In article ,
Spehro Pefhany wrote:
On Sat, 17 Apr 2004 08:42:19 -0700, the renowned "Robert Swinney"
wrote:

[ ... ]

It takes a
helluva lot more processing power to enter equations "the natural way".

Nah, the stack on early HP calculators was 4 levels.

It depends on what you mean by "early". The 9200 and 9200B
desktop machines (which is where I got my start programming HP
calculators) were three levels of stack -- with real *core* memory, and a
mag card reader/writer. All three levels of stack were visible at once
on the tiny crt display. Since it had core memory, you could turn it
off, and when you turned it back on, your program was still there, ready
to run.

It also had a clamshell printer which fit on top of the case
like a toupee, and it printed on an electro-sensitive paper (conductive
aluminum foil, and it wrote by blasting through with electrostatic
discharges that to the black background on the paper. As your printout
extended, you were unfurling an antenna to broadcast your calculations
to the world. :-)

So -- when I got my HP-45, I was already comfortable with RPN,
and also with a slipstick.

Enjoy,
DoN.
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