Interesting prototyping approach

[BobVA]

That is pretty cool looking. Kind of reminds me of the Tandy Model 100/102, but pity it doesn't have the nice, full-travel mechanical keyboard of that classic.

Their keyboard is a clever design. But, for a calculator with a high density of keys, I'm not sure how much of an improvement it would be over surface mount tactile switches (e.g. NP-25/41)? Do you think their model would scale down in size (i.e. smaller buttons) without an undue increase in actuation pressure? Maybe with a thinner top layer? It would be interesting for a simpler/larger calculator design, though.

OT: I've used the MicroMite microcontroller (PIC32 family) / MMBasic in a couple of little projects. It's got a very complete set of I/O interfaces with direct support for I2C, SPI, serial, 1-Wire, PWM, servos, LCD displays, etc. and is reasonably fast. I hope a lot of that carries over into this project.

I've thought about putting a MicroMite into either a Tandy 102 or WP-2 as a "coprocessor" for improved BASIC and prototyping support. I think it would be reasonably straightforward as the MM works fine with a serial terminal, and let's you set a lot of parameters.


Bob