HP Forum Archive 09

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New Calc market Survey Message #1 Posted by Dave on 18 Sept 2002, 10:04 a.m. Yesterday I posted a request to email me if your interested in purchasing a new calculator design. I received 2 responses and am reposting to see if more interest lies out in this forum. I will expand my search to other sites shortly. Just wanted to begin here. I would like to see how many people are interested (market size) and possibly spec out a list of desired features. Thanks Dave

Re: New Calc market Survey Message #2 Posted by Pascal on 18 Sept 2002, 12:44 p.m., in response to message #1 by Dave First question is: do you want to design a calculator or a high-tech handheld computing device? The former may make sense while the latter doesn't. There are far too many PDAs & Co out there on the market. So, here's my wishlist: - Very portable and robust design, i.e. Voyager-like. - Very low battery usage, again like the Voyager series. - Two line LCD dot matrix display with around 30 digits/line. - Multiple data types: True integer, high (i.e. 30 digit) precision real and complex, matrices and strings, like the 49G/42S. - Switchable between RPN and ALG mode (default: RPN :-) ) - Keystroke programmable for those beloved quick'n dirty programs. - Inductive I/O interface for fast data exchange without draining the batteries and without (corroding) contacts. - Enough RAM (without exaggerating it) To complement that, PC/MAC software should be available to do offline program development for the calc using a cross compiler. Advantage: outperforms keystroke programming for larger applications, resulting code is quicker than keystroke user programs. And less instructions mean a longer battery life :-) ...what a dream! Pascal

Re: New Calc market Survey Message #3 Posted by Christof (Davis, CA) on 18 Sept 2002, 1:16 p.m., in response to message #2 by Pascal If I can just respond directly to this instead, thoguh it's a repeat of parts of my email. I'm pretty much in agreement - and I don't much care whether it look more like a 15C or a 42S (though I the 42S is easier to use in when held in the hand than the voyager) I longer lcd is in interesting effect, though. It hink I'd trade having more of the stack visible for the extra 16 digits of display I'm not sure that it's any easier to build in a "modest but useful" amount of ram than it is to incorporate multi megabyte CF cards. and 2 flash cards in the case (like 41 ports) would make for some really nice "mothership free" backups and data sharing. (flash cards are also OTS technology, far cheaper than the hp48 single platform equivalents, and the interface opens itself up to surverying and lab equipment modules eventually.)

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