HHC 2012 Day 2 Summary - 9/23/2012

Here is what went on during Day 2 of the HHC Conference:

Wlodek Mier-Jedzejowicz - "Is It a Really Pathetic Name." (My apologizes in advance if I misspell the names)
* RPN (Reverse Polish Notation) came to be by Polish mathematician and logician Jan Łukasiewicz. Łukasiewicz was also a philosopher, teacher, and worked with multi-value logic.
* Mier-Jedzejowicz's family has connections with Łukasiewicz: he was a professor to several of his relatives.
* At the 10th Anniversary of the HPCC (based in Great Britian), Dr. William Wickes wrote an article in "RCL 20: People, Dreams, & HP Calculators" about the naming of RPN. Dr. Wickes was not too happy with the name (see the title for the hint).
* Although several alternative names were given, including "natural operating system". Mier-Jedzejowicz defended the RPN name.

An example of notations: Say we want to calculate 7 + 11.
Infix or algebraic notation (TI, Casio, and most calculators): 7 + 11
Polish notation: + 7 11
Reverse Polish Notation (HP): 7 11 +

Namir Shammas - "Variable Sampling Integration"
* The program has first written on the HP 41.
* The main difference is that the change in x (often labeled "h" or "Δx") is not constant. Where the intervals are placed depends on the slope of f(x). More intervals are placed when f(x) is changing quickly.
* Smaller areas are calculated using the area under a quadratic or cubic curve and then aggregated.
* In general, variable sample integration is more accurate than Simpson's rule when using cubic polynomials to calculate areas of sub-intervals. However, Simpson's rule is better when f(x) contains trigonometric functions.

Rick Furr - "The Making of the HPV2 Poster"
* Furr is an avid collector of calculators: over 1,000 of them. The collection includes Curta mechanical calculators.
* The HP calculator poster is an update to 2005 poster. I purchased one and will be posting a picture of it.
* Furr produced several posters: one covering a Cuerta machine and its hundreds of parts, the history of telephones, and the history of money, specifically greenbacks.
* The process of the new poster in a nutshell:
1. Take a picture of each calculator. Furr commented that inspection lights work best. Also take the picture away from the calculator and use the camera's zoom features.
2. Furr used the desktop publishing software Serif PagePlus x5 to plan the poster. This preferable to Photoshop since images can be scaled while the resolution is preserved.
3. Find data for each calculator and peripheral. This proved to be a challenge.
4. Use a printer that uses a stochastic printing process. The random grouping of the dots (cyan, magenta, yellow, black) allows for sharper printing.

As soon as I can will post a picture of the HP poster, probably when I get back home.

Rick Furr's website: http://www.vcalc.net/

Jakie Waldering - Raspberry Pi
* Waldering showed the Raspberry Pi, a small computer that runs on Linux. How small is it? It can fit in your hand!
* Some specifications:
The computer boots from a 1G SD Card
The computer has an Ethernet port and two USB ports
It has an HDMI connection, so the computer can run on high-tech televisions
Graphics: 48 GPU Cores - screen refreshes at 40 to 50 screens per second
Does not get not after use - which was discovered after running a network of six Raspberry Pis ran a local network. The students were playing Quake 3.
This is a low cost device. Some assembly required.

More information about the Raspberry Pi can be found at:http://www.raspberrypi.org/faqs. This page contains links to suppliers if you want to purchase one. This is a nonprofit organization.

Final Thoughts
* I always have so such fun at the HHC conferences. If you get a chance, go. The HHC is an annual conference will be about 9/21/2013. Place to be determined.

Web Pages:
Gene Wright: http://www.rskey.org/gene/hpgene/
HPcalc.org, run by Eric Rechlin: http://www.hpcalc.org/. Rechlin also makes the keyboard stickers for the WP 34S.

I leave you with some pictures from the conference.

Eddie

HHC 2012 Day 1 Summary - 9/22/2012

Greetings from Nashville!

I am at the HHC 12 conference. It is an annual conference for Hewlett Packard Calculator enthusiasts, held every September. This has been my fourth conference I attended. Everyone that I meet at the conference is super. I love going to these conferences. Here is a summary of went on during the 13-plus hour day, which honestly, went by amazingly fast.

Before the conference started, I was privileged to purchase a HP 32s II calculator from Bob Patton. A picture of it is shown below. The HP 32s II is a highly sought RPN programmable calculator that was in production during most of the 1990s.

Today's conference started at the bright and early time at 8:15 AM. Here is a short summary:

"WP-34S and the HP Calculator Way" - Jake Schwartz:
* In the 1970s, Hewlett Packard (from here on in will be referred to as HP), was wowing calculator owners by constantly exceeding expectations. This due to the fact that handheld electronic calculators were relatively new.
* Around the time that the HP 49g+ was introduced in 2003, HP and calculator users crossed a point. Now, we users are suggesting more features to HP than HP has produced. This resulted in some users making home made calculators by repurposing them. For example, the HP 20B and 30b are repurposed to become a scientific programming calculator, the WP 34S, despite working with limitations of memory, manual keyboard labeling, and limited screen.
* Today, there is less documentation. Also calculators have been aimed towards certain niche markets, primarily education.

"Tablets vs. HP Calculators" - Gene Wright
* Of a poll of 41 attendees: 18 have tablets. 8 of the tablet have Apple tablets, including me. In fact, I write my blog with my iPad, using the Blogger+ app. 24 of 41 attendees use smart phones.
* We are going towards a digital world. Textbooks are now being converts to PDF files for use on tablets. The university I work for, Cal Poly Pomona, has just participated in an e-book pilot program.
* The majority of young students now have access to tablets and smartphones. A concern among teachers is the issue of cheating with these devices. That has not stopped some schools from standardizing tablet use, such as the iPad.
* There is a consensus that the use of stand alone technology, such as cameras, physical calculators, and GPS devices, is shrinking in favor of do-everything tablets.
* Jakie Woldering, a computer science professor at Cleveland State University, commented that we bring skills that will help us transition from one technology to the other.

"Calculator Root Finding: Scan Range Method" - Namir Shammas
* This program finds root, extrema (function minimums and maximums), and inflection points of f(x), using a Laguerre method.
* The user gives a domain to find points of interest of f(x) using a step size and other criteria.
* More information can be found here. Check under the HHC 2012 section.


"Measuring HP Calculator Current" - Richard Nelson
* Richard Nelson demonstrates how to find current and voltage of calculators in four states: off, during boot up, on stand by, and running a calculation. This allows us a way to determine if the keyboard and microprocessor are working.

"Calculating Before Calculators" - Palmer Hanson
* Palmer Hanson brought machines pre-dating handheld calculators. Among them were abacuses, slide rules of every kind, a circular percentage wheel, and a three-arm protractor used for navigation.

"The HP-41 is Alive and Well" - Warren Farrow
* Warren Farrow recounted his story about how he purchased the HP-41. He runs a website, www.hp41.org, a rich resource for the HP 41 calculator.

"Where Can You Find the History of Calculator Applications?" - Felix Gross
* Felix Gross shows that we have so much information regarding calculators including books, hardware manuals, journals, and application journals. However, the last category lacks an organized system of archive. The applications range from finance, cattle herd composition, optimizing factors for heat transfer, map projection, and education.
* The peak for calculator documentation occurred around 1977-1984.
* Today's resources include NASA.gov and eric.ed.gov.
* Currently, he is looking for articles concerning finance, engineering, and documentation in foreign languages.

"Re-tooling the Calculator Tool" - Pavneet Arora
* Pavneet Arora makes a case that we are not merging towards one do-everything tablet. On the filed, there is still a need for specialized and durable tools.
* Tablets are not the best for rugged conditions. A problem also is present on relying on only one tool, with the risk of failure. Multiple tools that can handle a similar function still serves a purpose. In my opinion, it is good to have a backup device.
* Arora favors the use of watches and belts that can be used on the arm. In addition, he states that a smaller Kindle Touch, with its e-ink screen, can serve as a multi-use rugged device due to its operating software. E-ink is preferred over back-lit devices.
* He stresses that tool design must be appropriate for working conditions.

Katie Wessman quilted a lovely calculator quilt that will be given as a door prize.

Gene Wright brought and show some of his non-HP (and non-TI) collection, which was really neat. Among the collection is Royal 99T Scientific Calculator (1976), Royal 94F Business Calculator (1976), Unitrex SC30, Unitrex 90SC RPN Calculator (had a 12 digit display which is unheard of in the 1970s), Canon Palmtronic F-7, and several Commodore models including the N-60 (navigation based), S-61 (geared towards statistics), and M-55, which he let me borrow for the night. The weirdest one was the Sanyo CZ-8008, which had only five scientific functions: sine, cosine, tangent, π, and square root. Yep, no inverse trig functions. Gene, who had the Commodore calculators, acquired most of the others calculators from Scott Reynolds.

"Converting HP-41C Programs to PDF" - Jakie Woldering
* Jakie Woldering described he was able to convert HP 41C programs from the calculator and classic journals to a modern format (PDF). This was done by using wands to read magnetic storage cards, a lot of typing, and conversion software.

"Even Larger Scaled Reptiles of the Nordic Countries" - Eric Smith
* Eric Smith updated progress on a calculator he and his group is making. The most significant update is a bigger capacity RAM chip which allows a more complex operating system.

"Curve Fitting with Least Squares Relative Error" - Namir Shammas
* Namir discusses a curve fitting algorithm that minimizes relative error instead of absolute error.
* A result: when the range of data is small, the least-squares method with relative error is more accurate than using absolute error.

About the Commodore M-55 (1977)

Advanced Features Include:
* Three dimensional vectors arithmetic, dot product, cross product
* Logarithmic Gamma Function (note the factorial function still only works for integers)
* Integration by discrete points
* Linear Regression
* Complex Number Arithmetic
* 2 × 2 matrices including arithmetic, inverses, and determinants
* Error function
* Bessel Function (a very rare preprogrammed function!)
* Poisson Distribution for distinct points
* Quadratic Formula including complex roots
* Gaussian Distribution (Normal Distribution) - lower tail area

The battery is rechargeable, and lasted up to three hours on a single charge. Amazingly, the manual can be found online.


Eddie

Day 2 to come!