Free42 and Plus42; HP-42S Calculator Simulators

Colonel Panic · 2024-11-02 20:14:33

I am currently enjoying Thomas Okkens' two HP 42s calculator simulators, Free42 and Plus 42. Both come with a large set of skins and are easy to set up and use, I've even had them working in Slackware and ExSlack;

https://thomasokken.com/

Last edited by Colonel Panic (2024-11-02 20:16:05)

Martin · 2024-11-03 00:29:42

I still own a real HP 42S.

/Martin

Colonel Panic · 2024-11-03 11:53:00

Excellent! I don't think I've ever seen a Hewlett Packard calculator for real; the only calculators I've seen have been from makes such as Texas, Casio, Commodore etc.

Warning; long rambling nostalgia-fuelled post coming up

Last edited by Colonel Panic (2024-11-03 14:45:25)

Colonel Panic · 2024-11-03 13:17:50

My first ever calculator was a Sinclair Programmable and with hindsight I
should probably have listened to a friend at university who was doing an
astrophysics degree and who told me to "avoid Sinclair, they're s**t".

He had a point. It was good for learning about the basics of programming
but pretty limited otherwise.

https://www.calculator.org/calculators/ … mable.html

With hindsight though I appreciate the ingenuity that went into, for
example, showing you how to calculate fractional approximations of
constants such as e and pi because the calculator didn't display them as
standard.

(Did you know that log(10) e can be approximated by 119/274? Neither did
I.)

https://www.wass.net/manuals/Sinclair%2 … ibrary.pdf

After that I got a Texas programmable (a TI-57), which was far more
capable;

http://www.datamath.net/Leaflets/CL-274_US.pdf

50 program steps now, statistics functions such as mean and standard
deviation, and built-in constants!

And best of all, you could use the recharger as a mains lead; so when
chaos theory caught on years later (this was the late 1970s), you could run
long, looping calculations for weeks on end and watch the display converge
bit by bit. 1.24994, 1.24998, 1.24999 ...

I have mostly stuck with Texas ever since; my latest one is a TI-85, which
does everything I need but is quite hard for me to read nowadays with its
blue display. I also have a Sharp EL-9400 programmable because it has a
clearer display than the TI-85, and it was very cheap secondhand for the
number of functions it has.

Still not ruled out the possibility of getting an HP calculator such as
the HP Prime, but the truth is I hardly need one now. I'm getting older
and it's easier to see the bigger numbers a simulator like one of Thomas
Okken's offers.

I sometimes wish I'd learnt Reverse Polish notation properly, but it's
less straightforward in my view when dealing with longer chains of
calculation.

Last edited by Colonel Panic (2024-11-03 14:47:23)

Martin · 2024-11-03 16:12:20

Colonel Panic wrote:

Excellent! I don't think I've ever seen a Hewlett Packard calculator for real; the only calculators I've seen have been from makes such as Texas, Casio, Commodore etc.
Warning; long rambling nostalgia-fuelled post coming up

My pocket calculator history:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HP-21
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HP-25
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HP-41C
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HP-42S

The 41C was the only one not built to survive being run over by a tank.

/Martin

Colonel Panic · 2024-11-03 18:12:53

Great! In Britain and at the time I was studying you just didn't see HP calculators though; everyone I can remember who was doing science and engineering had Texases, particularly the TI programmables although a few people had SRs.

I'd like to have an HP calculator to play with though, especially the HP-65 which took magnetic cards and was the model Mitchell Feigenbaum used to discover period doubling bifurcations in (some) iterative functions.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitchell_Feigenbaum#Work

Vintage HP calculators on EBay sell for good money.

There's also a company that creates its own calculators using HP hardware as a base;

https://www.swissmicros.com/products

Last edited by Colonel Panic (2024-11-03 18:45:37)

marens · 2024-11-03 22:34:30

^ ^ Hahaha...
Thank you guys for reminding me how old I am and taking me back about 40 years.

My first computer was a Commodore 64.
While my friends struggled to load games, I bought a few books and spent the summer learning BASIC (Beginner's All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code).

In college I used a Sharp PC-1401 calculator that worked in a very similar way.

Then life took me in a different direction, but some fundamentals of programming remained forever.
When I completely switched to linux, I started to create scripts for my needs, but also to improve the existing ones in my own way.

Colonel Panic · 2024-11-06 18:33:49

Good post marens. I think it's instructive to compare and contrast the amount of progress personal computers have made over a certain span of time (say thirty or forty years) and mobile phones too, with the progress calculators have made in that time.

There's no doubt that the amount of progress mobile phones have made has been absolutely astonishing; a phone from say 1990 is almost unrecognisable from one of the most expensive phones even from, say, 2010. Personal computers too have become vastly more capable since the late 1980s when we thought a 286 running office software in DOS was fast.

How about calculators though? Really, far less progress has been made in the same time. The shift to graphical displays was a big step up in terms of what calculators could do, but only if you actually used graphs a lot and didn't mind the smaller screen compared to a laptop.

For at least 90% of the time I actually spend using a calculator, the TI-57 I bought in 1978 and which I sometimes wish I still had is perfectly adequate. Go forward fifteen years to 1993, and there's literally nothing I need to do on a calculator that my thirty year old TI-85 can't do; I only wish the display were a bit stronger because my eyesight (and especially my close vision) isn't so great nowadays.

So why the difference? I've seen it suggested that the reason more progress hasn't been made with calculators is that much of the market is driven by schools and colleges, neither of which are keen on calculators doing too much of the work that they think their students should be doing instead (even back in the 1970s colleges frowned on the TI-59, for example, which could store its programs on metal strips).

https://www.npr.org/2018/03/22/59596738 … since-1994

Last edited by Colonel Panic (2024-11-06 21:31:15)

Colonel Panic · 2024-11-07 09:24:09

Update; there's one thing my TI-85 can't do that my TI-57 could, and that's run long, repetitive, looping calculations such as I used to in the early 1990s. It lacks a mains lead or an input socket for one, so all its operations have to be powered by battery which has a finite life.

WolfeN · 2024-11-08 22:31:58

Colonel Panic wrote:

I am currently enjoying Thomas Okkens' two HP 42s calculator simulators, Free42 and Plus 42. Both come with a large set of skins and are easy to set up and use, I've even had them working in Slackware and ExSlack;
https://thomasokken.com/

I've been using Free42 for years on iOS and Android, as well as recently on Linux & Windows. I have a (real) HP 32SII that I started using over 25 years ago, and Free42 is so similar to it. I like the easy programmability & am used to RPN over algebraic.

It is an awesome version of HP RPN programmable calculators!

Colonel Panic · 2024-11-11 12:20:30

WolfeN wrote:

Colonel Panic wrote:
I am currently enjoying Thomas Okkens' two HP 42s calculator simulators, Free42 and Plus 42. Both come with a large set of skins and are easy to set up and use, I've even had them working in Slackware and ExSlack;
https://thomasokken.com/
I've been using Free42 for years on iOS and Android, as well as recently on Linux & Windows. I have a (real) HP 32SII that I started using over 25 years ago, and Free42 is so similar to it. I like the easy programmability & am used to RPN over algebraic.
It is an awesome version of HP RPN programmable calculators!

Great! You might be interested in trying Plus42, which is similar and adds some extra features;

"Plus42 builds on Free42 and adds: A Larger Display, with 8 rows and 22 columns (131x64 pixels) by default, which the user may resize at will; Algebraic Expressions modeled after those used on the HP-27S and HP-17B/19B; attached Units and unit conversions modeled after those used on the HP-48/49/50 series; Directories for more organized storage of programs and variables; TVM and amortization tables; and two-dimensional Plotting of functions, with ability to zoom and pan, and find integrals and roots from points in the plot."

https://thomasokken.com/plus42/

Colonel Panic · 2024-12-26 12:23:33

Don't throw out those old electronics (including calculators);

https://www.bottomlineinc.com/life/coll … lectronics

Last edited by Colonel Panic (2024-12-26 12:33:22)

DeepDayze · 2024-12-27 02:21:05

I had bought myself a TI-57 when I started college as was taking computer courses. This was one awesome programmable calculator and worthy of my freshman engineering calculus class. Shame it's gone because some loser broke into my dorm room while I was away on break and took it

Colonel Panic · 2024-12-27 21:25:35

DeepDayze wrote:

I had bought myself a TI-57 when I started college as was taking computer courses. This was one awesome programmable calculator and worthy of my freshman engineering calculus class. Shame it's gone because some loser broke into my dorm room while I was away on break and took it

Oh what a bummer!

Colonel Panic · 2025-01-30 10:10:13

If anyone's interested in software that can calculate very big numbers, Landon Curt Noll's program Calc is still available. I used it to calculate 632760!-1, which is the biggest known factorial prime at the moment.

Just use apt to install calc on the command line.

For those who want even bigger numbers but aren't worried about the results being exact, Robert Munafo and Kenny Chan's program Hypercalc is now available in an online Javascrppt version.

http://www.mrob.com/pub/comp/hypercalc/ … cript.html

It evaluated 1000000! almost before I could blink (approximately 8.2639317 × 10^5565708, for those who want to know).

Last edited by Colonel Panic (2025-01-30 10:23:53)

Martin · 2025-01-30 13:11:05

Colonel Panic wrote:

If anyone's interested in software that can calculate very big numbers, Landon Curt Noll's program Calc is still available. I used it to calculate 632760!-1, which is the biggest known factorial prime at the moment.
Just use apt to install calc on the command line.
For those who want even bigger numbers but aren't worried about the results being exact, Robert Munafo and Kenny Chan's program Hypercalc is now available in an online Javascrppt version.
http://www.mrob.com/pub/comp/hypercalc/ … cript.html
It evaluated 1000000! almost before I could blink (approximately 8.2639317 × 10^5565708, for those who want to know).

Related TED talk:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B4xOFsygwr4

/Martin

DeepDayze · 2025-01-30 17:48:32

Colonel Panic wrote:

Update; there's one thing my TI-85 can't do that my TI-57 could, and that's run long, repetitive, looping calculations such as I used to in the early 1990s. It lacks a mains lead or an input socket for one, so all its operations have to be powered by battery which has a finite life.

You can't go wrong with that one!

Last edited by DeepDayze (2025-01-30 17:56:03)

Colonel Panic · 2025-02-05 23:53:14

DeepDayze wrote:

Colonel Panic wrote:
Update; there's one thing my TI-85 can't do that my TI-57 could, and that's run long, repetitive, looping calculations such as I used to in the early 1990s. It lacks a mains lead or an input socket for one, so all its operations have to be powered by battery which has a finite life.
You can't go wrong with that one!

Thanks, and Martin too. I'm looking, not overly intently, for one on EBay (or for one of its relatives, the TI-58 and Ti-59) but ones that are working properly (and quite a few that are listed aren't) are silly money right now.

Last edited by Colonel Panic (2025-02-06 08:38:32)

DeepDayze · 2025-02-06 13:57:05

Colonel Panic wrote:

DeepDayze wrote:
Colonel Panic wrote:
Update; there's one thing my TI-85 can't do that my TI-57 could, and that's run long, repetitive, looping calculations such as I used to in the early 1990s. It lacks a mains lead or an input socket for one, so all its operations have to be powered by battery which has a finite life.
You can't go wrong with that one!
Thanks, and Martin too. I'm looking, not overly intently, for one on EBay (or for one of its relatives, the TI-58 and Ti-59) but ones that are working properly (and quite a few that are listed aren't) are silly money right now.

For the TI-58/59 usually the issue is with the magnetic card reader as it can fail over time and parts for it are pretty much unobtainable nowadays.

Colonel Panic · 2025-02-10 09:48:13

DeepDayze wrote:

Colonel Panic wrote:
DeepDayze wrote:
You can't go wrong with that one!
Thanks, and Martin too. I'm looking, not overly intently, for one on EBay (or for one of its relatives, the TI-58 and Ti-59) but ones that are working properly (and quite a few that are listed aren't) are silly money right now.
For the TI-58/59 usually the issue is with the magnetic card reader as it can fail over time and parts for it are pretty much unobtainable nowadays.

Thanks for replying.

I think it's the TI-59 that's got the magnetic card reader. The TI-58 is basically a more accurate TI-57 with some additional features.

Last edited by Colonel Panic (2025-02-10 09:48:32)

#1 2024-11-02 20:14:33

Free42 and Plus42; HP-42S Calculator Simulators

#2 2024-11-03 00:29:42

Re: Free42 and Plus42; HP-42S Calculator Simulators

#3 2024-11-03 11:53:00

Re: Free42 and Plus42; HP-42S Calculator Simulators

#4 2024-11-03 13:17:50

Re: Free42 and Plus42; HP-42S Calculator Simulators

#5 2024-11-03 16:12:20

Re: Free42 and Plus42; HP-42S Calculator Simulators

#6 2024-11-03 18:12:53

Re: Free42 and Plus42; HP-42S Calculator Simulators

#7 2024-11-03 22:34:30

Re: Free42 and Plus42; HP-42S Calculator Simulators

#8 2024-11-06 18:33:49

Re: Free42 and Plus42; HP-42S Calculator Simulators

#9 2024-11-07 09:24:09

Re: Free42 and Plus42; HP-42S Calculator Simulators

#10 2024-11-08 22:31:58

Re: Free42 and Plus42; HP-42S Calculator Simulators

#11 2024-11-11 12:20:30

Re: Free42 and Plus42; HP-42S Calculator Simulators

#12 2024-12-26 12:23:33

Re: Free42 and Plus42; HP-42S Calculator Simulators

#13 2024-12-27 02:21:05

Re: Free42 and Plus42; HP-42S Calculator Simulators

#14 2024-12-27 21:25:35

Re: Free42 and Plus42; HP-42S Calculator Simulators

#15 2025-01-30 10:10:13

Re: Free42 and Plus42; HP-42S Calculator Simulators

#16 2025-01-30 13:11:05

Re: Free42 and Plus42; HP-42S Calculator Simulators

#17 2025-01-30 17:48:32

Re: Free42 and Plus42; HP-42S Calculator Simulators

#18 2025-02-05 23:53:14

Re: Free42 and Plus42; HP-42S Calculator Simulators

#19 2025-02-06 13:57:05

Re: Free42 and Plus42; HP-42S Calculator Simulators

#20 2025-02-10 09:48:13

Re: Free42 and Plus42; HP-42S Calculator Simulators

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