Introduction - HP -42S Manual

1 Introduction

Since HP-42S was a very nice calculator, and its official manual is no longer freely available and
there were many people looking for its manual, seemed good to me to write my own HP-42S manual.
I personally don't have a HP-42S (more than US$300 on ebay). I have a HP-33S and had a HP-48G,
but my brother has one and I also use Free42 simulator for PalmOS.
This manual will be of interest to people who:
a) Have a HP-42S calculator and lost its manual.
b) Got the Free42 simulator and want to know how to use it.
c) Have a palmtop with PalmOS and want a nice scientific calculator (get Free42)
d) Just want to have an idea how 42S was.
e) Have the official manual but don't want to read more than 300 pages!
Why HP-42S? Because it was a very, very nice calculator and also a powerful one. I know some other
HP models from the past and the present like 48G, 49G, 28S, 33S, 20S, 6S Solar, 15C, and even a TI-
36X Solar, etc, but 42S is my favorite. And because there is a free simulator (Free42) that works on
Palm OS, Windows and Linux and there are also some emulators (at the moment emulators are only
useful for who has a real calculator since HP-42S roms are not freely available). This calculator
played an unique position among HP calculators! Being a scientific programmable 100% RPN
calculator, it also had some graphing abilities but was pocketed sized and non RPL (some people as
me like RPN, but dislike RPL).
It is important to say that this manual is not complete and I don't want it to be. Two things I really
don't want to see here are PRINTING and HP-41 compatibility. This because I suppose most owners
don't have the printer (and it is not so useful) and also haven't had a HP-41 prior to HP-42S.
If you want to download the fantastic Thomas Okken Free42 program please go to this web site
http://home.planet.nl/~demun000/thomas_projects/free42/
In my opinion Free42 is even better than the real HP-42S. Try asin(acos(atan(tan(cos(sin(6°)))))).
For more information about HP-42S please see
http://www.hp42s.com http://www.hpmuseum.org/hp42s.htm
Here you can find emulators for HP-42S
http://www.geocities.com/hrastprogrammer/HP42X/index.htm
I would like to finish this introduction saying that it would be nice to have the HP-42S back to life
again and even better to have a model (both real and in simulator/emulator form) based on HP-42S
but with some of the 33S features like more memory, an equation editor, fractions, program lines
starting with letters, physical constants, units conversion, less useless functions, etc. And it also would
be nice to have HP-42S ROM images for free just like what happened to HP-48G and other models
and keeping PDF versions of the manuals of retired models to download would be nice too. Perhaps
someone will listen to me! ☺
A quick note on notation: throughout this manual, for the most part, keys that are to be pressed are
denoted by putting them in a box, e.g. ENTER, except when the keys are numbers or arithmetic
operators. Keys that are "2
orange with an orange box preceding it, e.g.
menus are generally denoted by shading in grey, such as in FCN.
http://privat.swol.de/ChristophGiesselink
nd
functions" denoted by orange lettering on the calculator are denoted in
ALPHA.. Functions that are accessed through the
(very nice)