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Installing Hypatia, Opening Hypatia for the First Time, Updates.
Hypatia is a stand-alone program that consists of one executable file, hy.exe. Hypatia is fully portable, and does not touch the Windows registry.
The download file hypatia.zip contains hy.exe, the file readme.txt, two PDF files (the manual and the quick reference guide), the folder \source with the source code files, and the folder \html with the html manual.
Create an empty folder, and unpack hypatia.zip into it.
Delete or just ignore the \source folder unless you are interested in the source code.
You can move readme.txt and the two PDF files to wherever you want them.
You can move the \html folder to wherever you want it.
Create a link to hy.exe on the desktop. In your file manager right-click hy.exe, go to "Send to", click "Desktop (create shortcut)", and then rename the icon "Hypatia".
Optional: right-click the icon, and in "Properties - Shortcut" you can define a key combination with which you can start Hypatia.
(In Windows 10 you could set properties like console windows size, font, colors etc. To be able to do this in Windows 11, you first need to change the Windows Terminal to a CMD Window. Here, though, is not the place to discuss how this is done.)
Optional: create a link to \html\index.htm on the desktop.
Optional: add the folder with hy.exe to the system path. This allows you to run Hypatia by entering hy at the system prompt, wherever you are.
When you run Hypatia for the first time, you get a message on your screen that starts with ...
Hypatia RPN Calculator 4.21
hy.ini file not found
hy.ini file created in program folder - you can edit it according to your needs
... and ends with ...
= 0
?
The line = 0 is the most recent result -- it is always zero when the program starts. (The last result from a previous session is still preserved, but about that, another time.)
The line ? (question mark followed by a space) is Hypatia's input prompt. It means, you have to type something, and press the Enter key.
If you already know how to use Hypatia you can start doing it. If not, it is best to quit the program for now.
You can quit Hypatia by entering Q or QUIT or EXIT. You can also close the console window -- Hypatia never keeps files open, so this is always safe to do.
Keep checking hypatia-rpn.net for updates.
When a newer version of Hypatia exists, download the zip file, replace the file hy.exe, replace the readme.txt and the pdf documentartion files, and replace the source and html folders (do not overwrite them, because some files may have become obsolete and been deleted).
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