An Alternative 45s Concept
Message #1 Posted by Jeff O. on 21 Oct 2007, 10:09 p.m.
Like many others, I found Gene and Jake's vision for a 45s to be exceptional. However, as I understand, it was based on fitting everything inside a pioneer-sized case. As such, it would require HP to basically start from scratch at this point, since the pioneer series is long gone from the perspective of current manufacturing capability. I believe they began their effort prior to the 35s being released, so basing their design on a pioneer made perfect sense, as there was no current model worth using as a basis prior to the 35s. The 35s does a lot of things right, so Gene and Jake's effort inspired me to see what might be possible using the 35s as a starting point. Borrowing heavily from their design, and also from the 35s and of course the 42s, my vision for a 45s would look a lot like this:
The above fits in the 35s case. Originally, like G&J, I proposed using the current 48gii display. However, due to concerns expressed in subsequent messages regarding LCD size and lack of a label and logo, I changed the display to a 48 x 131 array. This is basically an expanded version of the 45s display that would allow the soft menus plus X, Y, Z, T and Last X to always be displayed. (I think the screen could look better than the above depiction in an actual implementation, but that's the best I could create.)
Most functions and labels are self-explanatory. I would propose that I/O be only by SD, or even better, micro-SD card. I would not propose the use of IR, so I dispensed with the PRINT menu. I replaced it with an OUTPUT menu, which would basically provide all of the functions of the PRINT menu, but would output to files on the SD card. The FILER menu would take care of uploading and downloading programs onto the card. The ->P function would have two functions: 1) with real numbers in the X and Y registers representing real and imaginary parts of a complex number, it would transform them into magnitude and angle, still in the X and Y registers; 2) with a complex number in the X register, it would break it into the magnitude and angle of the polar representation, placing those values in the X and Y registers. The ->R function would perform similarly. R->C would take real and imaginary components in the X and Y registers and form a complex number in X register. P->C would take magnitude and angle in the X and Y and convert them to a complex number.
With the original large display, the only thing I couldn't fit on the keyboard was an "HP 45s" label or the HP logo. The new smaller display allows for these.
To me, the above looks like something HP could produce, if they wanted to. I have no idea if they do, but they are free to use any and all concepts I have presented :-)
Pal G., I'd love to see this one rendered in 3D.
Jeff
edited to present a new design with a smaller LCD screen size to address concerns raised by Gene and Eric below.
Edited: 26 Oct 2007, 12:17 p.m. after one or more responses were posted
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