Science and Engineering Mathematics with the HP 49 G - Volume 1 (Gu)

Useful guide that is well organized, indexed and clearly written - clearly the best documentation out there for the high end HP's. But be prepared to work in RPL/RPN - the book doesn't deal with Alg mode at all.

This book's author clearly loves and respects HP graphing calculators. The book has what the hard copy manual and online documentation should have but don't: explanations that start at the beginning, which was important for me, because I have never before used a graphing calculator. I suspect the people who wrote the HP material assumed their audience consisted solely of people with some relevant experience. The reviewer who claims that you can find 99% of this material on HP's website is exaggerating, but even if he were strictly accurate, it wouldn't matter. The author provides the sentences that make everything clear.

The author uses RPN mode rather than the usual algebraic mode. The RPN mode is fine with me, but might be a problem for someone not used to it. I am using an HP 50g, which has some differences from the HP 49g, but not enough to damage the usefulness of this book. The book has a few typos, but no more than the first edition of any book of this kind. My only real complaint is that the binding is too cheap for a book that will regularly be propped open so that you can read it while you have your hands on the keyboard.

If you are a beginner with graphing calculators, I highly recommend this book. No one could reasonably ask for better. If you are an experienced user, maybe not. HP's online material may be enough.

One of the reviewers above gave a pretty negative review citing that this material was covered elsewhere in the hp user manuals and on hp's own site. That may be true. What the other reviewer failed to mention was the fact that HP includes a very stripped down version of the 800+ page actual manual and this book, and it's sister volume, are a godsend. The calculator is easy enough for most utility, but these manuals quickly help you get down to doing your required operations much more easily. I can't recommend these books enough, as I've found them extremely helpful in the TI dominated environment of my College. I've got the HP-50g btw, thought I should mention that, as these manuals instructions cover this calc well enough.

I was hoping for lots of new sample programs, and new or more complex examples than what is available in the offical HP manuals. However, almost everything in this book is copied from existing HP documentation and promotional material. Most of the examples are verbatim copies of the stuff already in the HP manuals. Very little in the way of new code, or even new examples of using the builtin utilities and commands. If you have access to the .pdf versions of HP's manuals and tutorials (available at the HP calculator web site), you'll have 99% of what these two books have.