Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

New High-End HP Calculator?

Posted by Hemos on from the graph-the-heck-out-of-it dept.

mschaef writes "There's a pretty convincing looking story over on hpcalc.org describing a new high-end HP calculator. The bottom line: 75MHz ARM9, USB Port, IrDA compatibility, 128x80 display, and a slot for SD cards. It also looks like the same basic software is running, either ported or via emulation of the venerable Saturn (HP-propriatary) CPU. The full story is over at HPcalc.org. It's good to see HP back in the game (hopefully) like this."

4 of 345 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Cheating in Exams? by Paddyish · · Score: 4, Informative
    That's likely a non-issue. The HP 48 series had IR capability, but the receiver's effective range was about 4 inches when taking signals from another HP 48. Definately not easy to cheat with.

    I'm betting this new calc has a similar design.

  2. Re:Cheating in Exams? by f13nd · · Score: 5, Informative

    i did something similar on my AP exams with my 48G+
    i had all my files and whatnot stored as libraries, and anyone with an HP calc knows that the libs don't clear when you pass the reset button over to the exam guard

    --
    www.necroticobsession.com
  3. TI and schools. by Andy+Dodd · · Score: 4, Informative

    TI calculators are dominant in schools.

    And that's all they're good for. They are piddly toys for students.

    The HP 48GX, despite being far older and slower than the TI-92, is dominant in engineering. At my company, there are two types of calculators people use: HP 48s and PCs running Matlab. I have NEVER seen an engineer here using a TI.

    Even in my high school, almost everyone who was planning on going into engineering disciplines bought an HP48. As to your comment, "And part of this is HP's fault -- when the TI-92 came out, a colleague of mine was at a math teachers' conference and asked HP if they had anything coming out that could compare with it, and their answer was a resigned "Nope"."

    Then why did at least two people I know in high school buy TI-92s, only to replace them one year later with the *significantly older* HP-48? The TI-92 sucked. It was a monstrosity that was DOA in the education market because it had a QWERTY keyboard and hence was not legal on any standardized tests. The HP48 was legal on most tests if you blocked its IR port, and most proctors didn't even bother checking that. (It was widely known that the 48's IR receiver was very weak and only good for calc-to-calc communications of 6" or so. There's an ongoing debate as to whether this was done for power savings or to keep the calc test legal.)

    --
    retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
  4. Never mind the Linux jibes... by BrokenHalo · · Score: 3, Informative
    I got rid of my HP48G+ two years ago mainly for the reason that it was just too damn slow. I loved the RPN-by-default entry, though, and I seriously loved the clackety keys and the big fat ENTER button on the middle-left-hand side of the keyboard. It was really the lack of the latter that led me to buy my Texas Instruments TI-89 instead of the HP49, since the TI can be made to accept RPN.

    If only HP had kept the HP48 keyboard layout on the HP49 I wouldn't have deserted. Seems the new model seems to be following the same pattern.