I grabbed my HP49g+ from the University of Washington bookstore last Friday, and I've been quite happy with it. I've always preferred RPN, though I've never before had an HP calculator. (I have, however, used an RPN program on my PalmPilot for quite some time, and my chem teacher has an extra 11c that he lets me use in class.) I'm gradually learning about my new calculator and what I can do with it... I think I've got the basics down, the next step is figuring out RPL.
There have, however, been a couple of issues with this calculator that I was unsure about. I've noticed that the bottom few lines of the screen (where the soft menus are) flickers every few seconds. Also, occasionally, the rightmost portion of the screen will display a bit of garbage for a few seconds, and then go back to normal. This only seems to happen when the calculator is running its normal OS... on all of the self-diagnostic screens, LCD test, ROM update screen, etc, the display seems fine. This leads me to believe that there are some bugs in the ROM.
Is anyone else having these issues? If it's a common problem, then I won't worry about it. I just want to know if I have a fried graphics controller/CPU or if this is just a common bug that will eventually be corrected through a ROM update.
I've also done a little bit of experimentation with downloading 49g programs and trying them out. I've basically found that some work, some don't. I've had the most problems with programs in library format - mostly they either don't work well at all or they work, but the calculator turns off semi-randomly. Other programs I've had more success with, although some games run *really* fast.
One more thing that I've noticed is that this calc seems to have a lot of trouble with grayscale, or at least the way grayscale was done on the 49g. Trying to run a grayscale program on the 49g+ results in a really flickery image, and the contrast way too light.
Really, I'm surprised that assembly programs for the 49g work on this thing at all, considering that they have completely different processors.
I'm assuming that the incompatibilities with most 49g software is normal and to be expected, right? It's just being new to HP I'm not familiar with how the older calculators worked or what the differences really are between the 49g and the 49g+ and it's hard for me to tell if I've got a defective unit or just am experiencing a few bugs.
All in all I've found it to be an excellent calc. The issues I've experienced, while just a little bit annoying, really aren't bad at all. If these are common, they won't bother me, I just want to make sure I got a good unit :)
Also, any advice about good resources on HP calculators would be appreciated. I've already found hpcalc.org, and obviously here as well. I've also read most of the hp48 FAQ...
Edited: 25 Oct 2003, 2:01 a.m.