HP "calculators" (was Re: World's first computer on ebay!)

[Chuck Guzis]

On 14 Apr 2007 at 14:32, Fred Cisin wrote:

> So, apparently it is parsing it as x = (Y==7);
> 
> 
> An alternative to LET is to have different symbols for assignment v
> comparison.   == , .EQ. etc

Being an old FORTRAN hacker, I have a weakness for .EQ. .NE. .GT. 
.GE. .LT. .LE.  No special characters; no digraphs to remember--and 
no confusion with the assignment operator.    Same for .OR. .AND. 
.NOT.  Some FORTRANs doubled the application of the latter for binary 
arithmetic and added .XOR., .SHL. and .SHR.  (shift left, shift 
right).   

There's something to be said for small character sets.

Cheers,
Chuck