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DB48X: High Performance Scientific Calculator, Reinvented
- roflmaostc 2y agosomehow doesn't work on my Ubuntu Firefox 131.0.3 but works on my Arch 132.0.
- Aardwolf 2y agoSame, shows JavaScript error: "Uncaught ReferenceError: SharedArrayBuffer is not defined at db48x.js:615:40" Both in Chrome and Firefox (both are up to date to versions way beyond where SharedArrayBuffer should have been introduced) I think they should either use ArrayBuffer, or use https instead of http, apparently SharedArrayBuffer has security restrictions
- c3d 2y agoSharedArrayBuffer is necessary to run multiple threads with EmScripten.
- grantmnz 2y agoApparently, for security reasons, your server needs to add certain headers if you want to use SharedArrayBuffers. https://hacks.mozilla.org/2020/07/safely-reviving-shared-memory/ https://hacks.mozilla.org/2020/07/safely-reviving-shared-mem...
- c3d 2y agoThis is done on that page, though on some browsers it requires an explicit page reload. This works with Mozilla 132.0, just tested on Fedora 41.
- thought_alarm 2y agoIt needs https. Use https://48calc.org/db48x/index.html https://48calc.org/db48x/index.html
- c3d 2y agoThis works with Firefox 132.0, tested on Fedora 41 right now.
- bell-cot 2y agoIANAL, but the logo they're using looks infringingly similar to HP's.
- c3d 2y agoIt's a tribute to Hewlett and Packard, but taking the first names, and with the individuals reversed for balance. I do not believe there is any possible infringement on a clearly new design, even if that design is intentionally reminiscent of the HP logo.
- SomeHacker44 2y agoSpectacular project by one gentleman. Been using it for a while now on my Swissmicros.
- anyfoo 2y agoSeems great. How does this compare to Free42? https://thomasokken.com/free42/ https://thomasokken.com/free42/
- chowells 2y agoWell, it's based on the hp48 instead of the hp42, for one. Though that button layout is not that close to the 48, either.
- sbdhzjd 2y agoFree42 is more faithful to the original 42 than this is to the 48. Free42 also has an infinite stack hack which is a nice bridge to those accustomed to the RPL. This is annoying to installe and not really completed (this is a much much larger endeavor than the 42). Its also very disorienting at first until you figure out the UC That said, its good enough that I use it on my swisimicro rather than my 48s because the screen is much better
- westurner 2y agoCould this run on a TI or a NumWorks calculator? RPN: Reverse Polish Notation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reverse_Polish_notation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reverse_Polish_notation RPL: Reverse Polish LISP: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RPL_(programming_language) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RPL_(programming_language)
- c3d 2y agoIn theory yes. In practice, the TI 83/84 are probably not beefy enough, and the NumWorks has a keyboard that makes the endeavour really complicated.
- westurner 2y agoJupyterLite includes SymPy CAS, Pandas, NumPy, and SciPy in WASM (Pyodide) in a browser tab; but it's not yet easy to save notebooks to git or gdrive out of the JupyterLite build. awesome-jupyter > Hosted notebooks; Cocalc, BinderHub, G Colab, ml-tooling/best-of-jupyter It's also possible to install JupyterLab etc on Android with termux: `pkg install proot gitea python; pip install jupyterlab pandas` iirc But that doesn't limit the user to a non-QWERTY A-Z keyboard for the College Board. jupyter notebooks can be (partially auto-) graded in containers with Otter-Grader or nbgrader; and there's nbgitpuller or jupyterlab-git for revision control or source control in (applied) mathematics
- whartung 2y agoSeems like a really nice effort. Nice they crammed it into the DM42 machines. But for me, the learning curve is steeper than the utility. I have no real need for an actual calculator, I rely on my phone. On there I have iHP48, and I've already gone through much of that learning curve to make it useful (back in the day with an original one). If you already have the DM42, I guess its a mostly compatible upgrade from that, to make stepping into it easier.
- bayofpigs 2y agoSame. Love calculators and used to flirt with the idea of buying an old HP graphing but the app scratches that itch. Once you learn RPN it just feels so natural.
- stonogo 2y agoThis is also an iphone app.
- topspin 2y ago> Seems like a really nice effort. Does it? Another powerful calculating engine trapped behind a skeuomorph interface? Here[1] is a really nice effort that, sadly, hasn't been updated in 14 years and only runs on Windows. It's a wonderful 606kB math REPL that can probably do everything DB48X can do, except it foregoes all the 1970's portable calculator nonsense, making it about a thousand times more useful. I have a nascent clone of this written in Rust using egui and rug, that is currently stalled because -- on bleeping Windows -- the former has problems with MinGW the latter has problems with MSVC... which makes me want to tear my hair out. I wait, patiently, for egui to get their MinGW ducks in a row because I have no hope that the GMP/MPFR/MPC stack is ever going to work on MSVC in my lifetime. [1] https://speqmath.com/ https://speqmath.com/
- epse 2y agoIs there a significant difference between that package and SageMath / XCas / Octave and friends? While a bit arcane, I've always been a great fan of xcas
- db48x 2y agoThat is really weird.
- PaulHoule 2y agoI am a fan of the HP Prime https://hpcalcs.com/product/hp-prime-graphing-calculator/ https://hpcalcs.com/product/hp-prime-graphing-calculator/ But I use it in algebraic instead of RPN mode. I’ve got a 49g and a 50-something too. People say it is pricey but I managed to get one discounted that was intended for the Latin American market. So is the thing that software is supposed to run on.
- wslh 2y agoI have an HP Prime (and older ones such as the 48gx). I don't know why they remove the "undo" button from the Prime since it is necessary when perform mistakes.
- nxobject 2y agoI'd recommend eBay, too, if you're within the continental US. This might be sacrilege, but after using a TI-89 I shifted to an TI Nspire CAS, since it has one of the highest-resolution screens in the market and still uses AAA batteries – I paid only $25 on eBay.
- PaulHoule 2y agoThose are pretty good. I was thinking the other day about all the electromechanical devices such as Walkman cassette tapes and portable minidisc players that Sony got to work with just one AA battery as opposed to the usual two.
- Mister_Snuggles 2y agoI have a Prime G2 and the RPN mode is just bad. It feels like it was an afterthought, and some things just don't seem to work properly in that mode. My 48G+ is a much, much better RPN calculator. The Prime G2 is also missing the equation library from the 48G+, which I found weird. Maybe they expect you to download what you need instead of using space in Flash for it.
- PaulHoule 2y agoThat's my take on the RPN mode but I like the algebraic mode and agree the 48 series is way better for RPN. (My favorite HP calc was the 28, which I bought when the 48 was available. I discovered soon afterwards that a powerful spring will eventually break the battery door and it seemed to be a problem that no engineering student managed to solve.)
- hajile 2y agoAs a DM42 owner who loves RPL, this is an exciting project.
- sbdhzjd 2y agoIts annoying to instal, I eventually got it to work on my calculator (DM42) from the binaries. The biggest thing is making sure all the firmware of the DM is upgraded
- c3d 2y agoCould you open an issue on the project's web site about the trouble you had installing? (http://github.com/c3d/db48x http://github.com/c3d/db48x). Thanks! Also, were you aware of this tutorial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rVWy4N0lBOI&list=PLz1qkflzABy-Cs1R07zGB8A9K5Yjolmlf&index=7 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rVWy4N0lBOI&list=PLz1qkflzAB...
- sbdhzjd 2y agoAre you the author? Man thanks! I know I criticized it a bit on here, but really it's nitpicking. Oh, and I found the apostrophe. To file a bug Id have to try again to see what my issues were and I really don't have time this semester.
- opentokix 2y agoThis made me exactly the same amount as frustrated like the originals. So, good job I guess :D
- Ringz 2y agoI still have a HP48GX in perfect condition and love it. One of my first programs was to calculate how much „slower“ my time is running when I drive a car or fly in a plane compared to someone standing still on the sidewalk. I still find it much more comfortable having a real calculator… call me old fashioned.
- c3d 2y agoA physicist working on the project used this to compute the space contraction for the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oh-My-God_particle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oh-My-God_particle, which presumably traveled at 0.9999999999999999999999951 time the speed of light. You cannot do that with your HP48GX directly using standard formulas, because it only has 12 digits of precision.
- jwr 2y agoThe 48G was a really good calculator, but only after loading additional software. The HP50g that came much later is better in every respect, except possibly for the smaller "ENTER" key (and people used to 48G will have to change some habits and possibly redefine some keys…). Incidentally, many young people (yes, I know how that sounds) do not know how useful a good engineering calculator can be and do not want to learn how to use one. They are missing out. Yes, there is a steep learning curve, but the rewards are significant if you do any amount of calculation in your hobby or work. No, this is not replaced by typing "python" (or "bc", or anything else, really) at your command prompt. Also incidentally, the development of good engineering calculators pretty much died. HP Prime is largely a school-pleasing toy, HP would down their calculator division a long time ago, and nobody else produces anything good. It's kind of like with gyms: what you get is what the market wants, and since the market doesn't know much, you get gyms full of useless exercise machines, because that's what people think a good gym should have. Similarly with calculators: you get stupid "modern" graphing calculators which are useless for actual work (it takes forever to use them to calculate useful things, and graphing is much better done on a computer), but they look great and sell well. I admire the project, although I would probably have taken a different path (emulation) to get the biggest effect with the smallest possible effort :-) I wish there was a good HP50G emulator for iOS — there used to be one, but it was abandoned (contact me if you want to develop it and would like to get the source code, it was under the GPL and I got it from the author).
- ninalanyon 2y ago> No, this is not replaced by typing "python" (or "bc", or anything else, really) at your command prompt. Why not? At least I can easily copy the results and the code to a document which avoids transcription errors. Or do you mean that there simply isn't a program that has the functions you use?
- tivert 2y ago>> Incidentally, many young people (yes, I know how that sounds) do not know how useful a good engineering calculator can be and do not want to learn how to use one. They are missing out. Yes, there is a steep learning curve, but the rewards are significant if you do any amount of calculation in your hobby or work. No, this is not replaced by typing "python" (or "bc", or anything else, really) at your command prompt. > Why not? At least I can easily copy the results and the code to a document which avoids transcription errors. Or do you mean that there simply isn't a program that has the functions you use? My guess it's the ergonomics between a specialized tool and a non-specialized one. Technically, python may be able to replace "a good engineering calculator," but so can ASM. No one would even ask "Why non ASM?," because its ergonomics are near-universally understood to be so poor, but the same issues can apply to more popular tools like python, just less obviously.
- mongol 2y agoThe form factor of an HP48 or similar calculator is very attractive. Good tactile buttons in a format slightly laeger than a modern smartphone. I imagine it could work as a very good companion to a smartphone ifbit had modern comoute capacity and memory plus some modern I/O interfaces like USB or Bluetooth.
- dangsux 2y ago[dead]
- tooltechgeek 2y agoThe Casio fx-9750GIII though very poorly named is a gem full of functionality from python, to spreadsheet and even a text editor and very low priced for what it does. If HP made a similar product with RPN it would be a game changer.
- codefeenix 2y agoIf some sufficiently intense compute calculations were ran, will the display that shows the battery voltage drop?
- sbdhzjd 2y agoI have it installed on my DM42. Its nice, but I dont like two things: - Where's the apostrophe (equiv. to quote in lisp)? That should be an easily accessible key not buried in a menu. - Why did he swap the log keys? I also wish the HP48's steq interface to plot existed, but whatever.
- c3d 2y ago> Where's the apostrophe (equiv. to quote in lisp)? That should be an easily accessible key not buried in a menu. The apostrophe is on the XEQ key of the DM42, or "F". But in RPL, it is not to quote like in Lisp, but to introduce algebraic expressions (although it does quote names as a side effect). On the simulator / web site, the symbol on the key looks like this: [' ()], it is on the second row on the rightmost column, see https://github.com/c3d/db48x/blob/stable/DB48X-Keys/DB48X-Keys.001.png https://github.com/c3d/db48x/blob/stable/DB48X-Keys/DB48X-Ke.... The key is labeled like this because it serves a dual purpose to accommodate the smaller number of keys on the DM42 relative to the HP48. It adds a tick when not inside an expression, which in RPL begins an algebraic expression. When you are inside an algebraic expression, then you don't need tick anymore, so the key inserts parentheses inside. > - Why did he swap the log keys? Because I personally prefer to have exp and ln rather than ln and log. I also would prefer to have y^x as a primary, unshifted key, and this change is coming soon. But I recognize that keyboard layout is a personal preference, so I'm currently working on making this customizable. Recently, "User mode" has been introduced, which lets you reconfigure the keyboard the way you want. So if you want to restore decimal LOG as the primary key instead of EXP, then do this: 'LOG10' 24.1 ASN. You should be able to restore EXP to the original position with 'EXP' 25.2 ASN, but there is bug with shifted user keys that I need to fix. This should be fixed in the next release. In addition, the very next release should offer three layouts: 1) One that is maximally compatible with DM42 / HP42, which I assume is what you want. 2) One that corresponds to the current layout, so that people with existing overlays can keep them. 3) One that corresponds to a new iteration of the key layout that is better suited for DB48x, which is currently being discussed on the HP Museum forum.
- sbdhzjd 2y agoYa, after I posted this comment I looked harder and found it. That layout is very busy, but I get it the Dm42 has fewer keys. Again, thanks for the project my 48Gs are getting old and the screens always sucked, and the UI always felt slow compared to my 28S.
- bankcust08385 2y agoI think it should be a tribute to Claude-Nicolas Fiechter, Mika Heiskanen, and Bernard Parisse who came up with Erable. There is Giac/Xcas now that it is its spiritual successor.
- ta8645 2y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erable https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erable
- ashton314 2y agoI’ve got an HP50g that I love. I wish I could get my kids a SwissMicros calculator when they go to school but $300 is a little steep for a kid’s calculator. (Heck, considering what TI charges for their crapulators, maybe it’s not such an outrageous price…)
- mabster 2y agoIt's not clear from that page nor the GitHub repo whether they are using decimal floating point underneath? It's one of the nicer things when using a calculator over something like Python.
- c3d 2y agoThere are three floating-point representations: - A variable-precision decimal floating point that uses base-1000 internally with 10 bits for 1000 values instead of 1024, so reduced memory waste, and LEB128 for size and exponent encoding. So 1.23 is 5 bytes, and each decimal value has its own precision. The precision only affects computations, not stored objects, so you can adjust the precision for each step of a computation. - IEEE754 hardware accelerated 32-bit and 64-bit binary floating point. In line with RPL, there are many other object types, including arbitrary-precision integers (123 is 2 bytes, 100! is 68 bytes), symbolic expressions, programs, lists, and so on.
- recri 2y agohttps://hp15c.elf.org https://hp15c.elf.org wraps https://hp15c.com/ https://hp15c.com/, calculators make lovely web apps on smart phones, collect them all!
- jiehong 2y agoThat’s cool!
- rustcleaner 2y agoI love SwissMicros. I own a DM42 and DM15L. I strongly reccomend them for everyone young-to-old! Buttons feel crisp and responsive, the postfix input is a dream I can't remember living without; it's also easy to disassemble too!
- c3d 2y agoA video explaining the philosophy and technology behind the project. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jNOA39HnkcM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jNOA39HnkcM