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Well, no NEW gripes allowed.
Posts: 1,792
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Joined: Jan 2005
Hi, Bill --
Quote:
This (identifiers > 9 entered as ".n", n = 0-9) goes back to the 32s guys. No gripes allowed ;-)
For storage registers, it goes back farther than that: to the HP-34C at least. I think it's clever -- the first 10 registers 0-9 can always be addressed using a single-digit number, and the next (and final) ten registers with one additional keystroke. The HP-15C offered more (indirectly-addressible) registers, but these were rarely used.
The HP-41 and 42S offered 100 directly-addressible registers, so each one was identified by a two-digit number. That's why the HP-41 offereed a shortcut to the first 10 registers using the top two rows of keys.
-- KS
Edited: 1 Aug 2007, 9:48 p.m.