Omnimaga

Omnimaga => News => Topic started by: DJ Omnimaga on October 12, 2013, 07:55:25 pm

Title: Prime manual updated, HP PPL named as official programming language
Post by: DJ Omnimaga on October 12, 2013, 07:55:25 pm
As reported on HP Museum forums (http://www.hpmuseum.org/cgi-sys/cgiwrap/hpmuseum/forum.cgi?read=252540#252540), the HP Prime manual has finally been updated and can be downloaded via HP's FTP webspace (http://ftp://primesw:[email protected]/) (password being the calculator name).

This new version of the manual finally fixes the misleading info in the programming section, which used to be HP 39gII material. Now it explains each programming command for the HP Prime instead, with some examples.

Another interesting note is that HP officially refers to the HP Prime BASIC/Pascal-like language as HP PPL (HP Prime Programming Language).

The HP Prime was released worldwide last month and is available from $110 USD depending of where you live. Some programs such as a 3D Grapher (http://www.cemetech.net/programs/index.php?mode=file&id=950) and games have already been made or are in the process of being made for it.
(http://www.cemetech.net/img/ss/001404.gif)

Omnimaga's HP Prime sub-forum (including a bug reports thread that Tim Wessman from HP sometimes checks) can be reached here (http://www.omnimaga.org/index.php?board=214.0).
Title: Re: Prime manual updated, HP PPL named as official programming language
Post by: willrandship on October 13, 2013, 03:49:08 am
Hey, that 3D grapher isn't orthogonal, even! (Orthogonal rendering is easier, stuff doesn't get smaller as it gets further back. Also has a small advantage when comparing two locations, but generally less intuitive)
Title: Re: Prime manual updated, HP PPL named as official programming language
Post by: Sorunome on October 13, 2013, 05:27:34 am
ha, nice!/me wants a prime x.x
I wonder why they passwd-protected the download, though :P
Title: Re: Prime manual updated, HP PPL named as official programming language
Post by: timwessman on October 13, 2013, 10:56:52 am
Hey, that 3D grapher isn't orthogonal, even! (Orthogonal rendering is easier, stuff doesn't get smaller as it gets further back. Also has a small advantage when comparing two locations, but generally less intuitive)

Yes, he did a fairly nice job for a few simple lines of code. However, this is nothing yet...  ;D


Also, had to give the language an "official" name. Otherwise there is just too much possibility for confusion.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocky_Mountain_BASIC (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocky_Mountain_BASIC) HP-BASIC is actually an old programming language from HP systems way back in the day. The guys from the computer history museum were quite concerned about that when I spoke with them during the summer.

ha, nice!/me wants a prime x.x
I wonder why they passwd-protected the download, though :P

That is not supposed to be for customers. HP is a large ship and the downloads on the customer pages are not yet up... :-(
Title: Re: Prime manual updated, HP PPL named as official programming language
Post by: DJ Omnimaga on October 13, 2013, 12:24:49 pm
Actually from a comment on HP Museum, it appears that the password is only for the Firmware stuff, not the manuals. That said, I think it's better to have access to the manual now if HP is gonna take months and months before making them public. The current guidebook that comes with the emulator is totally outdated and misleading (for example when I tried using colors, all I got was black, because the manual used the HP 39gII syntax).

Also I think on older calcs the HP language was called SysRPL, right? And yeah HP PPL was often nicknamed BASIC over here because of the strong similarities with TI-83 Plus BASIC and Casio BASIC. However, as far as TI-BASIC goes, it took until 2013 before TI themselves actually calls it TI-BASIC. I think it's pretty much the community that came up with the name, because older manuals never did any reference to the name.