RPN

*Reverse Polish Notation *

Reverse Polish Notation is a format used by Hewlett Packard for a long time now, is has and still is a strong selling point of the HP range.

The easiest way to explain how RPN works is by understanding the proccess.

Eg.

The method of RPN can be likened to how we do math on paper.

100 (enter)[RPN:\%3c\%3c]
100 [RPN:\%3c\%3c]
— + - / *

if you look carefully at the above you can read the order of operations as you read down the table. 100 is typed in, (enter is keyed in so that you can seperate the two numbers) another 100 is typed in and then the operator.

It takes awile to get used to this method of working, but the rewards are returned in terms of speed and efficency.

Links

RPN at Wikipedia

• http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reverse_Polish_Notation