HP 50g angular measure issue [ Edited ]

[Justin1981]

Is there any way of inputting a seconds value of 3 or more units? I.e. 126" so that the HMS doesn't take this value as 12.6? It is an important necessity for astronomy almanac calculation values

[BartdB · Accepted solution]

Hi,

Not that I am aware of. The 50g expects seconds in the range of 0 to 60 so only two digits are reserved for seconds - any more digits after that is seen as fractions of a second (important as a need for greater precision). The fact that it accepts up to 99 seconds is a bonus. It would be expected that the user translates 126 seconds to 2 min 6 seconds.

Edit: perhaps there's an astronomy program for the 50g on http://www.hpcalc.org/ that could be of help.

Regards

[BartdB]

Hi,

Here is a program that will promt H, M and S and convert to decimal HMS. It has to prompt because the commnd line entry method used by HP will not distinguish between 12 seconds and 120 seconds (because  with any number after a decimal, the trailling 0 will be deleted, thus 1.01120 will be seen as 1.0112).

Program listing:

<< "HOUR" "" INPUT STR-> "MINUTE" "" INPUT STR-> "SECOND" "" INPUT STR-> -> h m s
  << s 60 / DUP IP SWAP FP .6 * + m + 100 / h +
  >> HMS->

>>

You can store it in the VAR menu, e.g. 'HMS1' STO (or even 'HM1->' STO), or in Algebraic mode STO HMS1 or STO HM1->.

You can download the file here, extract and copy to the 50g using an SD card.

In RPN mode, execute from VAR by pressing appropriate softkey, or in Algebraic mode by EVAL(HMS1), where HMS1 is entered by pressing the appropriate softkey in the VAR.

Regards