor so we can do something like hpgcc on this calc? The ARM926 is quite similar to the ARM920T, so besides the low level stuff (MMU, hardware drivers), most of hpgcc should work.
We could salvage what we can from hpgcc3, add Lua, a graphics library and DecNumber for high precision arithmetics.
Other ideas: we have enough RAM to run a 50G emulator on the Prime.

If I'm asking too much, contact me at claudio *** hpgcc3 %%% org.

Claudio

Quote:
What makes them a better choice for a graphing calculator?

They don't share the same data types, they don't have the same errors, the numbers are different (BCD vs floats), the functions and focus of the language is different.

You have the same problem with any systems that have different goals. Python may be a nice language, but does it match the way an HP calculator works even remotely? Sure, you can extend it out the wahoo, but then you don't have stock default language so what is the point?

Quote:
I'd prefer Lua or Python to a proprietary language.

So the programming should be totally and exclusively limited to what those languages support? Oh, you mean you want access to all the internal math and UI stuff on the system? Well, then we'll just start adding tons of non-standard commands, functions, behaviors, objects and so on... and pretty soon you have a custom language in all but name.

I agree with the sentiment, it just isn't a good fit in practice.

There is not any difference between a program and a command line currently. They are parsed the same, evaluated the same, and anything that you can do in 1 works in the other. Granted, the program files save a copy of the bytecode around for later use, but internally they actually are identical.

Having no way to make a program that matches exactly the behavior of the host system means you are causing a lot of inconsistency and losing those people that might want to learn how to make a program.

The user language is very simple, readable, and fast. Of course there will be some weaknesses with this approach. Impossible otherwise. The fact that you can't just copy and paste some random C code from somewhere doesn't mean it is useless though for a large amount of the people buying it.

Edited: 25 June 2013, 3:19 p.m.

Quote:
Is there a way to have a beautiful dot product in place of these ugly "*"

I second strongly this request !
In textbook display, it would be fine...

"I known there is no Latex inside but these screen need beautiful font math typo and it is good for eyes "

;) If a 49G 4bits processor can do this, the Prime can...

Edited: 25 June 2013, 5:22 p.m.

From what i can tell, on the 39gII the built-in language doesn't have the capabilities of the host system, and can't recreate the system functions. It is very disappointing compared to RPL.

And a language like RPL, say FORTH or Smalltalk, or Ruby, wouldn't need extensions to work while being mostly compatible with standard non-calculator versions. Object-oriented, interactive based, dynamic are all useful in a calculator programming language, but there are modern alternatives to Basic that have a sounder basis.