Hello folks and sorry for my poor english.

I wish to learn how to program and I have just recalled me that I have
a HP49G which trails in dust.

My aim is the following:

-I wish to be able to carry a " all in one system" , a little like a
PDA with Python or any langage "on bord", ie with tools to write and
compile code.

-I wish to be able to "learn" basic of programming in general,
considering that I am motivated but without particular knowledge in
this domain.

-Is HP calculor the best for this ? Is Ti-basic better than User RPL ?
A Ti89 is better ?

Thanks for any information.

"Serge P" <serge.pecaud@gmail.com> wrote in message 
news:db0ec3e5-5abb-479d-ad7c-560bc0f1b23d@q16g2000yqg.googlegroups.com...
> Hello folks and sorry for my poor english.
>
> I wish to learn how to program and I have just recalled me that I have
> a HP49G which trails in dust.
>
> My aim is the following:
>
> -I wish to be able to carry a " all in one system" , a little like a
> PDA with Python or any langage "on bord", ie with tools to write and
> compile code.
>
> -I wish to be able to "learn" basic of programming in general,
> considering that I am motivated but without particular knowledge in
> this domain.
>
> -Is HP calculor the best for this ? Is Ti-basic better than User RPL ?
> A Ti89 is better ?

Mmm... if you're just looking to "learn how to program," I'd suggest a netbook 
or a regular laptop: Not only is it easier, you'll be learning skills that are 
generally in greater demand and hence find a lot more support if you run into 
difficulties.  (There probably aren't more than 1,000 people on the planet who 
still regularly use system RPL, for instance. :-) )

An HP49G can be made a decent "all in one" system for development, and it 
works fine for small program development.  At some point you'd still probably 
find yourself writing programs on a PC and then downloading them, however.

A Nokia N810 ($180 at buy.com) is a pretty slick little self-contained 
programming platform (it runs Linux)... although nowhere near as good as an 
HP-49 as a calculator.

I don't think TI-89s are better than HP-49s.  There's nothing wrong with a 
TI-89, but an HP-49 is certainly a more "interesting" platform to program on.

---Joel

Thank you for the answer.

What I seek is to know the "savour" of time when 8 bits's computer
made it possible to program Ultima and Wizardry in BASIC.
For this reason I wish to avoid laptop or N810.
I saw many sample of good program on TI89 or HP49/50, in ASM or
*BASIC.
In this way, can I hope to find a "8bits feeling" on a calculator,
where the languages are in OS and where it is possible to code "one
the go".

I know, it is a little crazy :-D

Oh, and are the communities still " actives" , like there is 10 years
ago?

"Serge P" <serge.pecaud@gmail.com> wrote in message 
news:4b2f5cb7-b92a-4902-8c62-2398a40f5edc@37g2000yqp.googlegroups.com...
> What I seek is to know the "savour" of time when 8 bits's computer
> made it possible to program Ultima and Wizardry in BASIC.

Ah, ok, well... I suppose the TI89 -- running an 8-bit Z80 CPU, if I'm 
remembering correctly -- is closer to this than the HP 49/50... which run 
32-bit ARM CPUs emulating the old 4-bit Saturn CPUs.

> In this way, can I hope to find a "8bits feeling" on a calculator,
> where the languages are in OS and where it is possible to code "one
> the go".

You know there are some guys out there who have turned Commodore 64s into 
laptops? :-)  (Google will find a bunch...)

> Oh, and are the communities still " actives" , like there is 10 years
> ago?

Well, nowhere near as active, but there's certainly a "healthy" community out 
there supporting those old 8-bit systems.  Commodore 64s might be the most 
popular, but TI and Atari have plenty of proponents as well.

---Joel

"Joel Koltner" <zapwireDASHgroups@yahoo.com> writes:

> "Serge P" <serge.pecaud@gmail.com> wrote in message 
> news:4b2f5cb7-b92a-4902-8c62-2398a40f5edc@37g2000yqp.googlegroups.com...
>> What I seek is to know the "savour" of time when 8 bits's computer
>> made it possible to program Ultima and Wizardry in BASIC.
>
> Ah, ok, well... I suppose the TI89 -- running an 8-bit Z80 CPU, if I'm 
> remembering correctly -- is closer to this than the HP 49/50... which run 
> 32-bit ARM CPUs emulating the old 4-bit Saturn CPUs.

Wikipedia says: "The TI-89 runs on a 32-bit microprocessor, the Motorola
68000, which nominally runs at 10, 12, or 16 MHz, depending on the
calculator's hardware version."

On Tue, 16 Jun 2009 19:05:18 -0500:

>> Ah, ok, well... I suppose the TI89 -- running an 8-bit Z80 CPU, if I'm
>> remembering correctly -- is closer to this than the HP 49/50... which run
>> 32-bit ARM CPUs emulating the old 4-bit Saturn CPUs.

> Wikipedia says: "The TI-89 runs on a 32-bit microprocessor, the Motorola
> 68000, which nominally runs at 10, 12, or 16 MHz, depending on the
> calculator's hardware version."

Just go back a bit further:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TI-86
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TI-85
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TI-84_Plus
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TI-83_series
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TI-81

Did anyone ever use a "Z-8000"?
(I was obliged to do so,
for a company cloning an IBM 3270 series terminal controller,
which the market then relegated to a trash bin :)

-[ ]-

On Jun 16, 3:05=A0pm, Serge P <serge.pec...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Thank you for the answer.
>
> What I seek is to know the "savour" of time when 8 bits's computer
> made it possible to program Ultima and Wizardry in BASIC.
> For this reason I wish to avoid laptop or N810.
> I saw many sample of good program on TI89 or HP49/50, in ASM or
> *BASIC.
> In this way, can I hope to find a "8bits feeling" on a calculator,
> where the languages are in OS and where it is possible to code "one
> the go".
>
> I know, it is a little crazy :-D
>
> Oh, and are the communities still " actives" , like there is 10 years
> ago?

If you want a nice 8-bit BASIC machine, the TI-86 is a good bet. It's
probably TI's best graphing calculator, after the 92+. But keep in
mind that TI BASIC isn't anywhere near as powerful as UserRPL.

Alternatively, you could just get an HP 200LX (or 100LX) and run
GWBASIC and QBASIC on it, plus loads of other DOS programs.

-Dave Britten

"Nate Eldredge" <nate@vulcan.lan> wrote in message 
news:861vpjg1xd.fsf@vulcan.lan...
> Wikipedia says: "The TI-89 runs on a 32-bit microprocessor, the Motorola
> 68000, which nominally runs at 10, 12, or 16 MHz, depending on the
> calculator's hardware version."

Ah, my mistake -- I thought I had read somewhere they used the old 8-bit Z80 
architecture.  Oops...

I did a little poking around, and apparently it's the TI-83 series that uses 
the Z80.  (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TI-83)

---Joel

Thank you for these technical details.

So I summarize a HP49-50G is capable of:

be a platform for programming on the go "for BASIC (User RPL), the ASM
and SysRPL intermediary.
-allow me to develop a clone of Ultima or Wizardry in the bus (very
important: D)

I read that the learning curve of UserRPL is somewhat more difficult
than the TI-BASIC.

Is there a tutorial unavoidable, especially for games?

On Wed, 17 Jun 2009 15:50:00 -0500:

> I read that the learning curve of UserRPL
> is somewhat more difficult than the TI-BASIC.

The time required to learn the meaning
of every word in a dictionary
will be proportional to the number of words available
in the complete dictionary of that language,
but the time required to learn the meaning
of a "basic vocabulary of the most common 50 words"
will be about the same for any dictionary or language :)

Programming in UserRPL was well described in the
HP48G series user guide, which is downloadable as a PDF:

HP 48G Series User's Guide
http://www.hpcalc.org/details.php?id=3D3937

Other guides:

HP 48G Series Quick Start Guide
http://www.hpcalc.org/details.php?id=3D6402

HP 48G Series Advanced User's Reference Manual
http://www.hpcalc.org/details.php?id=3D6036

[HP49/50 series] Advanced User's Reference Manual
http://www.hpcalc.org/details.php?id=3D6374

Programming in User RPL in PDF (Kalinowski)
http://www.hpcalc.org/details.php?id=3D1771

http://www.hpcalc.org/hp48/docs/programming/
http://www.hpcalc.org/hp49/docs/programming/

http://www.hpcalc.org/hp48/docs/misc/
http://www.hpcalc.org/hp49/docs/misc/

> Is there a tutorial especially for games?

You said "UserRPL" above, and some things which could be called "games"
can be programmed in UserRPL, but other things, e.g. Chess,
advanced graphics, and games involving real-time action
or special keyboard functioning,
are often practical only in SysRPL or ML,
for which there are various other fine references.

-[ ]-

> The time required to learn the meaning
> of every word in a dictionary
> will be proportional to the number of words available
> in the complete dictionary of that language,
> but the time required to learn the meaning
> of a "basic vocabulary of the most common 50 words"
> will be about the same for any dictionary or language :)

Only if the syntax of the language is the same.
The RPL paradigm is so far from BASIC that it's much more
than a simple learning of the new keywords and much more
difficult for us BASIC (COBOL, FORTRAN, PL/I etc.) speakers.  
An apt analogy would be

It's much easier for an English speaker to learn French
than it is to learn Chinese.  There's a lot more going on than 
a simple translation of words.

Tom Lake 

On Thu, 18 Jun 2009 13:17:09 -0500, Tom Lake wrote:

> The RPL paradigm is so far from BASIC

What could be simpler than UserRPL?

IF ... THEN ... ELSE ... END

1 100 FOR n ... NEXT

'X^2-5*X+6' FACTOR

'Z=3DX+Y' DEFINE

Is this stumping any BASIC programmers?

"Look, ma -- no line numbers!"  :)

-[ ]-

More tough UserRPL examples:

{ 1 2 3 4 5 } 3 * @ no looping, no programming!

Oh, enough already -- after all, it's dinner time :)

-[ ]-

On Jun 18, 7:48=A0pm, "John H Meyers" <jhmey...@nomail.invalid> wrote:
> More tough UserRPL examples:
>
> { 1 2 3 4 5 } 3 * @ no looping, no programming!
>
> Oh, enough already -- after all, it's dinner time :)
>
> -[ ]-

.... but you had to hard-code the list.  Gotcha!

Le vendredi 19 juin 2009,    t�bal a �crit :
>> { 1 2 3 4 5 } 3 * @ no looping, no programming!
>
> ... but you had to hard-code the list.  Gotcha!

'3*X' 'X' 1 5 1 SEQ

One single command :-)