17Bii+ is non-Saturn '8502' CPU ; 10Bii is Hitachi H8 - code quality ?? Message #4 Posted by Bill Wiese on 20 Sept 2004, 12:33 p.m., in response to message #3 by Ron Ross
Ron Ross wrote:
Quote: ....a good sign. Actually the 17Bii+ could easily
be reshaped into an Hp42s+ also. And since it has long variable names and as such, never allowed by the NCEES, toss in a USB serial port as well (and units conversions while your at it, and you can drop the IR). I'd buy a couple if the keyboard quality is there.
Perhaps. USB unlikely w/chips this low cost. The USB core & I/O drivers alone may take much more chip area than the little 6502-compatible CPU core + registers. Could double or triple price of chip. +5V serial easier, more generic.
HP lists the 17Bii+ as having an '8502' CPU, same as 33S.
(I think this refers to a broad category of newer 65C02s incl. the Sunplus microcontrollers.)
The odd man out is the new-format HP10Bii. It uses an Hitachi H8 CPU, which is a pretty capable little engine.
This calc may well have come down a different evolutionary tree than the Kinpo stuff.
I wonder if the 17Bii+ is running an emulation layer on top of the 6502-compatible CPU, or if they've rewritten the 17Bii+ code a la the 32S (Saturn) vs new 33S.
Rewrites always include bugs. Emulation is much better: any screwups in emulation layer often effect multiple parts of emulated firmware, making these bugs easier to find early. This does not overrule problems in I/O escape layers but if emulated the calculations should come out identical to Saturn 17BII.
BTW, has anyone compared answers btwn orig HP10B (Saturn) and the newer-style 10Bii (H8 CPU)?? Esp interesting would be TVM use of solver...
Bill Wiese
San Jose
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