Pragmatics of a polyphonic calculator (chapter 2)

[Joseph_21sv]

(03-13-2016 06:58 AM)Garth Wilson Wrote:  

(03-13-2016 02:17 AM)Joseph_21sv Wrote:  Is it OK with most of you that my list of minimum requirements assumes the calcuator side of the device to support either algebraic or RPN entry or should I have specified that verbally?

I'm sure most here, being on an HP forum, prefer RPN. I didn't start out in the RPN camp, but I've been there for the last 30 years now. If you want your little machine to do both (which you seem to be saying), go ahead. It sounds like two selectable calcs in the same package, having very little (if any) impact on the hardware cost, although there will be more software development time.

I mean to say either one or the other of the two, I just wanted to do a sanity check of my "grocery list" of the least that would be accepted as "not just a glorified toy". Besides, it feels clumsy to me to have them implemented as opposed system-level operating modes on the same calculator because each uses a feature the other does not need (RPN does not need brackets, DAL/AOS does not need an external stack). That is, it would have been less clumsy for HP to implement the 20b/30b, for example, as separate Algebraic (with or "without" precedence) and 'Polish' (forward/reverse) models.
As for the "grocery list" itself, it is by no means to be taken as all anyone here desires because:
894.886 kHz is a fairly low clock frequency for a modern calculator
32x24 pixels is a very low resolution and monochrome is a very shallow color palette
This forum is mostly concerned with scientific and business-financial calculators which are not merely entry-level
Advanced programmers eventually discovered ways to make even a programmable interval timer simulate sample playback (MSX engineers have even made a plain AY-3-89xx PSG simulate CD-frequency PCM sample playback) and they even created AM synthesis effects collaterally when they did this simulation by certain techniques