As an avid user of my HP 50g, I'll be sad that they used the RPN framework, but this machine looks like it will be great for programming. I almost fell out of my chair when you said Tunnel ran at 60fps!
60fps! For what amounts to a BASIC game! I'd never think we'd get that much processing power.
My hottest question, though, is how RPN is treated. Is it really a 'first-class citizen' there? Where in the calculator can/can't you use it?

Currently, you can use in in HOME, all the apps (rpn spreadsheet, symbolics, etc), all the dialogs, but not in the CAS. Also, no form of RPN programming.

I use it daily and don't find it to be problematic. When I am doing CAS stuff, it nearly always is larger, 2d equations that I'd do anyway in the eqw anyway.

My first RPN calculator (1975) was the HP25C, and since then I only use RPN programmable calculators. Currently, in a calculus class I am taking, I access my HP41. It's cool to program in a polynomial equation, and solve for multiple valves by entering the value and pressing R/S.

I have already ordered a Prime and can hardly wait for it to arrive so that I can easily see another facet of math that I am sure the Prime will introduce me to. I will now ask my cardiologist for a new heart ... I'd like to hang around for another 20 years or so just to see what's coming out next

I regret that the ability to program RPN will not be available on the Prime, but I still have my 41 and it still works, and I find useful the HP41 iPad app that provides an electronic print-out, which I can tear off and email to myself.

Using a "tool kit" of several calculators allows the user to solve anything thrown at them.

Note: for the pure mathematician hobbyist that is in it for pure pleasure, there are slide rule apps that are very entertaining, and manuals can be found using an Internet search. The triangle solver, which Kerm Martian demonstrated for us can also be accomplished on a slide rule by simply using the S and D or S and C scales .... the joy of math can come to us through many directions

Keep in mind, however, that due to the screen refresh rate rumored to be 52 Hz, the Tunnel game will have a bit of frame skipping. The 60 FPS guess is based on how fast the game score increases every second (it increases by 1 every frame), from Critor's Youtube video.

Yeah, pretty sad how slow calculators are still, and how little they improve over the years.

Anyway, the Prime needs to be released already. Finally looks like something somewhat decent* after the pathetic TI-84 CSE and the bland Prizm.

*sadly "somewhat decent" means "only 5 years out of date instead of 10-15!"

Assuming that this forum supports unicode, then the code below can be pasted into the emulator, or transferred to the calculator via the connectivity kit.




Source code can be found at:

http://www.adictoshp.org/topic/459-graph3d-v20130926-for-hp-prime/#entry2832

or at:

http://www.hpmuseum.org/cgi-sys/cgiwrap/hpmuseum/forum.cgi?read=251367#251367

Very impressive work, Han. I'm often the first person to write a 3D grapher for these new calculators (like the Prizm and the TI-84+CSE), so it's something of a relief to see someone else did it first, and so thoroughly. Keep up the good work, and I recommend uploading the program to the Cemetech Archives once we create an HP Prime program section.

Indeed, nice work

This question is for anyone who has used both the TI 84 Color and the HP Prime. Which do you think would be best for someone starting high school and wants to use it in Algebra I through Calculus? Could you please briefly explain your choice. Thanks.

mrabourn: in general, a CAS calculator is not what you want for normal high school usage. If you're already a strong math student and plan to continue with taking math/physics/engineering classes in college, then an HP Prime, or TI 89 Titanium are the sorts of calculators that might be worth considering as a long term investment. Otherwise, I strongly recommend the TI 84+SE. Many of us are unconvinced as to the benefits of the color model (in particular, the screen update is quite slow - if possible, try it out before buying).

I miss the days when we could try the calcs at Staples over here. The HP 39g+ and CFX 9850G were intriguing me back then.

I'll provide a bit of a counterpoint from some of the other answers here. I'd say that the HP Prime will offer you the best gradient of features from Algebra up through Calculus and other advanced math courses, starting you with simple non-CAS math and progressing (when you're ready) to CAS math. Along the way, it has everything you need in the way of 2D (function, parametric, polar, sequence) graphing, statistics and probability tools, and so on.

On the other hand, the HP Prime is a very new calculator, and with CAS options and a touchscreen, it's not yet clear if the Prime will be allowed on standardized tests like the SAT. If you want to stick with a calculator that more of your teachers and peers will understand and be able to help you with, the TI-84 Plus C Silver Edition would be a better option. While it is admittedly slower, due to harnessing a color screen to a slow processor, after a few days of using it you won't really notice the difference from the TI-83+/TI-84+. Also, while there are not a lot of TI-84 Plus C Silver Edition programs and games currently available, it seems to me that the community has shifted almost entirely to development for the color calculator, at least here at Cemetech.

Hope this helps.

I was also ecstatic about HP Prime until REDIM command. What I found that 32MB Calculator is unable to go any higher than 22x22 per matrix. (Or I am doing something wrong).

Does anyone else has experience this as well ?

Other than that I an just about to finish a simple contouring package which I can place into archines if anyone is interested.

That's extremely impressive sprite-drawing speed; it certainly shows what you can get if you attach a decently-clocked processor to a color screen the size of the TI-84 Plus C Silver Edition's. I hope we can come up with a lot of cool tricks to use this for, such as a Lotus-style racing game.

Haven't really been around in a while, mainly been spending my monkeying about time w/rpi, but I did just order one of these AND decided to toss in a classpad fx-cp400 as well, although right about now I'm beginning to regret the latter now that I did a bit more looking after my impulse clicking on buy now finding that it sounds to be just their old 330 with a color display slapped on it as the CPU looks to be unimpressive from the little I've seen written about testing it yet... (especially those kinds of tests that an nspire and prime finish in a measurable time, and maxima on android finishes instantaneously, while the 400 spent all day draining it's batts on it...)

As to "views" (and yes, they are entirely unintuitive) IIRC they appeared with the 49g which contained a great deal of what were 3rd party OS extensions, one(or maybe all) came on expansion cards for the 48sx, so they may actually originate with some/all/one of those extensions.

The 48 s(no not the 48s <space> s as in plural, I hope) had a rudimentary beginning version of something like views, which is why I speculate that the integrated into the official OS version for the 49g(actually a bunch of those guys that wrote the extension were hired for the 49g project, notable for it's godawful kb and generally poor build quality for an hp calc).

Can't say much more about this other than the vids I watched looks like the kb is still decent, graphing more quickly than the 50g(probably rewrote everything native this time instead of shoehorning in a saturn emu running a saturn compiled binary OS with some native ARM access).

Disappointed in yet another ARM9 again though and such limited RAM/flash. Surely they could've gone -a8 at least w/1GB RAM and several GB for storage/OS. Actually now that I'm thinking of this probably would've been better off going customized android that launches their "OS" as the "home" screen. (Then we could've had fun putting a generic android launcher on it, adding gapps(maybe cyanogen while we're at it), and getting yet another android device that was also a nifty calc. Oh well, I digress, but if mathematic ever shows up on Android TI/et. al. are dead in the dedicated calc market as already maxima on nexus 5 is pretty speedy, and mathematica is coming to the rpi for free(part of official distro) and is reportedly fairly well performing CLI, and only a little sluggish at times with the (mostly) full blown GUI w/X11(shortage of RAM on rpi makes X11 not fun on the original(256MB) model Bs and and only slightly better on the 512MB model Bs)

Oops went far enough topic for this post I think.

[EDIT]
videos that I've seen of the prime in action graphing were QUITE speedy(for a calc, my last few phones easily blow any calc out of the water though, but I like my specialized keys), and I'd hazard easily more speedy than ANY mono calc. Usually the calcs are slow because they're using an underpowered CPU trying to push more and more data onto a screen while also not supplying enough RAM. The 50g/nspire/prime all supply more CPU power, but the 50g is hampered by the saturn emu. As to casio they seem to be joined at the hip with that SH arch which just isn't up to much.

Price: just having looked @ calc prices on Amazon for example, there's just not much of a price differential between say an 84+ (mono) and ANY of the color devices. IIRC it was like $15 more for the prime, and c. $16 for an nspire cx cas(which is what I should probably have ordered instead of the fx-cp400... oh well...)

Standardized tests(apparently primarily ACT in US): buy a junker for that lone test as it sounds like(and I certainly don't remember) that they like to limit to very basic scientific functions anyways... (which also tends to imply to me an entirely useless "standardized" "test" or IOW it's not really testing what you know and understand, but what you managed to memorize.
[/EDIT]

The problem with Casio calcs isn't the CPUs, but rather the crappy Basic interpreters in them. If you take the PRIZM and overclock it to 94.3 MHz, drawing pixels will still take longer than a 2 MHz TI-81 from 1990.

We came to the same conclusions on both accounts - the fx-CP400 is hardly spruced up from the nearly decade-old Classpad 330, and it's horrendously expensive.

The Prime is powerful (well, the most powerful processor and largest NAND Flash on the marketplace, although those remain wimps compared to even a RPi) and quite fast for a calculator, but for now, riddled with bugs...

Yeah, as I said before, the only reason why I bought the fx-cp400 was to increase my graphing calc collection and because I had a $35 rebate on it (before taxes, meaning it's actually more than $35). The store was actually selling it cheaper than the 84+CSE.

well they arrived about an hour ago. Prime came with a completely dead batt so it's now charging.

Finally managed to extra the fx-cp400 from it's packaging(awful rigid plastic blister pack, I REALLY DESPISE those), and after a quick look: yep not much more than a prizm with touchscreen, stylus, and a CAS whose usefulness is yet TBD. This is no $150 or whatever their crazy MSRP is for it, I can tell you that from the quick run through it so far. It's not even worth what a 50g is going for, which is hard to say since I see them in Best Buy again now for something like $150 IIRC(paid $85 for a new one 1.5y or so ago...) or IIRC c. $90ish from Amazon.

Casio really needs to rethink their pricing, as even TIs are better equipped than their products...

Well, I'll monkey with the cp for a bit while the prime charges up(which is REALLY the one that I wanted to poke at...)... wonder how much of my 1337 mad hp skillz will transfer to the prime...

I'll keep the cp for similar reasons to DJ_O even if I had dug for more info about it beforehand, I probably would've passed up on it and broken down and bought a <yech> TI nSpire CAS...

I'm still waiting for a modernized xpander, probably my Android idea would the bill to a T for that project, along with more recent SoCs. I mean my nexus 5 was $400 for the 32GB version, the 16GB's $350 and a calc wouldn't necessarily need/want cameras, that much storage(8GB would be nice), RAM(512MB-1GB), lower res screen(no need for 1080p either), no GPS, no radios, no compass, no accelerometers(well maybe on those they're probably pretty cheap), etc. HP should EASILY be able to hit $150-200 on such a beast given that the n4 was what $300 for the 8GB, and what the n5s go for with LOADS of what are extras for a calc(or intended calc }:D).

[EDIT]
Well that does it, 1989^1989 EXE -> ERROR! Overflow
ROFLMAO Way to go Casio... yep we have a loser here... (again, well OK the Prizm was fun to monkey with but not really all that hot as basic scientific calc with graphing capabilities...)
[/EDIT]