Introduction & HP-50g printing issue

[Martin Hepperle]

John,

my view is that it would be the best solution to make a small dongle which attaches either to the serial or the USB port instead of modifying the hardware. This dongle could have its own power supply and therefore use a high power IR emitter.
Most people would probably not want to open their beloved calculators and a plug-in solution is also more versatile (a similar thingy had been developed for the HP49). For example a serial-IR/RedEye interface could also be used with other calculators like the HP 40, 49. It would also be worth to consider bidirectional communication using SIR/IrDA like the HP 48 did.

I do not think that such a device would be a big commercial success, but making the hard- and software available (maybe in kit form or preassembled) to enthusiasts would surely be a good idea.

Regards, Martin