[HP-41] Today is Clonix-41's X Anniversary... :-)

[Diego Diaz]

Hi "bhtooefr",

And thanks for your interest. I'm actively seeking for suitable uC which can cope with as many features a possible. Regrettably, the requirements of the HP-41 system in terms of operation voltage, timing, serial interfacing, word size, physical footprint, etc. makes a difficult task out of it.

Regarding the TI MPS430 uC series, it lacks enough FRAM (max 64K) since they don't have flash. Note that a NoV-64 currently has 64Kbyte Flash ROM + 128Kbyte FRAM. It (MPS430) also have a working voltage of 3.6v max, which means some sort of level shifters are required and the total area inside a module shell is less than half a square inch...

The USB itself is not a big deal. Last year's project, USB-41 interface module, actually handles it by means of an USB<>serial converter and it's enough since HP-41s needs neither a high speed or data volume for its transfers. I'm confident in having the page transfer software for this module working before the summer... but I'm a very poor OO programmer.... :-(

Massimo!

Nice to read from you; and yes, as astronomers do know well "eveywhere you look at, you're looking at the past". But even from a non-astronomical point of view "Tempus fugit" (like your ancestors -and probably mine too- used to say... :-)

Sincerely hope you have a good and healthy end of 2013.

Best wishes.

Diego.