HP Prime too complicated

[Jean-Baptiste Boric]

(07-16-2018 02:24 PM)Martin Hepperle Wrote:  As this interface would contain a single USB chip (e.g. Prolific or whatever), the firmware in the Prime would only need to be adapted to talk to this chip. Not a generic USB interface with drivers for lots of different USB chips.

Well, there's the TI-Innovator Hub...

On a much more serious note, there's a reason cheap, dedicated, MCU-based platforms are great at tinkering with GPIO/I2C/SPI/UART stuff. The NumWorks calculator happens to be somewhat better suited for this specific task than the HP Prime (I modded mine to expose UART/SWD/SPI pins of the STM32F4) because the platform's openness and tinker-friendly architecture at least makes this possible for an enthusiastic individual without actually requiring the manufacturer's cooperation or help.

However, just because I can mod my calculator into something it's not doesn't mean this would be a substitute for a proper, cheap MCU evaluation board. The STM32F429I-DISC1 evaluation board, which is the closest equivalent to a NumWorks architecture-wise, is €50 cheaper while still having a screen, better specs and a metric ton of I/O. If you prefer an easy-to-use platform then grab a PyBoard and program the thing in Python.

Why do people want to turn a calculator into an evaluation board or affix one to it (beyond the because I can mindset) if it'll make a really expensive, proprietary and lousy one overall? I'm not saying a calculator could not in theory be useful as an active part for experiments, but beyond very basic lab scenarios one would want the real deal anyways.