On Tue, Apr 24, 2001, Sergio E. Schvezov wrote: > first of all hello and sorry bout the off-topic but i have nowhere to ask, > sometime earlier in this month i asked about what came to be octave, > it was really cool. > > Well right now i'm going to have the oportunity to buy a palm or sci calc > i saw the vr3 wich runs on a modified linux wich i kind of liked. > To connclude my options are to buy the hp49 or a palm, so the question > is: are there any scientific programs like ocatve avaible for these devices > or should i stick to the hp49? > > again sorry bout the off topic
I've had an HP48 for about 7-8 years, and while I enjoy its RPN and like it as a calculator, it is amazingly(!) slow in processing or anything computationally heavy. I tend to believe the HP49 is not much faster. Contrast that with the 30MHz(???, faster maybe?) RISC processors (strongarm??? others, maybe) that are found in many PDA's that don't cost more than a factor of two or three more in price and it's a relatively easy decision. Also, while the HP's look amazingly sturdy, I've known at least three (from a sample pool of six total) to have broken under light use (HP did NOT replace any under warranty, and they charge for phone support, IIRC). Hope this helps, Daniel -- Daniel A. Freedman Laboratory for Atomic and Solid State Physics Department of Physics Cornell University
