[marssaxman]

A single-pass compiler is easier to implement in part because you're not going to do any of that optimization. You're writing a single-pass compiler either because you're banging out a quick sketch of an idea, and you don't care about production use, or because you've time-traveled back to the '70s or the '80s, where processors were so painfully slow and memory so eye-wateringly expensive that you might not even be able to read the entire source file into RAM at once, much less convert it all into some intermediate representation before starting to write out the machine code.

[dlcarrier]

I used to write software on my HP calculator, when I was bored in classes, before smartphones existed. It used a tokenized language called RPL, and the editor would read and parse just enough tokens to fill up the screen.

I miss how fast it was, compared to modern computers. VS Code is much laggier in comparison.

[ConceptJunkie]

I used to dream about owning a programmable calculator in the late 70s/early 80s, but by 1980 we had Apple ][s in my high school and in 1982, I was able to use the PCs in college, first programming in BASIC and later Turbo Pascal, which was the best PC development tool in the 1980s. Most of my classes were in Pascal. My first job was in C++ and I was doing C++ by 1993 and still am.

Now I write Python for fun.

[dlcarrier]

Have you tried Lazarus (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lazarus_%28software%29, https://www.lazarus-ide.org/)? When doing something for the fun of it, I would much rather work with Pascal than Python. Both languages were developed to be quick and dirty, but I feel like Pascal is more on the quick side, and Python is more on the dirty side.

[fuzztester]

Which model of HP calculator?

And what kinds of programs could you write with it?

[dlcarrier]

I had a 48S then a 49g+. I played around with a few games and a Magic Eye style (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Random_dot_stereogram) 3D image generator, as well as programs to do actual math in my math classes. The math teachers teachers at my high school had a policy that, on exams, students could run any program they wrote, so I wrote programs to do the math and "show my work". Solving equations on paper was half of the grade, and getting the correct answer was the other half, but my handwriting is really bad, so I'd always get the wrong answer if I did it by hand.

HP's calculators are pretty capable, with built-in commands for image processing, so RPL programs could rival the capabilities of assembly language programs on TI-8x calculators.

[fuzztester]

Thanks for the reply.

I had asked because I was thinking of getting some small device like a PDA or programmable calculator, to use to write small programs for fun and possibly actual use, when I'm not with my laptop.

I am not sure if any PDAs or such calculators are still made these days. I have googled some, but so far did not find any, IIRC. So I may have to buy a used calculator or PDA, if I can find a model I like.

I used to have 2 different Palm PDA models earlier, first a V and then a Zire, but I never did any programming with them, although I do remember trying to use Pippy, a Python 2.x version ported to the Palm. But it used to crash all the time, so I could not really do any programming on it, unfortunately.

[dlcarrier]

HP 's graphing calculators are the best, but they can be very expensive.

Every major calculator manufacturer makes modern back-lit full-color graphing calculators, like HP's Prime, TI's Nspire, and Casio's ClassWiz, but they don't have the charm of reflective LCDs.

The best bang for your buck is probably a Casio FX 7400, 9750 or 9860 GIII series, which have Python interpreters. If you want something more fun, albeit only programmable in BASIC, Casio's CFX have an oddball color display that doesn't use subpixels. (See this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jLew3Dd3IBA)

[fuzztester]

Thanks again. I will check out those options and links.