HP48 feature list Alonzo Gariepy has pointed out to me that people might like to see a list of HP 48SX features, sent out by the firmware design team leader, Bill Wickes, to the reviewers before we got the calculators themselves. Here is a copy of that list. Many thanks, Alonzo and Bill. Wlodek Mier-Jedrzejowicz, Space Physics, Imperial College, London BITNET: MIER @ SPVA.PH.IC.AC.UK Disclaimer: This information is presented as is. NO CLAIMS about its sutitability for any purpose are made by HP, my employers or myself. It is simply a copy of a private communication whose author has allowed me to make it available to a wider audience. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Here's a slightly edited, although still not exhaustive list of features (in no particular order) that I made recently: HP-48SX Feature Summary Hardware 7.1"x3.2" footprint with tapered .7" - 1.1" thickness single vertical format 49-key keyboard 64 x 131 pixel STN LCD display 256K ROM, 32K RAM built in Saturn CPU @ 2MHz (note--throughput ~1.5MHz compared to 28S @1MHz) 2 memory card ports --battery backed RAM (32K or 128K) --ROM or OTP (OneTime Programmable) Bidirectional IR I/O at 2400 baud Wired serial port at 1200, 2400, 4800, 9600 baud cables available for IBM or Apple computers (~$35) 3 AAA cells List price $350 Two part-manual (800p) plus quick reference guide Brushed nylon case with velcro fastening, pocket for cards and guide Firmware (Most HP 28 features not explicitly mentioned are included; "new" means "in addition to that provided by the HP 28S.") HP-28-style multi-object-type RPN calculator, superset of 28 language Interactive stack environment, for point-and-shoot stack operations Prompts and menus to help beginners Coexistent graphics and stack/edit display memory Graphics display can be larger than physical display, with hardware scrolling 2-dimensional graphical entry and display of algebraic expressions Spreadsheet-like matrix editor Redefinable keyboard Real-time clock & date display ECMA94 character set, 3 display font sizes Appointment and control alarms Plotting features: Eight types of automatic plots: function, polar, conic sections, parametric, "truth", scatter, bar charts, histograms Autoscaling option Interactive plot environment zoom conrol, recentering, cursor readouts, labelling, etch-a-sketch, line & circle drawing, copying and erasing integration, differentiation, root-finding Graphics features: Dot and line drawing Boxes and Circles Graphics objects of any size OR or XOR superposition Sub-region extraction Pixel or logical addressing Unit Management "Unit objects"--real numbers with physical dimensions allowed in algebraic expressions Automatic unit conversion in unit object operations arithmetic, integration, plotting, solving Interactive unit menus for simple conversions I/O Kermit protocol built in for calc-to-calc (IR) or calc-to-calc (serial) Server mode Low level serial commands Print to serial or IR Plugin Management Merged or independent RAM (max RAM 288K) Automatic menu of plugin applications and commands Archiving and restoring (also via I/O) Mathematics Common transcendentals on hard keyboard New: Symbolic integration (pattern matching) Summation function Programmable pattern match/replace "Where" function for sticky local variable bindings Generation of user-defined functions from algebraic assignments decimal to rational fraction conversion New supported object types: Graphics (replaces HP28 graphic strings) Tagged (for labeling objects) Unit XLIB Name (plug-in command) Directory Library (plug-in application/commands) Backup (Independent RAM variable) Library Data (for use by plug-in applications) New programming features: CASE structure Programmable OFF and CONT Autostart for single step; step through subroutines Memory size and checksum for objects INPUT command (programmable command line) PROMPT (HALT with display string) Wait-for-key with timeout Custom error generation One-key typing aids for entire structures Extended custom and solver menu control Increment and decrement (variable) commands Storage arithmetic for all object types Global variable commands extended to local variables Decompile stack objects into command line Wlodek Mier-Jedrzejowicz