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RPN Calculator

by John Kopplin

Copyright © 2002-05

Welcome to RPNCalc, a Windows program that simulates a programmable Reverse Polish Notation calculator such as those sold in the 1970's by Hewlett-Packard. You may find this calculator useful for balancing your checkbook, computing the amount of lumber you will need to make a deck, etc., but I wrote it in order to teach programming to beginners.

I use the RPN calculator to demonstrate fundamental programming concepts such as program memory, data memory, looping, single-stepping, subroutines, etc. When you have finished learning about the RPN calculator you will be ready for the next component of my curriculum, which is a simulation of Intel's 8051 microprocessor that I use to teach assembly language programming. And the final section of my curriculum introduces you to Windows programs and the king of programming languages, C++.

The help page that you are now viewing is merely the first of an extensive set of help pages that together represent a self-study guide that should allow you to learn to program on your own, at your own pace. To use these help pages as a self-study guide simply read them in the order they are listed on the Table Of Contents page. There is a hyperlink at the top and bottom of each page labeled "Next" which will take you to the next page in the order I intended. You will also see a page number in the upper right hand corner of each page to help you keep track of your progress. Of course I have also provided a keyword index and lots of other hyperlinks to help you navigate directly to particular topics. You can leave this help page window open while you interact with the calculator (and you probably want to make it bigger than its default size).

You have probably seen a Help system like this one already. It is built upon Microsoft's standard HTML Help technology. In the left-hand pane you can observe 4 tabs labeled Contents, Index, Search, and Favorites. The Contents tab simulates a book's table of contents while the Index tab simulates a book's index. The Search tab offers the feature that books would kill for. The Favorites tab is where you can record bookmarks on your favorite pages. These bookmarks make it easy to return to these spots later. One good use for a bookmark is to record the spot where you break from your studies so you can resume there later.

The home page for all of my software is www.computersciencelab.com For questions, you can reach me at support@computersciencelab.com. Enjoy!


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