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Hi guys
Even though being a die-hard 15c fan (first love is forever), the 42s arouse my curiosity, mainly to to the better complex and matrix integration. I don't have one (a TAS solvable problem), nor do I have a manual (a forum solvable problem). But I have a question for the 42s users/fans (the user set and the fan set are a single set, from what I hear :-) ): Not having dedicated soft keys is not a deal breaker? Or, put in another way: When you have a menu on screen (say the Stat menu), don't you miss the overloaded algebraic and transcendental keys? It seems to me that one will frequently need to use these while using many of the menus, and having the keys transformed into soft keys will become a major pain.
Sorry if this a stupid question. But curiosity is killing me.
Paulo
Edited: 16 Nov 2011, 8:50 p.m.
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Espero que isto ajude, por enquanto:
http://s918.photobucket.com/albums/ad30/gwbarbosa/HP-42S/
Este manual alternativo também pode ser útil:
http://thomasokken.com/free42/42s.pdf
Edited: 16 Nov 2011, 9:31 p.m.
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Muito obrigado (and thank you ;-) ) Gerson.
It was most helpful.
Abraço
Paulo
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The soft keys can roll over or be frozen on. As Mike Morrow has often stated, once you have a 42s, you dump the Hp 15c and don't look back. But my 15c was my first Hp and it is only a bit smaller, but that bit is the critical difference that fits perfectly in my pocket and one of my two gripse about the Hp 42s. The other is the lack of I/O. The 42s still has no equal from Hp in their calculators.
I actually think Hp should abandon the Hp 50g platform and release an Hp 42s like calculator with an HDMI and USB port (with power ie NOT a Micro or mini usb port) plus a micro SD card slot, and Blutooth. Basically have a pocket calcualtor with the built in ability to function as a portable computer with an excel and word compatable software with a high end math package when hooked up to these goodies (ie an Andriod type OS in the background). On the surface a simple calculator. Thats why everyone loved the HP 41c series. Very few people added any or all the goodies,....But they could!
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Quote:
As Mike Morrow has often stated, once you have a 42s, you dump the Hp 15c and don't look back.
:-)
Quote: But ... it is only a bit smaller, but that bit is the critical difference that fits perfectly in my pocket and one of my two gripse about the Hp 42s. The other is the lack of I/O.
After all, the last RPN model with (and the only one with real) I/O was the 41C. The 42S wasn't allowed to have it for not interfering with the 48 series. But that's an old story often told here already.
Quote:
I actually think Hp should abandon the Hp 50g platform ...
Hehe, what's about all the students (both kinds ;-) ) competing with their calculating battleships?
Quote: ... and release an Hp 42s like calculator with an HDMI and USB port ... plus a micro SD card slot, and Blutooth. Basically have a pocket calcualtor with the built in ability to function as a portable computer with an excel and word compatable software with a high end math package when hooked up to these goodies (ie an Andriod type OS in the background). On the surface a simple calculator. Thats why everyone loved the HP 41c series.
Ooops, I knew the 41CX could do a lot, but work "as a portable computer" as described above? I must have missed something ;-/
And regarding your wishlist: two full size ports, one slot, Bluetooth, smaller footprint than a Pioneer - the only feature I missed is eternal battery life - sounds pretty much like what we call an "eierlegende Wollmilchsau" here (i.e. one animal for everything). Will be difficult to have it sitting on the table with all those ports connected ;-) Personally I'd be satisfied with a micro SD port and a proper display, as you may know.
Ceterum censeo: HP, launch a 43S.
Walter
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Thanks, Ron.
> "...once you have a 42s, you dump the Hp 15c and don't look back."
That settles it. I will *never* buy a 42s. I wouldn't know what to do then with my two 15c's. Betrayal is not an option! ;-)
Seriously, now: if you 42s fans can survive and live happily with the TOP.FCN mitigating feature, so can I. I guess I'm now officially a 42s prospective buyer.
Cheers
Paulo
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Quote:
As Mike Morrow has often stated, once you have a 42s, you dump the Hp 15c and don't look back.
In Mike Morrow's dreams ...
And yes, I do own a 42s and I perfectly know how to make the most of it yet any of my four HP-15C get much more actual use than it.
So much for the "15C dumping" ... :P
Best regards from V.
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Quote:
As Mike Morrow has often stated, once you have a 42s, you dump the Hp 15c and don't look back.
I disagree. I got a 42S years ago because it was hyped as the end-all-be-all RPN calculator. And in 1984, when I got my 15C, if the 42S were an option, I would have picked it, just on the specs.
But after years of using the 15C, I've come to appreciate the simplicity of the overloaded keyboard and no menus. I'll admit that I do not use the 42S enough to have mastered every sequence to get the results that I want, and perhaps that would change my mind.
I must also admit, that I cannot be completely logical about the 15C. It is beautiful.
I tried to switch from the 15C to the 34S recently, you know, try something different. My goal was to take my 15C and 16C off my desk (I still use the 16C for assembly programming) and replace with the more functional 34S, but the 34S still has to use menus because of the volume of functions. Now I have 3 calculators on my desk.
Lastly, I must admit that 42s is my default iPhone calculator. The vertical layout is better optimized for single hand, single thumb use.
Long story short. You do not have to choose, you can have both. In my entire lifetime I have logged more time on the 15C, followed by the 48GX, and I do not think that will change.
Quote:
I actually think Hp should abandon the Hp 50g platform and release an Hp 42s like calculator with an HDMI and USB port (with power ie NOT a Micro or mini usb port) plus a micro SD card slot, and Blutooth. Basically have a pocket calcualtor with the built in ability to function as a portable computer with an excel and word compatable software with a high end math package when hooked up to these goodies (ie an Andriod type OS in the background). On the surface a simple calculator. Thats why everyone loved the HP 41c series. Very few people added any or all the goodies,....But they could!
Sounds like a smartphone. You can do all of that on an iPhone (or Android).
Edited: 17 Nov 2011, 12:21 p.m.
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Hi Egan
Time spent with the 48GX doesn´t count, since most of it is either waiting time for the thing to compute an answer and/or update the screen, or in my case, eye and mind straining to try to understand what cryptic low-resolution 4letter action is that menu entry all about :-). It is a super great machine, other than that.
On behalf of the 15c: one of the things that I don´t see referred, and that I'm very thankful for, is: calculation reliability. I logged many, many hours of midterms and final exams, in the middle stages of my academic path, with the inevitable i) stress ii) not time enough to be redoing calculations iii) getting stuck if the numerical path took me to the wrong place.
It was great to be able to do calculations *once*, without even looking at the screen, and still know that, with very high probability, there were no mistakes of any kind. You could (and can) rely on a 15c (RPN helped a lot, too. And so did Stokes theorem :-) ).
What I could never do, was to be able to explain that feeling to my kids. They grew up on TI83s, and I could never really make them realize what they missed. :P
Paulo
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Quote:
As Mike Morrow has often stated, once you have a 42s, you dump the Hp 15c and don't look back.
I'm another long-time owner of both a 15C and 42S that still uses the 15C much more frequently than the 42S.
I feel like a handheld calculator is something that I turn to mostly for short, one-off calculations. I went from using a 11C to a 15C to a 28S. I ended up getting a 48GX and a 42S around the same time, but by that point I was already doing more of my `real' number crunching on a computer rather than a calculator. Nowadays, I pick up new HP calculators more or less out of curiosity, but seldom find myself using them for `real' work. And for `casual'/one-off calculations, I find that the simpler design is a plus and the reduced feature set isn't really a limitation.
Really, whenever I find myself wanting something beefier than the 15C, I find myself reaching for my 41CX more than my 42S, just because I like the keys better, and I prefer the use-assignable keys on the 41 to the menus on the 42.
And this is all apart from my preference for the landscape layout, which I've always found easier and faster to key than any of the portrait layout calculators I've tried.
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