The actuel Prime future...

[debrouxl]

Third-party calculator projects based on purely custom hardware raised users' hopes, but the fact is that all such projects made over the years were always canceled early in the development cycle. One such project, on yAronet, raised my hopes when I was a newbie, but then I found that we still had many things to discover about existing calculators.

AFAICT in the communities I've attended for more than a decade, the only projects which ever got off the ground are the more pragmatic projects of modifying existing calculator hardware and/or software. The HP community has several projects of that kind, and there's also the recent ArithMax E301 from cnCalc (also mentioned on TI-Planet).
The ArithMax E301 replaces the main PCB of a low-end Casio calculator clone with newer, more powerful components, but keeps the casing, screen and keyboard. Even though they're extremely limited by modern standards - even cheap smartphones are ludicrously more powerful - the ArithMax E301's hardware specs are far better than those of the vast majority of calculator models from the well-known manufacturers, sold by millions...

But sadly, there's no way such third-party calculators, designed to be powerful and versatile, would get accepted in the silly standardized exam tests regulated by stupid people... and as such, they can only appeal to a minority of users.