HP Forums

Hi everyone,

Please Make sure you have chosen 'small font' in home settings, and try this:

EXPORT SmallG()

BEGIN

FOR X:=0 TO 10

PRINT(STRINGFROMID(X)); // inner prime's strings

WAIT(0); // WAIT for KEY PRESS

END;

Look at the console display line number 2: Where is the bottom of the g ? A line is missing...

Dam.

Thanks.

TW

Sorry, but i think i have found another one in graphic mode. This time not only visible with small font and 'g' char.
please try this small code: (with P from 0 to 7)

EXPORT TXTOUTSmallG(P)

BEGIN

 LOCAL s;

 RECT_P(#FFFF00h)// yellow 

 FOR A:=0 to 100 DO

  s:=STRINGFROMID(A);

  TEXTOUT(s,G0,10,5,P,#0h,300,#FFFF00h);

 END;

WAIT(0);

END;

Underlined text !

Dam.

Edited: 10 Nov 2013, 7:27 a.m. after one or more responses were posted

This calculator is very buggy, not acceptable to pay for this, it's a deception for me to say it but the actual developer of the calculator are not at the same level than hp48 team

Quote:

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....the actual developer of the calculator are not at the same level than hp48 team

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It's all about time and complexity. The HP48 was an outgrowth of the HP28 series, released starting three years earlier. The RPL environment started in the mid 1980s and had a formidable software team. On June 2, 1990 at the HP Calculator Conference in Rolling Meadows, Illinois, Bill Wickes gave a presentation on the HP48 development effort and showed this slide, indicating that "this is 90% of the software team":

There are ten people in the picture, so Bill must have meant that the actual team had at least one additional individual. So consider that the release of the HP48SX was probably at least 4 years after the start of RPL development in general and had a team three times the size of the Prime team. Also, considering that the Prime development time was on the order of half the time, that means that at least six times the number of person-years went into the HP48 software. Also since the Corvallis, Oregon calculator organization probably had two orders of magnitude higher financial commitment from HP as compared to now, you can realize the tough situation Cyrille, Tim and the few others are dealing with this time around. Considering that, I think it's great how well this machine turned out and since the firmware will likely be improved, the future for Prime is bright.

Thanks,
Jake

If the future is bright, when appears the next firmware-update?

OT: Fabrice, it seems you fell for two common "faux-amis" in your post. I think you meant:

"This calculator is very buggy, not acceptable to pay for this, it's a disappointment for me to say it but the current developers of the calculator are not at the same level than hp48 team"

What you wrote means, in English:

"Cette calculatrice est très buggée, il n'est pas acceptable de payer pour ça, c'est une tromperie pour moi de le dire mais les vrais développeurs de la calculatrice ne sont pas du même niveau que l'équipe hp48"

Hello,

the 2nd person in the upper row could be Charlie Patton, and the woman on the right could by Diana Byrne.
The 2nd person in the front row could be Jim Donnelly (or Megha Shyam?). Right to that person (in the center) could be Bill Wickes, and Dennis Yorke on the right.
Or is Charlie the one on the left of the front row?

However RULES returns:

Bob (Worsley)

Bob (Miller)

Bill (Wickes)

Ron ()

Charlie (Patton)

Paul (McClellan)

Dennis (Yorke)

Jim (Donnelly)

Diana (Byrne)

Max ()

Gabe (Eisenstein)

Ted (W. Beers)

Dave ()

Dan

Clain (What does this stand for? The French river?)

And some persons contributed to the code who are not in the credits:

Eric L. Vogel

Stan Blascow

Grant Garner

Megha Shyam (Periodic Table)

Laurence Grodd (HP-71B code)

P. Raby (Date utils)

There may be some which I don't recall right now, and maybe some errors in the pic-name assignment.

Do you have a clearer version of this pic, maybe with the actual names?

Thanks

Quote:

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Also since the Corvallis, Oregon calculator organization probably had two orders of magnitude higher financial commitment from HP as compared to now, you can realize the tough situation Cyrille, Tim and the few others are dealing with this time around. Considering that, I think it's great how well this machine turned out and since the firmware will likely be improved, the future for Prime is bright.

---

d:-/

I don't know... I could agree in the case of masked-ROM calculators (like the 35s), where any bugs are there for good. But on a product like this, I'd rather have it and have to wait a little bit for bugfixes, than not have it at all, or have it turn into "vaporware" - always postponed until everyone loses interest.
After all, now even calculators are more about software than hardware (and there are few complaints about the Prime's hardware); and... name a big software product that was bug-free in version 1.0! :) They all have constant updates to fix bugs or to add functionality; and if this happens with the Prime too, it's OK for me.

I know one example by heart. ;)

Quote:

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I know one example by heart. ;)

---

d:-/

Quote:

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After all, now even calculators are more about software than hardware (and there are few complaints about the Prime's hardware); and... name a big software product that was bug-free in version 1.0! :) They all have constant updates to fix bugs or to add functionality; and if this happens with the Prime too, it's OK for me.

---

It's one thing to have bugs that cause errors such as described in this post. It's another to have bugs that can cause crashes, freeze-ups, loss of data and even corruption of the operating system that can require re-formatting of the flash drive with total loss of stored information. This reminds me of MS DOS 4.0, which was such a disaster that many people reverted to MS DOS 3.3 until MS 5.0 was released. Basically, RPN Entry is a land mine field on this calculator, and it would have been better to have left it out entirely until the serious problems when interacting with other features such as certain Apps could be fully tested and sorted out.

Walter, YOU should know! Remember the very first iterations of the 34S firmware?

Hmmh, Marcus, "vaporware" in your reference sounds like OpenRPN to me. Not sure you meant that. About "buggy products", however: It makes a difference IMHO if three hobbyists officially call for a pre-beta test of their software (like with the early WP 34S emulator in spring of 2011) or a huge company releases a product (like the Prime). I don't remember having read anything about a (whatever) test phase officially from HP, especially not that this test phase still persists. It's just that what I'm criticizing. It all boils down to quality - in the age of Dave and Bill such an attitude would not have passed, I guess, regardless of the size of the team.

d:-/

it's my opinion and you read on the forum i'm not alone.
The major problem is i'm working with an hp48gx since 20 years.
Today we have a wonderfull hardware, we have in electronic's matvelous microprocessor, the memory is cheap, and all in this new world communicate.

i see my hp-prime with no communication line (HP48 and HP50 have)
i see an PC software to send program to prime !!a joke this software.
i see crash
i don't see any update but the calculator have flash memory.
i don't see infrared
i don't see buzzer
the interface is very bad thinked, ex: vars,programm, eq all splited somewere.
hp48 have ir communication, hp said hp prime will communicate with another prime then all changes, the cable was not in the box !!!

definitivelly not, the prime is <<<< than hp48 and this is why it's a deception for me because i wait a new hp since a lot of years and hp produce an hp 49 pfff with display visibilitu p^roblems, hp49g+ with a buggy keyboard, and now the prime !!

I wasn't commenting about the Prime or the fact you don't like it, I was only trying to indicate the correct words that you could use next time for conveying the message that I think you mean, instead of French-looking words which have a different meaning than the one you think they have ;)

Je ne faisais pas de commentaire sur la Prime ou le fait que tu ne l'aimes pas, j'essayais seulement d'indiquer les mots appropriés que tu pourrais utiliser la prochaine fois pour faire passer le message que je pense que tu veux faire passer, plutôt que deux "faux amis" bien connus qui donnent un sens incorrect au message, peu compréhensible par ceux qui ne parlent pas le français ;)




"Je suis déçu" <-> "I'm disappointed"

"Une déception" <-> "A disappointment"

"Une tromperie" (ou synonyme) <-> "A deception"
"Les programmeurs actuels" <-> "The current programmers"

"Les vrais programmeurs" <-> "The actual programmers"

"Des tests avec calculatrice réelle" <-> "Tests on a real calculator", mais on pourrait aussi écrire "Tests on an actual calculator"

"En fait, je voulais dire que ..." <-> "Actually, I meant that"

"Actuellement, la situation est la suivante" <-> "Currently, the situation is the following"

Hey, I wasn't talking about the 34S or any other hobbyist project! :)

To cite a thing that happened to me personally... I had just bought a brand new iPod Touch (my first Apple product, which turned out to be the last due in part to what I'll describe here).
I couldn't even turn it on until I had linked it to an iTunes account; that meant having to find a Windows computer (I use Linux) and creating an account; entering a credit card data (my wife's, because I didn't have one at the time); then it said there was a software update for the iPod, which fixed problems and added features.

And... the update COST ME $10. I mean... I had just paid more than $300 on the iPod, there's a firmware update, and I have to PAY for it?

Anyway, I got bored having to deal with iTunes and such - I just wanted to drag/drop music on my MP3 player without using extra software. So I bought a Cowon.

Sorry for the OT, but my point is... even Apple, one of the highest-regarded companies around, release buggy and/or incomplete firmwares. As long as updates are easy (and free) I see nothing wrong with that.

Hi,

Just for fun, from my video of Bill Wickes' 1990 talk when he listed all of the HP48 software team, I excerpted the 6-minute audio track, applied noise reduction and saved it at 64K bits per second .mp3 file, which may be accessed here. Bill is the far leftmost guy on the back row and he lists the people moving left-to-right on the back row, followed by left-to-right on the front row. Listening to this again, it seemed like only yesterday....what an exciting time in those days....

Thanks,

Jake

Edited: 4 Nov 2013, 11:02 p.m.

Quote:

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my point is... even Apple, one of the highest-regarded companies around, release buggy and/or incomplete firmwares.

---

Quote:

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As long as updates are easy (and free) I see nothing wrong with that.

---

d>:-(

Edited: 5 Nov 2013, 2:27 a.m.

Quote:

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However RULES returns:

Bob (Worsley)

Bob (Miller)

Bill (Wickes)

Ron ()

Charlie (Patton)

Paul (McClellan)

Dennis (Yorke)

Jim (Donnelly)

Diana (Byrne)

Max ()

Gabe (Eisenstein)

Ted (W. Beers)

Dave () <-- Dave Arnett? He designed the hardware, didn't he?

Dan

Clain (What does this stand for? The French river?)

And some persons contributed to the code who are not in the credits:

Eric L. Vogel

Stan Blascow

Grant Garner

Megha Shyam (Periodic Table)

Laurence Grodd (HP-71B code)

P. Raby (Date utils)

---

Quote:

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Also since the Corvallis, Oregon calculator organization probably had two orders of magnitude higher financial commitment from HP as compared to now...

---

So if HP management does not consider the calculator development seriously, then why should anyone seriously consider buying an HP calculator?

Releasing buggy software is not acceptable, it puts people off. OK, so most SW has bugs when first released, but they should be minor and have very little effect in daily use. Most top-end companies release fixes within days of discovering a bug that affects daily use!

My experience on the 39gii is very similar to this post (message 4).

I purchased a 39Gii in August this year, it still had the buggy May 2012 firmware installed! Well, at least that would restart when it encountered a problem it could not solve, the Sept 2012 firmware just hangs solid! It requires a battery pull!! Imagine that, having to take out your batteries in an exam because the calculator hangs? I would rather it crash or give up or error, but just sit there indefinitely with the busy indicator? What a laugh!

Remember my comment above on how quickly top-end companies release bug-fixes? It is more than a year since an update for the 39Gii, despite known problems (e.g. CASE not working, SUB with lists causing indefinite hang, display bug with 10^-x). The most serious problem is that of the "indefinite hang with busy indicator". I have had several problems with this (recently so bad that I had to keep the battery cover removed - trying a local defined list in a program).

So after the 39gii experience, I will never consider HP calculators again, whether for educational, scientific or engineering.

Many posters here are people with HP stars in their eyes, and say "it's OK because we can update with fixed firmware". There are only a few that post criticisms. This does not represent the majority of the population, as those that couldn't be bothered with the Prime, also couldn't be bothered to post. They will vote with their wallet. They will look at their mates' Prime and after the initial "ooh, ahh" they go "hum, ha" and "maybe not for me". You see, when I was in college I got an HP because compared to the TI's and Casio's, they "just worked". Now sadly the opposite is true! Let us remember that HP is trying to RE-capture a market share! You need something striking AND close to perfect to do that.

Jake, as your post painfully points out (perhaps unintentionally), HP management is not putting the resources in to really knock HP calculators back onto the world stage! Goodbye HP calculators.

Hi,

many thanks for the audio:-)

So here's an update of the list. From left to right:

Back row:

Bill (Wickes)

Charlie (Patton) (Operating System, various other topics)

Bob (Worsley) (Mr I/O)

Ted (W. Beers)

Max (Jones) (MkLib)

Diana (Byrne)

Front row:

Pat Megowan (Application Catalog)

Stan Blascow (Mr LowLow? Interrupt System, Bank switching)

Gabe (Eisenstein) (Mr EquationWriter?)

Bill Johnson (?) (?)

Not on pic:

Grant Garner (The Tools Man: SW Development Tools, Object Decompiler)

A person from the audience also asks about:

Paul (McClellan) (Solver, Unit Management System)

Who was part of the team, but left after doing the Units.

Thanks

Ray

It's worse than that... They say "When life gives you lemons, make lemonade", fine, but then don't sell it as champagne, because it's not.

At this time hardware is cheap, developing a complex software product isn't. There are two approaches: spend the kind of money it really needs, or open source it and wait for years until the planets align and the combination of a few smart, passionate, productive people working for free and the investment of some company that really needs that system to work will eventually do the job.

HP can't really do the latter and definitely didn't do the former. The Prime software is all the company can/is willing to afford right now... if you can only afford bad ideas you won't enjoy the good ones, it's as simple as that.

It is cheaper to glue a whole existing GPL CAS to a graphing calculator by including a command shell and function calls than developing a coherent system based on that very same CAS. It is cheaper and rightfully so, as it will never work as a whole unless you spend enough money to build an even more complex piece of software to integrate seamlessly both. It could end up being as expensive as developing the whole system from scratch.

Lots of the complaints about the Prime stem from this fundamental design flaw, which is not going anywhere soon. And then there is the developing team that preaches to the choir that it is not a weakness but a feature. I really appreciate all of them, but come on, we're grown-ups now.

Yet my biggest issue with the Prime is that it is turning this forum into a very dull place.

This propably could be a repost. Originally from Joe Horn, and also on the Goodies Disk #9 :-)

Note from Joe Horn: Many commercial programs (like Windows) have

similar hidden screens that list the program's design team.  Since

they are always so cute and well hidden, they are often referred to as

"Easter eggs".  Here's what the G/GX's "Easter egg" yields:

     ÚÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ¿

     ³            M G       ³

     ³      P   DIANA       ³

     ³    CHARLIE X B     D ³

     ³ BILL U   N  TED    A ³

     ³ O  A L   N    ALCUIN ³

     ³ B  I    JIM   V      ³

     ³  RON     S    E      ³

     ÀÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÙ

ALCUIN was the HP-internal code name of the HP 48G during

development, because Alcuin was Charlemagne's teacher, and

Charlemagne, as you remember, was the code name of the 48SX.

The other names in the "Easter egg" above belong to:

BILL Wickes (list processing; "Father of RPL")

CHARLIE Patton (RPL operating system)

TED Beers (parameterized outer loop; interactive stack; key handling

          system; high-level display management; input forms)

DIANA Byrne (project manager; plotting; graphics)

GABE Eisenstein (EquationWriter)

BOB Worsley (I/O)

PAUL McClellan (unit management; math)

CLAIN Anderson (product manager; marketing)

DENNIS York (manager)

JIM Donnelly (EQ LIB; list processing; variable tic logic; developer support)

MAX Jones (menu system; editing)

DAVE Arnett (hardware)

DAN Coffin (manuals)

RON Brooks (marketing)

Cheers

Ray

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If it would be up to me, however, I'd sentence it to recall their products. That's a standard procedure in other industries, BTW.

---

Quote:

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Yet my biggest issue with the Prime is that it is turning this forum into a very dull place.

---

Joe,

OK, one goal for you :-) What I want to point out, however, is: such recalls cost the recaller (i.e. the responsible company) a real lot of $ $$$ $$$; and in the business world of today that's the only language the management seems to understand. In consequence quality will improve as was demonstrated in other industries already. If you know of any other method to improve the quality of sloppy software folks, please tell me.

d:-)

Quote:

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Joe,

OK, one goal for you :-) What I want to point out, however, is: such recalls cost the recaller (i.e. the responsible company) a real lot of $ $$$ $$$; and in the business world of today that's the only language the management seems to understand. In consequence quality will improve as was demonstrated in other industries already. If you know of any other method to improve the quality of sloppy software folks, please tell me.

d:-)

---

Key word: management

I think you actually identified the real issue without realizing it. The issue is not necessarily due to sloppy software. As with any business, a lot of the decisions are not made by the people who actually create a product. Those decisions are often made by folks who are very much removed from the process. In particular with software development, it may very well be that the developers DON'T want to publish the current version of program XYZ, and yet management sees it as "good enough" for whatever reason (most often, though, is because people have become more familiar with "software updates").

Quote:

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I wasn't commenting about the Prime or the fact you don't like it, I was only trying to indicate the correct words that you could use next time for conveying the message that I think you mean, instead of French-looking words which have a different meaning than the one you think they have ;)

Je ne faisais pas de commentaire sur la Prime ou le fait que tu ne l'aimes pas, j'essayais seulement d'indiquer les mots appropriés que tu pourrais utiliser la prochaine fois pour faire passer le message que je pense que tu veux faire passer, plutôt que deux "faux amis" bien connus qui donnent un sens incorrect au message, peu compréhensible par ceux qui ne parlent pas le français ;)




"Je suis déçu" <-> "I'm disappointed"

"Une déception" <-> "A disappointment"

"Une tromperie" (ou synonyme) <-> "A deception"
"Les programmeurs actuels" <-> "The current programmers"

"Les vrais programmeurs" <-> "The actual programmers"

"Des tests avec calculatrice réelle" <-> "Tests on a real calculator", mais on pourrait aussi écrire "Tests on an actual calculator"

"En fait, je voulais dire que ..." <-> "Actually, I meant that"

"Actuellement, la situation est la suivante" <-> "Currently, the situation is the following"

---

I understand fabrice48 perfectly.

je comprends fabrice48 parfaitement.

:)

PRIME simply wouldn't exist.

I wouldn't be surprised if HP's board was unaware that HP even MADE calculators.

I am personally surprised that HP even makes new ones.

So, the options to me appear: calculator needing updates or no HP calculators at all.

That said, I continue to thank the WP team for the 34S. :-)

Sad, but true --- this used to be a fun place. Perhaps HP can set up a beta-testing forum for the Prime on their web-site.

Nick

Edited: 6 Nov 2013, 3:11 p.m. after one or more responses were posted

Quote:

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Perhaps HP can set up a beta-testing forum for the Prime on their web-site.

---

d;-)

... and calling a beta test a beta test? Maybe launching the emulator alone and alluring the willing community for free testing? Collecting bug reports - and removing all the bugs these willing people found for free? May be worth trying (examples exist). All the discussions about small teams would become obsolete - but nah, that's not the approach HP chose; or did I miss anything?

d:-/

Quote:

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I doubt it - then they would admit the PRIME being in beta-test phase still.

d;-)

---

While I share your sentiment, the reality is that ALL software with any decent amount of complexity these days are in beta-test phase -- even the ones that have high version numbers and have been out in the market for a long time. Look at any big project (iOS, Linux, Windows, etc.) Let's be real. No software is bug free. Sometimes these "bugs" actually turn out to be user error -- but to the user, they see them as "bugs" because things don't behave they way they expect. Some software have relatively few actual bugs; others have far too many. Even the HP48 series had a number of bugs that NEVER got addressed. One of them was even a hardware issue (regarding memory banks -- the last port was not configurable so you couldn't make a valid 4MB card without always seeing "Invalid Card Data" -- hacks had to be used). There were bugs that also caused complete loss of memory (you can read about them in the FAQs). Of course, there were seemingly much fewer bugs than what appears to be the case for the Prime. But then, the Prime's complexity is worlds larger than that of the HP48.

With respect to recalls… the software industry does not obey the same economic rules as, say, the automotive industry. I remember my dad having to deal with a Toyota recall for his truck. Did Toyota have someone come to his house, pick up his car, fix it, and then drop it off at his house at a later time? Hell no! :-) He had to drive out to the nearest dealership, and they fixed it for free for him. Now, I am sure Toyota lost a big chunk of money in providing the service and the parts for the recall. But let's look at this from a calculator point of view. If the hardware fails, you send it in (and HP possibly pays for shipping), and they ship you a replacement. However, if it's a software issue, they're going to be like Toyota in the sense that -- at best -- they will ask you "come in to obtain a replacement part" which translates to "please download a firmware update" because that is all that is necessary to fix the issue. They don't incur in loss of money in "producing replacement parts" because software does have any replication cost. They only way the would lose money is if they got sued because the software glitches causes "major harm" (I'll leave it to you to define that however you want). So if the "recall" you were suggesting earlier is only software related, I seriously doubt that management would even take notice.

EDIT: And of course, there's always returning the product for a refund and waiting for the more mature release to be made available. The folks who bought the early HP48 calculators were stuck with a $300 (that was how much an HP48SX cost brand new when it first came out, I think… and that was decades ago) calculator with bugs that would never be fixed, unless they returned for a refund. HP was smart to allow trade-ins for a limited time, but not for all the ROM revisions. Yet I am sure that many folks today would consider the HP48 as a pretty successful calculator.

Edited: 8 Nov 2013, 1:37 a.m.