126 Section 9: Branching and LoopingLooping

If a i instruction specifies a lower-numbered line in program memory, the instructions in the program lines between the specified line and the iinstruction will be executed repeatedly. As can be seen in the illustration above under Simple Branching, once the program begins executing the “loop” it will execute it again and again.

If you want to terminate the execution of a loop, you can include a go or gm instruction (described below) or an t instruction within the loop. You can also terminate execution by pressing any key while the loop is being executed.

Example: The following program automatically amortizes the payments on a home mortgage without requiring you to press f! for each payment. It will amortize one month’s payments each time or one year’s payments each time the loop is executed, depending on whether the number 1 or 12 is in the display when you start running the program. Before running the program, we’ll “initialize” it by storing the required data in the financial registers — just as we would do if we were amortizing a single payment manually. We’ll run the program for a $150,000 mortgage at 4.75% for 30 years, and we’ll key 1 into the display just before running it in order to amortize monthly payments. For the first two “passes” through the loop we’ll execute the program one line at a time, using Ç, so that we can see the looping occurring; then we’ll use tto execute the entire loop a third time before terminating execution.

Keystrokes

Display

 

 

fs

 

 

Sets calculator to Program mode.

fCLEARÎ

000,

 

Clears program memory

?0

001,

44

0 Stores the number from the display

 

 

 

into register R0. This number will be

 

 

 

the number of payments to be

 

 

 

amortized.

:0

002,

45

0 Recalls the number of payments to

 

 

 

be amortized. This program line is

 

 

 

the one to which program

execution will later branch. It is included because after the first time the loop is executed, the number in the “display”* is replaced by the result of f!.

*More precisely, the number in the X-register.

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Printed Date: 2005/8/1

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