and now for something completely different...

[Claudio L.]

(03-17-2015 01:45 PM)robert rozee Wrote:  what do folks think of the idea?

I think the processor has too little RAM and computing power to do anything new or creative (you can certainly write a basic calculator on it).

(03-17-2015 01:45 PM)robert rozee Wrote:  could it all be done in 60k of BASIC code?

It's 2015, you should try to start a project with a little more space, otherwise your project will be obsolete before you have it ready for release.

(03-17-2015 01:45 PM)robert rozee Wrote:  am hoping for some lively discussion!

Development boards like the Raspberry Pi, became very popular because there's a need for ready-made custom hardware for simple and complex home projects.
But a board is not good enough if you want hand-held hardware. For calculators, we need a keyboard and a screen, and for other uses we need some connectivity as well. Somebody will say "write an app for your phone", but who wants to run hobby projects on US$500 hardware? There has to be something less expensive.
If you are planning to start a hardware project, try to make it more "universal" and open so that other people can use it as a base for projects.
If you are thinking that this will be YOUR project, for your sole enjoyment and learning, then go ahead. Otherwise I'd suggest to find a more powerful MCU. If you like BASIC, you could always use Lua which is just as easy as BASIC, but more powerful, embeddable, expandable and a lot faster (check out the eLua project).
I did my fair share of PIC BASIC many years ago, and it's too limited (looks good on paper, but when you try to do anything serious, it lacks flexibility and speed).