C47 Calculator Review

[@N.A._McBee]

Great job, a nice overview of what one can expect from the C47! I share your enthusiasm regarding the further development and the help of the developer team. It's indeed no problem to make a six-hour video about the C47, or even several of them. Given the time frame you used, this was a wonderful introduction and hopefully it attracts some more users to the C47. Thanks again and keep up this good work!

[@johan0234523]

I really like the idea of the C47, and I had it on my DM42 for a while. The main reasons why I went back to the plain DM42; the C47 small fonts (also for the equation writer) are hard to read for me, and there is no C47 app for the iPhone. With Free42 on my phone and my laptop, and keeping state files in sync with the DM42, I basically have the same calculator everywhere.

[@markthomas7104]

Great introduction to the C47 and its system of operation

[@christophe3d]

Great job as usual. The DM42 screen is difficult to light, but you did a great job! Thank you for the shoot out to DB48X, can't wait to see your video on that topic.

[@MrWaalkman]

Time for me to flash C47 on my DM42. Thanks for the detailed review. :)

[@frankwc0o]

If you flash the C47 on the 42, can you bring back the 42?

[@MrWaalkman]

​@@frankwc0o Chapter 6 of the manual details flashing your firmware, which happens to have three different methods available to us (two if you run Mac OS). So one would think that it should be simple. Downgrading firmware revisions had tripped up folks on other devices when the developer's good intentions (or bad ones) got in the way and locked out downgrades. I doubt that this is an issue with the DM42, but it would be safest to ask in the DM42 forum. I forgot all about flashing mine (old age). I'll look for the overlays and try it out.

[@richardthunderbay8364]

Really impressive calculator software. I wish I had had it as a grad student.

[@rideon41]

Thanks for the video, great as always! Excited for the C47 as it is developed further. It has great potential, but I have to say, right now the general display update speed needs to be worked on. This is running on DM42, it should be much faster, and it detracts from the experience. Definitely looking forward to your video on DB48X!

[@michaelfelzien6765]

wonderful review, very much enjoyed.

[@geoffquickfall]

Absolutely wonderful calculator as is the WP34s. Did you upgrade the WP34s with the quartz timer/clock and the infrared printer option. Nice that the 47 has both those supported. Thanks for you reviews. Geoff

[@CalculatorCulture]

Yes I actually bought a pre-converted WP34S which does have the timer/clock.

[@LeicaCat]

Might want to turn off auto white balance on your video camera.

[@CalculatorCulture]

Thanks for the tip

[@commtechengineer612]

Dang.... now I need to give this a try. Thanks for the video!

[@frankwc0o]

If you flash the 42 with the 47, can you bring back the 42?

[@CalculatorCulture]

Yes the current instructions are available here gitlab.com/h2x/c47-wiki/-/wikis/Getting-Started-Guide-v2/Appendix-B-Loading-C47-software/Converting-a-DM42-calculator-running-C47-back-to-a-DM42

[@TeamTricky3.14]

Yes you can.

[@cylurian]

What makes the C47 better or different than the DM42? What is so cool about it?

[@CalculatorCulture]

If you don’t want to watch the whole video the intro and summary chapters give a good synopsis.

[@RobertoCarlos-tn1iq]

can you check what answer you get for the cube root of -8?

[@richardnineteenfortyone7542]

Dumb questions: Can it beep? Can it do STO -> XOR 19F and RCL AND 2E2 ? Can it take a 500 Gig SD card and use it for backup with standard PC compatible formatting? Does the display fade when it is left in you car in the hot Nevada sun? What is the power source? Does the charging use a standard USB connector, or a proprietory one that is generally unavailable? Does it have blue tooth for link and file transfer to PC and other C-47's? Is it free from HP Prime's student mode and other gimmicks not needed or wanted by technical professionals? Do the keys get smashed like HP-35s, WP-34, and HP Prime, or are they robust like early HP machines with good tactile feel and durability? Is there an emulator that runs on PC and iPhone? Does it have files and folders? I remember when HP was a good place to work and catered to the needs of advanced technical professionals for powerful durable in-hand computing. (I worked next door to them and would occasionally encounter Claude Shannon on my after-work bike ride to the Stanford book store.) That was a long long time ago. Their MBA types replaced engineers in management , drove away their best people, and abandoned their most loyal customers. It's time to move on...

[@CalculatorCulture]

Yeah this video is really aimed to those who own a DM42 or WP34S and assumes a lot of preexisting knowledge. For hardware related questions you can check out the specs of the DM42 here: www.swissmicros.com/product/dm42 The keyboard and screen on the DM42 are very high quality. Generally if there are big areas of functionality that I didn't mention during the video then C47 doesn't do it, although I did forget some things. For example there is a Windows emulator, and C47 supports sounds and clock functions.

[@RensePosthumus]

As soon as the C47 reached a mature state, I bought a second DM42 and flashed it the C47 software. Nowadays the DM42 gets less and less usage

[@thomasgoossens857]

I did the exact same thing, and I do find myself picking up the C47 more and more.

[@johan0234523]

I love the idea of the C47, but the small font doesn’t work with my eyesight. Not a problem with Free42 / DM42.

[@bamobamo-ck6os]

@@johan0234523Any particular items on the screen or faceplate which are too small?

[@johan0234523]

@@bamobamo-ck6os the equations, the special characters font, and the annunciatiors basically. The three lines menu is also a bit busy for my eyes. I can use the DM42 without my reading glasses. Not so with the C47.

[@frankwc0o]

If you flash the 42 with the 47, can you bring back the 42?

[@emefff]

I think it's great, but there are some things to be done. The solver seems REALLY slow, the DM42 platform should allow for nearly instantaneous numerical solving of this equation (plotting also seems very slow). Even 41c is quicker, which should be 75 times slower on paper. I'm a bit worried about the yellow key, it will see much more action than all the others (but there's no way out). A port of wp34s to DM42 also exists, which I highly recommend. And as always: great video!

[@CalculatorCulture]

Thanks for the insightful comments. Yeah i get the impression is the solver is relatively new and hasn't been optimised yet. I didn't know about the port of WP34S to DM42 - I will check it out.

[@emefff]

@@CalculatorCulture I don't think it is about an optimiziation of the solver code (that's only a few lines, maybe 10-20, depending on the method(s) used), perhaps there's something else wrong with it. The shown iterations are very slow, maybe it has to do with the graphics around it (waiting for graphical stuff to complete, IDK). C-47 runs, more or less, at the hardware level. My conservative estimate is, that the solver could be 100-1000times quicker. A solver written in user-code on HP41 is quicker (it even shows intermediate values of the solution), that should tell us something.

[@swenic]

Do you think the C47 will work on the DM32 hw?

[@CalculatorCulture]

I asked Paul Dale (one of the devs) just before I made this video about DM32 support. He said C47 runs on the DM41X but the DM32 uses slightly different hardware and he wouldn’t risk running C47 on it.

[@swenic]

Maybe I wait for the DM42 to get a usb-c then.. Or wait for C47 to get ported. Thank you,

[@TeamTricky3.14]

@@swenic The DM42N is now a released product. DM42 with usb-c. And a faster processor.

[@iAPX432]

Swiss Micros should be proposing an hardware upgraded version of it's base: rechargeable battery (through USB-C), better screen (larger, color, etc.), more internal storage, ... And then add "personalities" through keyboard bezels and firmware, to be able to go from a 41CX to a 67 or anything else under the sun with the same format. Maybe be able to have different personalities loaded, and be able to switch, each one with its own dataset.

[@gmaxwell]

The particular (memory lcd) screen is a big part of why the dm42 is a great device.

[@nezbrun872]

My positive and constructive comments have been deleted twice now on this video, any idea why?

[@CalculatorCulture]

I’m not sure - I haven’t seen or deleted them. I don’t delete comments in general. Were there links in them? Sometimes that triggers KZbin’s anti-spam filters.I doubt this would apply but YT also has other filters on strong language.

[@nezbrun872]

@@CalculatorCulture OK thank you. My comments were a thanks for your content, and information on a non-adhesive tabbed keyboard overlay that I use on my DM42/C47 that fits inside the divots around the keyboard. I guess it'll have to remain secret where I got it from! Furthermore, while the C47 has become my go to calculator these days, taking over from the WP-34s, there is one noticeable aspect that still needs work, that of display update speed: the C47 can feel somewhat sluggish at times, with keystrokes queued up. I've seen mention that there is scope for this to be optimised.

[@CalculatorCulture]

@@nezbrun872 yeah it's clear there are some optimisation to be done in areas.

[@dosgos]

@@nezbrun872 Tell us source!

[@andrewkirk4184]

hard to understand due to audio distortion; this is an ongoing problem

[@bamobamo-ck6os]

I used the automatic subtitles. They were actually not so bad.

[@CalculatorCulture]

Interesting. It has been a while since I’ve seen comments about audio quality. I think there is a bit of echo from the room, which I’ll try to remove in the next video.

[@KRYPTOS_K5]

Make a swissmicro 50g and get rich!!!