Re: ARM-based 12c compared to the old one Message #9 Posted by sylvandb on 13 Mar 2011, 3:02 p.m., in response to message #8 by Thomas Radtke
Quote: While development costs might be rather low, that thing has to be produced and sold ;-). Imagine a 15C between all those calculators with graphical displays and lots of RAM. Only few will buy, since the strengths of the 15C cannot be marketed easily.
I can't imagine a new 15c being sold at retail. Very few HP calcs are sold at retail and as you point out, the 15C would not compare well.
Internet sales should be very inexpensive.
As for production costs, has anyone tried the 15c firmware replacing the 12c firmware component in the current emulated 12c?
If the display is sufficient, and the emulator is sufficient or could be fixed, then incremental production costs for the 15c over the 12c calculator are limited to a different paint job on the keys and a different firmware load. Conceivably even the firmware load could be done post-manufacture if this is a small scale effort.
If no packaging and manual are needed it seems that financing the cost of a small production run would be well within the means of many of the HP calculator hobbyists. (With legal permission from HP, of course.) HP would have no means to deal with a small production run like that, but for an individual or small group selling via the internet then the missing "commercial" package and documentation seem reasonable.
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