Can anyone comment on the Lygea HP15C emulator? - Printable Version +- HP Forums (https://archived.hpcalc.org/museumforum) +-- Forum: HP Museum Forums (https://archived.hpcalc.org/museumforum/forum-1.html) +--- Forum: Old HP Forum Archives (https://archived.hpcalc.org/museumforum/forum-2.html) +--- Thread: Can anyone comment on the Lygea HP15C emulator? (/thread-39053.html) |
Can anyone comment on the Lygea HP15C emulator? - Emmanuel Verbeeck - 07-20-2003 Being quite amazed at the typical eBay prices for HP15C (typically $300+ for scratched/incomplete ones), I was looking for some good Windows-based emulation. I have found a Windows CE / pocket PC emulator done by Lygea (see http://www.lygea.com/pocket15cdetail.htm).
Do any of you use this? Thanks for your opinion.
Re: Can anyone comment on the Lygea HP15C emulator? - Victor Koechli - 07-21-2003 As far as I can see, you can download and try it for 14 days for free. You could do that and then post your experiences here ;-)
Cheers, Emulator ? What emulator ? - Valentin Albillo - 07-21-2003 Here's some enthusiastic opinion (and endorsement), if a bit brief: Anyway, this product is not an "emulator" at all, but a simulator. A real emulator runs a bit-perfect copy of the original ROMs in an emulated original CPU. This exactly mimics the full behaviour of the machine being emulated, bugs and all, limitations and all.
On the other hand, this HP15C simulator just tries to imitate more or less what the original 15C did, but it goes on changing things (more items in the display, more program steps, more memory) and you can be sure that many original 15C programs won't run on it as they would run on a real or emulated HP-15C. Mr. Kahan and the rest of people involved in the design of the HP-15C algorithms took really extreme efforts to guarantee accuracy, stability, convergence, and such, to an extent never before seen (and probably after, as well) on a handheld calculator. I very much doubt that this simulator does include such ultra-finely tuned algorithms, and most probably relies blindly on greater native precision (typically 16 digits) to cater for any lack of refinement. In a worst-case scenario, you could find yourself with the simulated Solve failing to converge to the correct solution (a la HP12C Platinum), failing to find an existing solution, or finding a solution that isn't, you just have a look at the HP-15C Owner's Handbook and HP-15C Advanced Functions to see the many pitfalls awaiting for non-optimized algorithms to fall into. I guess the people who wrote the routines for the 12C Platinum did just that, blindly relying on greater native accuracy and faster CPU, and we all have seen the results: non-convergence, lack of reliability, and utter inefficiency.
In a nutshell, I think that calling this product an "emulator" is a gross misrepresentation, and I wouldn't trust its answers, specially when using the advanced functions: matrices, complex, solve, integrate. I trust my HP-15C, because I know the who's and the what's behind it. Mathematics written in sand (105 Kb PDF document)
If you really need an RPN emulator for your PC, you could do much worse than to get one of the freely available 41C emulators. One of the very best does perfectly emulate an HP-41CX, synthetics and all, complete with Advantage ROM and other modules also perfectly emulated. Actually, it's pretty indistinguishable from having a real, loaded HP-41CX inserted on your very screen, photorealistic cosmetics included. Best regards from V.
Edited: 21 July 2003, 8:35 a.m.
Re: Can anyone comment on the Lygea HP15C emulator? - Jim C - 07-21-2003 I gave it a try on my Toshiba PDA and I was favourably impressed. I didn't try it for longer than the 15 day trial period however.
Emulators for Woodstocks and Spices? - Michael F. Coyle - 07-21-2003 I know that emulators are available for some Classic models (35, 45, 55) the 41 and various Saturn machines. But does there exist a real honest-to-God emulator for any of the Woodstocks, Spices, or Voyagers? I haven't looked at everything that's been published out there, but all I've seen are simulations, which are OK, but not the Real Deal. I'd like to do an emulator but don't have enough info yet. Anyone?
- Michael
Re: Can anyone comment on the Lygea HP15C emulator? - Gordon Dyer - 07-21-2003 I have used it in trial mode for a while and it is excellent! You have to get used to the sideways screen but that suits the calc well.
Re: Emulator ? What emulator ? - X-V - 07-21-2003 Posted by Valentin Albillo: Whoops, V is already taken lol, gonna have to change it. I guess ill stick to X-V or something like that. regards
"|V2|" (not definitive) AKA "\V/"
Re: HP 25 Java simulator ... here, in this same MoHPC site - Andrés C. Rodríguez (Argentina) - 07-26-2003 There is an excellent HP25 simulator here at the MoHPC (Simulators page), as the source code is available, you can adapt it to run off-line...
Re: HP 25 Java simulator ... here, in this same MoHPC site - Michael F. Coyle - 07-26-2003 I do like this simulator. The only problem I have with it is that it is very slow to respond to button presses. Sometimes it takes a couple of seconds for the display to update. It's very disconcerting. Would running it off-line make it any faster? (I use the HP-45 emulator a lot. It has a less-polished user interface but at least it responds instantly.)
- Michael
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