New pictures of HP Prime in hand
#1

Enjoy :

http://www.calc-bank.com/index.php?mod=news&ac=commentaires&id=1967

#2

Nice checkerboard... chess anyone?

Edited: 13 June 2013, 4:27 p.m.

#3

Hello Mic,

two pictures, two different colors for the navigation button (the big round one).
Which one is a prototype part, which one is representative of mass production products?
I personally prefer the dark one.
Thanks a lot for all your investigations. Cheers.

#4

Quote:
chess anyone?

I prefer a calculator I can beat :-)

#5

First pic is more prototype than second one.

Look carefully, part of the blue/orange printing on the half top of calc.

second pic look like production to me.

#6

sin(x) < sin(y)

#7

Silver central pad is a prototype.

#8

A chessboard:

http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=+Plot%5BSin%5Bx*Sqrt%282%29%2F2-y*Sqrt%282%29%2F2%5D%3CSin%5BxSqrt%282%29%2F2%2By*Sqrt%282%29%2F2%5D%2C%7Bx%2C-9%2FSqrt%282%29*Pi%2C7%2FSqrt%282%29*Pi%7D%2C%7By%2C-8%2FSqrt%282%29*Pi%2C8%2FSqrt%282%29*Pi%7D%5D

Edited to replace the temporary W|A image with a permanent one.
Also, the plotting limits have been properly adjusted.


Edited: 14 June 2013, 8:04 a.m. after one or more responses were posted

#9

I managed to squeeze a chess program on the 28S. This is nothing new or special.


- Pauli

#10

I am aware of it. Back in the day I used the 48G version for a while:

http://www.hpcalc.org/details.php?id=785

The one above is mlchess49 v1.14, by Peter Österlund. By the way, in the credits section he says:

"I wish to thank the following people (in alphabetical order):

...

Paul Dale : I used the graphics from his chess program on
Goodies disk #6."

...

Gerson.

Edited: 14 June 2013, 12:51 a.m.

#11

I just wish I knew more about the internals of RPL at the time, I'd have written the program slightly differently if so. It would still have been incredibly slow though.

- Pauli

#12

There was one for the stock Sinclair ZX81 with 1kB of memory.

#13

Agreed, chess can be programmed very small, more space makes it play better however. Just coding legal moves and a dumb position evaluation function ought to be possible in less space what I used, not that my program played even remotely well :-)

My best effort for the 28S has to be my 3D adventure game. Again, I'd have programmed it differently if I knew more about the RPL internals at the time :-( I can vividly remember getting the machine code graphics portion working in the evening in a caravan on a fairly isolated bush property with my then girlfriend (& now wife). I can also remember the Memory Lost soon after :-(


- Pauli

#14

Many years ago I had a chess program for the 48G. Unfortunately it used to crash when I was close to winning. I am not sure whether this was intentional or just a bug.

Your 28s Program should work for the 48G as well, shouldn't it? And if so, can I download it somewhere?
I suspect typing it in will take quite a while. Especially because I usually manage to get a typo in just the wrong place....

#15

Which program is that?

#16

I think I answered that question myself. Your HP48 Program on hpcalc is probably a modified version of the 28s program, right?

#17

Quote:
Which program is that?

It's MLChess 1.14 - infos and download here:

http://www.hpcalc.org/details.php?id=3067

Franz

#18

By the way, here is the Prime Facebook page

https://www.facebook.com/HPPrimeCalculator

#19

Quote:
Unfortunately it used to crash when I was close to winning. I am not sure whether this was intentional or just a bug.

Harald, have you tried MLChess v1.14? I've just installed it on my HP-48GX. A 61-move 48gx vs 48gx game took about 5 minutes, no crash (only 14K bytes left).

http://www.hpcalc.org/details.php?id=3067

Cheers,

Gerson.

#20

Thanks, I will try that.

Currently I am running this: http://archive.org/details/PowerChess on the HP 200LX.

Edited: 14 June 2013, 9:36 a.m.

#21

Thanks Franz!

#22

What is amazing about the Prime (trickling) roll-out is I haven't seen a single demonstration of someone touching the TOUCHSCREEN.

In my opinion, a single image or video of someone touching the screen would generate as much, if not more, interest as sample display images generated by graphic artists.

#23

Thank you for the link!

A piece of advice for those who don't know it yet: when charging the batteries inside the LX-200 keep it open, otherwise the heat may damage the LCD screen. I've discovered this the hard way. That's why there are so many LX-200s with a dark spot in the central region of the display. I am thinking of replacing the LCD, it doesn't appear to be so difficult. Any recommendation? TIA.

HP-200LX with damaged display

#24

Perhaps it'll leave fingerprints? ;-)

#25

Has anyone heard of any pricing yet for the HP Prime calculator?

#26

US$ 150.00, estimated.

#27

155.49 €in France.

#28

For heaven's sake! That is too much. This price knocks out the HP Prime (compared to the TI Nspire CX CAS). God luck, HP! The first mistake was produced.

#29

Quote:
For heaven's sake! That is too much. This price knocks out the HP Prime (compared to the TI Nspire CX CAS). God luck, HP! The first mistake was produced.



I disagree. The US list price for a TI Nspire CX CAS is $176 and Amazon sells it for about $147. The only price I could find for the TI in France was 169€ (tI-bank.fr). The HP Prime pricing is about the same or cheaper than the TI Nspire CX CAS, which does not have a touchscreen.

#30

On the good ol' 48:

#31

Gerson, if these are your screen shots I'd like to ask, how do you get such fantastic photos?

#32

Les, sorry to disappoint you. I would never have been able to take photos like that, no matter the camera. These have been copied from Emu48 (Copy Screen).

#33

Interesting website claiming that they have the HP Prime in stock for 149 Euros.
http://www.derekenwinkel.nl/hp-prime-grafische-rekenmachine.html?___store=en&___from_store=nl

#34

Not in stock:

"Availability

The HP Prime Graphing Calculator is expected to be available worldwide in the Fall of 2013."

#35

ahem, sorry: TI hold about 95% of the educational calculator market. How would HP break in in this dominated market? My suggestion is the price. What is your suggestion???

#36

Games.

- Pauli

#37

:-D

So true, however. Short form: nGames >> nMath , reading: the number of games afficionados is several orders of magnitude greater than the number of math afficionados. Not nice for our hobby, but such is life. (Wo)Man is a playing animal.

d:-)

#38

Just something to clarify on the whole advanced graphing thing - while you can generate some similar type graphs using the old truth plot, they really aren't doing the same things.

The advanced grapher is all about interval math. The quality of the plots and graphs is truly dependent on the accuracy of the underlying numerical routines and is calculated using knowledge about that accuracy. What that means for example, is that a function generated using ^2 will have a wider range of inaccuracy then a SQ function because the internal algos are different.

Also, this is very quick and while you graph, the entire screen is updated through successive refinements. It further and further refines as it continues graphing, but at no point is the screen locked up or are you prevented from scrolling or interacting with it. It is a lot of fun to play with, and I've already had some concepts cemented in my mind that I struggled with before.

An example of that was graphing differential equations. I kind of understood them before, but really kind of felt vague about certain areas. I saw a presentation at NCTM that showed some solutions of that differential equation all graphed together and it kind of clicked in a way that never had before.

TW

#39

... a phenomenal suggestion. Applause!

#40

I by no means meant to say the "good ol' 48" is a substitute for Prime, I only intended to show we don't need Wolfram Alpha for this kind of plot. However, while it's fast enough on the emulator, it's painstaking slow on the real thing.

Quote:
It is a lot of fun to play with, and I've already had some concepts cemented in my mind that I struggled with before.
...
I saw a presentation at NCTM that showed some solutions of that differential equation all graphed together and it kind of clicked in a way that never had before.

You have made up my mind :-)

Back to the graphing application, is it possible to choose limits for the independent variable when plotting, as in the picture below? Thanks!

Gerson.


#41

Quote:
I only intended to show we don't need Wolfram Alpha for this kind of plot.

Indeed. In fact, wolfram spits out quite a few bad plots in many cases... try graphing these two:

1/(x+y)=sin(1/(x-y))
tan(x)=tan(y)

Uhoh! :-D

In addition, a lot of the time you "exceed" the calculation time for a lot of things. I've noticed that "free" time also seems to keep getting less and less...

Quote:
You have made up my mind :-)

Well, wasn't my intent. :-)

I just kept forgetting to give a bit more detail here each time I saw a truth plot come up.

Quote:
Back to the graphing application, is it possible to choose limits for the independent variable when plotting, as in the picture below?

It is all mathematical syntax. So no, there is not a place in the plot setup to say "well, only graph from this X to to that X".

A standard piecewise here works well, even if just a single condition with X>-3 AND X<3. So in the advanced grapher you'd see this as your equation:

Y={SIN(X) if X>-3 AND X<3


TW

#42

It's not price. HP already tried price with the 39gs and 40gs (which you could get for $50). For that matter, in Europe, the 39gII undercuts the 83+ (although not the 82 Stats) hard, while being far more capable than the 84+SE.

It's not games. People are working on that for the Casio Prizm.

It's marketing.

TI is a well-oiled marketing machine, aiming at every level of the educational system, with training teachers and professors how to use their calculators, marketing to school and school district boards, getting textbook authors and companies to include TI-specific instructions in their calculators, and encouraging testing bodies to allow their functionality (but not necessarily other functionality, and they do sometimes lose these battles - case in point, the TI-89 existing as a smaller form factor TI-92).

HP is not. Although, it looks like they're certainly trying with the Prime...

There is one way to compete on price, but the Prime can't do it that way - it's to compete on compatibility at the same time. Basically, exactly clone the TI user interface, right down to every button press for a legal function being identical.

#43

Quote:
ahem, sorry: TI hold about 95% of the educational calculator market. How would HP break in in this dominated market? My suggestion is the price. What is your suggestion???

An 'exam mode' that enables cheating rather than preventing it. ;-)
#44

Quote:
Games.

Fully agreed.

But not any games, shoot'em up games have little interest here.

I would apreciate games like Chess because they teach useful things to user (strategy, planning, organization).

Edited: 16 June 2013, 8:57 p.m.

#45

What's the point in HP making Nspires? I really don't get it. I don't even get what's all this excitement about. So now HP is ditching RPL (the TI stagnate the 89 and kill Derive way...), aiming instead at secondary markets trying to sell them educational devices... Good luck with that.

I really like most of the announced features of the Prime, and I have to congratulate the calculator team because they are being paid for this and they deliver indeed, but if I wanted a Nspire I'd have bought one already.

What I wanted was an HP 50g able to run 20 solid years of user-generated applications in ARM native code, a reliable booting mechanism or else a recovery mode... and decent soldering inside. Just as well I didn't waste much time with that 10 year kludge instead... An exam mode in an HP? Give me a break.

#46

Most people aren't interested in games like chess. They want mindless entertainment like Facebook is happy to provide.


- Pauli

#47

The problem is that the money doesn't appear to be in professional calculators (outside of finance, and some very niche market 4-bangers), so they'll make an educational machine that is also useful as a professional machine.

If you want new RPL machines, open source software and hardware is the future, I suspect.

Good news is, software can be prototyped on the 50g, and then ported to a final platform.

Bad news is, hardware would have to be custom, and even the proposed 43S keyboard layout doesn't have enough keys to be a complete, comfortable RPL machine (48 has 49 keys, 49/50 has 51 keys, versus the proposed 43S layout at 43 keys), so it'd be custom for THIS project.

#48

Quote:
That is too much.
Yes, certainly too much in Europe, where only a significantly lower price could get it into schools. Why use an HP when you can have TIs and Casios?
#49

If graphing calculators account for 5% of TI's annual revenue and profit having 80% of the US market and HP accounts just for 5% of that, having in mind that HP's revenue is roughly 9x of TI's... you can't expect that HP is in the business of calculators just to make big money, they'd be delusional. It made sense as brand management strategy: Keep a flagship, sell the best device out there for pro's... alas, it ain't happening.

Open source calculators... life is too short and full of troubles to despair at hopeless hobbies.

#50

Yes I know mindless games are fun. Super Mario is fun.

But since this calc is for education, there is little chances to see mindless games in official ROM.

On the other hand, some can see interest in "educative games" like chess, reversi/othello, checkers, sudoku, go, and other games where you have to think in order to win.

Theses games involve some notions and skills that can be useful for the future of children.

I don't feel it is negative to introduce kids to notions like strategy, organization, planning, deduction.

#51

Well, things that lose money, especially when the company is struggling, tend to be frowned upon by the shareholders. And, a lot of shareholders want faster growth, so weakly profitable products get culled, too, even if they are profitable.

#52

So true.

I haven't played myself for years as my family suffer from the same problem i.e. preferring Candy Crush or some other mindless waste of time.

A rather extreme point, but I live in a rather naff bit of the UK and two people were actually beaten up by some Neanderthals in my local area for playing chess in a public park.

Absolute disgrace.

#53

I guess the shareholders are more worried about last November Autonomy's $8.8 billion charge than the results of some tiny division that accounts for less than 0.05% of the revenue. I might be wrong, and the Prime could possibly keep HP in the hardware business. Maybe they could sell some hundreds of millions of units in China all of a sudden. And maybe in Europe we don't know yet, but we're really dying for dumbing down further higher education by requiring just now compulsory €150 graphing calculators, they'd surely sell like hotcakes in Greece, Italy, Spain, France... the UK. That seems to be the general idea, isn't it? Well, it's "brilliant".



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