New HP 50G Owner
in [HP48]
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From: gorfle on 29 Aug 2006 11:08 Hi all. I've been an HP owner since the 32S. My last HP was the HP 48GX that I bought in 1993 for $287. I just bought the HP50G from Buy.com. They had the best price I could find - $117 with free shipping. Also, if you applied for and used their buy.com credit card to buy the calculator they took another $30 off of the calculator, so I got it for right at $95, (I upgraded my shipping). I've been poking around with it, and am a little disappointed. Some of the menus seem to be a bit more involved, requiring one to "burrow in" to them. One thing I'm very confused about is unit conversion. On the HP48GX, it was quite simple. You went into the unit menu, used the soft key to choose "length", "area", whatever, and then, to convert anything on the stack you just hit left-shift and then the unit you wanted to convert to. With the 50G, it looks like I have to have my number on the stack, and then put the 1_ of the target unit on the stack behind it, and then go into the unit menu, down into tools, and then choose convert. The 48GX seemed easier to me. It was like, "I have this, now gimme (left shift) /this/ (pick new unit)". With the 50G, it seems like there is more stack work to achieve the result. Am I missing something? Is there an easier way to convert between units on the 50G? Has anyone written any programs that allow unit conversion just using the soft menu keys (F1-F6) like on the 48GX? Unit conversion is something I deal with every day in an engineering environment and unless I'm missing something on the 50G here it looks like I'll be going back to my 48GX. Thanks,
From: ocallaghan on 29 Aug 2006 11:41 gorfle wrote: > Hi all. > > I've been an HP owner since the 32S. My last HP was the HP 48GX that I > bought in 1993 for $287. > > I just bought the HP50G from Buy.com. They had the best price I could > find - $117 with free shipping. Also, if you applied for and used > their buy.com credit card to buy the calculator they took another $30 > off of the calculator, so I got it for right at $95, (I upgraded my > shipping). > > I've been poking around with it, and am a little disappointed. Some of > the menus seem to be a bit more involved, requiring one to "burrow in" > to them. > > One thing I'm very confused about is unit conversion. > > On the HP48GX, it was quite simple. You went into the unit menu, used > the soft key to choose "length", "area", whatever, and then, to convert > anything on the stack you just hit left-shift and then the unit you > wanted to convert to. > > With the 50G, it looks like I have to have my number on the stack, and > then put the 1_ of the target unit on the stack behind it, and then go > into the unit menu, down into tools, and then choose convert. > > The 48GX seemed easier to me. It was like, "I have this, now gimme > (left shift) /this/ (pick new unit)". > > With the 50G, it seems like there is more stack work to achieve the > result. > > Am I missing something? Is there an easier way to convert between > units on the 50G? Has anyone written any programs that allow unit > conversion just using the soft menu keys (F1-F6) like on the 48GX? > > Unit conversion is something I deal with every day in an engineering > environment and unless I'm missing something on the 50G here it looks > like I'll be going back to my 48GX. > > Thanks, I had a similar problem with HP49 until I read the manual.... Covert 1 ft2 to sq ins... as follows rt. shft. units (number 6) 1 enter F3 (Area) F5 (ft2) left. shift. F6 (in2) Aubrey.
From: claptonhendrix on 29 Aug 2006 11:41 Same way for the hp50 g (or hp49g+), did you try? Have you flag 117 (soft memus) enabled? (Choose boxes is the default option) obviously, I suposse you work in RPN mode as every old hp owner So, if you type 1: 1_m2 Then left shift and sot menu key for cm2 you will find 10000_cm2 in level 1.
From: mk on 29 Aug 2006 11:42 gorfle wrote: >Is there an easier way to convert between > units on the 50G? Has anyone written any programs that allow unit > conversion just using the soft menu keys (F1-F6) like on the 48GX? Press these keys (inside the brackets): [1] [1] [7] [+/-] [SPC] [ALPHA] [ALPHA] [S] [F] [ENTER] hth, mk
From: gorfle on 29 Aug 2006 12:12
Oh THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU It was the flag 117 that was not set yet. I caught something about that flag in the paper user's manual but missed the implication for unit conversions. Now it works just like my HP48GX! Thank you so much. I was really happy with my 48GX (and still am), but I was finding myself tapping my fingers waiting for some calculations to complete and really just wanted faster speed. I got to looking at what the latest HP calculator was these days when I figured out my 48GX was 13 years old! (I still can't believe it). Oh BTW, my first HP was the 28S, not the 32 I said above. Thanks again! claptonhendrix wrote: > Same way for the hp50 g (or hp49g+), did you try? > Have you flag 117 (soft memus) enabled? (Choose boxes is the default > option) > obviously, I suposse you work in RPN mode as every old hp owner > So, if you type > 1: 1_m2 > Then left shift and sot menu key for cm2 you will find 10000_cm2 in > level 1. |