Implementing a browser that can handle compliant pages is actually pretty easy. Sure, implementing HTML+JS+CSS would take a long time compared to just XHTML, but it still wouldn't take several years with several people working on it.
What makes implementing a browser hard is handling the errors that exist on most pages. Practically every automated web design tool spits out non-compliant pages, and most existing sites prioritize IE compatibility over standards compliance. No browser will be useful in the real world if it can't handle the most common errors.
Re:I were one of the cracking groups...
on
AACS Cracked Again
·
· Score: 1
What he was suggesting was to find several cracks, then start releasing them one by one, and in the meantime, try to find broader cracks. That keeps the industry on the defensive, and gives the crackers time to try to do more before things get patched. Unfortunately, enough crackers are after fame that that strategy would never work.
I'm not sure how 30kg compares to what the average adult can do, but any decent rock climber can do a lot more than that. I've known quite a few people who can do things like one-fingered pull-ups on a campus board, something most slashdotters can only dream about.
I don't think the thumbpad/button split was all that revolutionary. Arcade games and the like have had joysticks for one hand, and button clusters for the other hand. Putting it into a handheld form factor is not earth-shattering. The Wiimote, on the other hand, adds so many extra dimensions that it will take years for developers to refine their control schemes. People are not good at incorporating another dimension of movement or rotation into their thinking. We are jumping from a 2-stick, 2-throttle/trigger scheme to a 1 or two gyro scheme. Where the old controlers (Xbox, gamecube, etc.) had at most 6 analog degrees of freedom, the Wiimote alone has that many, and the nunchuk adds another 6 plus two in the analog stick. It will take a long time before games take full advantage of those gyros.
I think we will see quite a few FPS style games ported but with bad control schemes before developers get used to a different way of thinking. At the very least, the differences between the Wii and the 360/PS3 versions of games will keep getting larger, and fewer games will be ported across control schemes. The cross-platform franchises will probably split so that studios don't have to keep trying to make the Wii and 360/PS3 games comparable.
Do you have any evdience? The world you describe sounds plausible, except that it assumes that Nintendo cares about media buzz more than profits. In the real world, it is Nintendo that cares about profits, and Microsoft and Sony that care about media buzz. Note that Nintendo is earning a profit and getting media buzz, but MS and Sony are only getting media buzz (and a lot of that buzz is negative, too). I don't think Nintendo needs to be playing with supply in order to boost their long-term profitability.
In fact, I don't see how an artificial shortage could help Nintendo at all at this point. They are already guarenteed at least some (positive) buzz from the geriatric market, so the Wii is not in danger of disappearing below the radar. Right now, the Wii needs to build up a large installed base so that third party developers will take it more seriously and actually make games that are well suited to the Wii.
The problem is that integration requires effective multi-tasking. I need to be able to talk over the phone (with a headset, of course) while writing down notes or checking the calendar. Current smartphones don't do that well, because they still try to be as small as a flip-phone. Computers have massive screens to work with, and GUIs that accomodate running dozens of programs at once. What I want is a decently large PDA, with a screen at least as large as something like the T|X, but also a cellular radio built in so that I can use a bluetooth headset. I will not invest in a pda that is designed to have my ear touching the screen more than the stylus. The iPhone looks promising, except that I think it is probably too big to use as a handset. And, of course, I prefer my pda functionality to be pretty much like PalmOS3 (including the old graffiti).
Yes, but Palm OS 5 is not the latest Palm OS. Cobalt is, but it was stillborn. Either way, Palm is better off with Linux, if only because that leaves them less work to do to support various hardware.
That article has a lot of good information. Apparently, Palm's gotten the right to modify the PalmOS 5 codebase in order to make it run on top of linux. This means that they have created a direct competitor to the Linux platform put together by the current owners of PalmOS. It also mentions that Palm will not be allowing third parties to use their OS. That could backfire, or it could help them a lot. They did the opposite with their first OS, and it led to a lot of innovation.
Re:Are we going to be able to see the source code?
on
Palm to go Linux
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· Score: 1
My mistake. The GPL puts a legal obligation for them to release modifications. The BSD license gives them the option to keep their changes to themselves, but their customers probably wouldn't be too happy with that. They are obviously trying to impress geeks by using open-source software, and that strategy can only succeed if they release the modified source.
Re:For me, Palm died when PalmOS went away
on
Palm to go Linux
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· Score: 3, Informative
Palm is still mostly a PalmOS shop. They only introduced the first Windows Mobile smartphone (the 700w) in September 2005, and only two more windows models since then. All the PalmOS based products still support even the old 68k apps. It is hard to tell if the new Linux platform will support PalmOS apps, because Palm doesn't own PalmOS. However, if Palm, Inc. uses anything similar to the Access Linux Platform (developed by the owners of PalmOS), there will be GTK+ compatibility, which should satisfy quite a few hobbyists.
If Palm were using ALP, then it would support HotSync and SyncML. Palm would be shooting themselves in the foot if their solution were not at least as interoperable as ALP.
Re:Are we going to be able to see the source code?
on
Palm to go Linux
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
You have severely underestimated the GPL. I suggest you go read it. The GPL is not that dense. But to answer the question at hand, yes, all customers will have access to the source code for the GPL portions (which will be the bulk of the OS). All customers will have the right to re-distribute and modify that code. That is the price Palm pays for using Free software.
Given Palm's history of being developer friendly, it will probably be possible to flash the PDAs with custom ROMs with all proprietary code stripped. Depending on the exact terms, it may even be possible to create a custom ROM with proprietary backwards compatibility code included.
Article has no information
on
Palm to go Linux
·
· Score: 5, Informative
TFA it somewhat ambiguous. It is hard to tell whether Palm, inc. announced that they are going to release a pda based on the Access Linux platform, or if they have gotten back into the software business and developed their own platform.
For those who don't know, several years ago Palm split into PalmOne, the hardware side, and PalmSource, the OS developers. Since then, PalmSource has been bought by Access Ltd, and PalmOne has renamed themselves Palm, Inc. PalmSource's PalmOS 6, aka "Cobalt", was never used in a production PDA. After PalmSource was bought by Access, it was announced that future PalmOS releases would be based on Linux, with binary compatibility for previous PalmOS apps.
Unfortunately, Palm, Inc.'s website doesn't mention anything about Linux in either the press release section or the Developer section. And Access released the Access Linux Platform 1.0 two months ago. TFA does say that Palm, Inc. will once again have control over their own OS. This seems to indicate that they have spurned the ALP. If that is the case, one has to wonder how they will offer backwards compatibility, given that the PalmOS IP is owned by Access. Perhaps the permanent license they acquired gives Palm the right to do this kind of thing.
On the other hand, I don't see how they would have any less control if they just used ALP, given that most of it is GPL, and the rest is the same backwards compatibility code that they will need anyways.
If Cyan had the money, you can bet that they would want to port Uru (flash warning) to the Wii. The control scheme of the Wii is ideal for their games, and the Plasma engine would not be hindered by the speed of the Wii's processors. However, it has been a long time since Cyan's games were meant to be played at 640x480.
Come to think about it, I might go buy a wiimote just to use with my pc for Uru. Yay for bluetooth!
I'd say that HP is the only company to take advantage of newer technology. Most of TI's graphing calcs still use Z80s, and the high end uses 68k. All of HP's current graphing calculators use Samsung SoCs with an ARM9 core that goes up to 200MHz. HP has started to take advantage of the integrated peripherals by adding the SD slot (enabling me to store the complete documentation for every app and the calc itself on a 1Gb card) and USB. Hp has also left the device open to hacking, so it can be programmed in C and ARM native code to use other features, such as the display controller's support for grayscale. The only thing keeping Linux off these machines is the lack of RAM (HP still uses SRAM). On the software side, HPs can do 3d graphing quickly enough that it is sometimes worth using. The same cannot be said about the TI89.
Also, it is worth noting that the top of the line HP graphing calculator, the 50g, can be had for under $130 US. That is quite affordable compared to calculators from 15 years ago.
You have yet to explain how GPU Scheduling and WPF and GPU RAM virtualization are end user features! A back end technology is by definition not an end user feature. Only programmers are able to directly use WPF to accomplish something, because it is an API. To an end user, APIs are completely intangible. The things done with those APIs are what count for end users. And Vista is coming up short on new features with an immediate, tangible benefit to users.
The standard Tile/Cascade/Show Desktop functionality introduced in Win95 is a necessary feature for pretty much any window manager that organizes windows into a taskbar like area. It is not new, and nobody is claiming that they are new. What is new in vista is the Flip3d effect, and Microsoft is making a big deal if it. Too big, actually, since I have seen many computer advertisements showing the Flip3d effect on computers that cannot handle Aero. I personally think that flip3d is also rather inefficient compared to the tiling of expose, because expose makes better use of the screen area by showing all of every window at once, making it easier to identify similar windows. Also, you are dead wrong about live previews. Expose shows live previews even for movies and 3d games. In other words, there is nothing new or improved about flip3d.
You come very close to being right about the sidebar. Windows has had Active Desktop for years. Konfabulator came along and improved on it some, especially in the eye candy department. Then Apple ripped off Konfabulator as Dashboard, and made it popular. Then Microsoft redesigns their already working Active Desktop just so that it can look more like Konfabulator/Dashboard. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, but it isn't innovation.
As for scalable icons, I call BS. Show me some proof that Windows 95 had scalable icons. I'm pretty sure Vista is the first MS operating system that can display icons at multiple sizes without horrible scaling artifacts. If previous versions had been capable of this, MS wouldn't have waited until now to tout that feature.
As for InkCanvas, I'm well aware that Win3.1 had tablet apis. They have never mattered. Yes, Microsoft is almost entirely responsible for the availability of tabletpcs on the mass market. I've used tabletpcs. I know that they are not as usable as microsoft would have you think. I'm also surprised by the way that MS is promoting their tablet features. They are almost into trademark infringement territory with their nomenclature. OS X 10.2 (also released in 2002,btw) added Inkwell, aka Ink. i would argue that this is old stuff that neither Apple nor MS has gotten right yet, but MS has been failing at it a lot longer.
Also, you obviously have no clue what GoBack is. It is not TimeMachine from the forthcoming OS X 10.5. GoBack is a windows app that predates System Restore. I remember using it on Win9x machines. Over the years, it has been owned by WildFile, Adaptec, Roxio, and Symantec. System Restore was an obvious beginning to the embrace, extend, extinguish cycle, and Shadow Folders is intended to be the completion.
The point I have been trying to make is that all of Vista's selling points are essentially moot, because they are not new features. Your responses have amounted to saying things that are trivially proven false, and pointing out that Microsoft is not the only company that tries to sell old things as new. Neither of those tactics can produce a reasonable counter-argument. Don't reply to this until you have actually read my comment, and you can demonstrate that vista has a genuinely new feature for normal users.
The not so sad truth is, no matter what happens, the world will eventually start throwing large sums of money at the people who can use an HP calculator, because they will be the only ones capable of keeping modern society (Internet, bridges and skyscrapers, airplanes, etc.) from falling apart.
The 50g is anything but a fisher price calculator. I have a [dead] 48gII and a 50g, and the improvement in quality is (obviously) like night and day. I do believe they are done with the crappy keyboards of recent years.
Also, they never stopped making quality business calculators. The 12c has been on the market continuously for more than 25 years.
It wouldn't be the TI calculators that do the brainwashing. They aren't that bad. The real problem is that public schools do not encourage the development of critical thinking skills, and thus do not enable students to question their teacher's stupidity. That also happens to make most high-school grads incapable of becoming engineers. These days, the unlearning of bad things and the learning of simple things (like handling units) take up so much time in college that many students never catch up enough to really learn anything.
Of course, those who do manage to get an "engineering" degree are pathetically dependent on their TIs as a crutch. (something I've never seen happen to an hp user...)
They have introduced several new models since closing the ACO. They have a pretty small staff right now, but they are producing. Manufacturing is handled by Kinpo, and R&D is handled by Cyrille de Brebisson. Bernard Parisse, author of the 49 series CAS, is no longer an employee but he is still developing new software, such as a recent geometry app for the 49/50 series. And many of the other former ACO employees are still active on comp.sys.hp48.
Apple is also almost single-handedly responsible for the fact that computers are no longer beige.
Which only matters if you're the kind of person who knows where the cover and drive bay faceplates for your chassis are. I know where mine are: the attic. Same with the side panel. The way my furniture is set up right now, my old computer (the one I tinker with most) actually fits better with the bulging side panel off. And, it makes it much easier to swap drives and expansion cards.
I didn't really mean to say that the switch away from beige was all that great. I couldn't care less. But it still was a big accomplishment for Jonathan Ive and Apple.
They won't re-issue the 41. There would not be enough of a market for the expanability. Here's to hoping they release a beefed up 42 with IR and/or USB. Or a 15c. I don't really care, as I would buy both in a heartbeat.
FYI, the 42s was essentially the 41cv sans expansion slots, but with a 2 line dot matrix lcd and a much thinner package.
...because every school across the country seemingly pushes TI use in school, I didn't think people used anything else. I don't see how one implies the other. What engineer would take a high school teacher's calculator recommendation at face value? Public schools use TIs because TI markets to the teachers. Ten years ago, all engineers used HPs because HP marketed to engineers and professionals. Then Carly Fiorina took over and killed the HP calculator business for a few years. But they are now back in the game and developing new models that are once again very good products. If you can be bothered to learn RPN, you will never buy TI for yourself again.
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Implementing a browser that can handle compliant pages is actually pretty easy. Sure, implementing HTML+JS+CSS would take a long time compared to just XHTML, but it still wouldn't take several years with several people working on it.
What makes implementing a browser hard is handling the errors that exist on most pages. Practically every automated web design tool spits out non-compliant pages, and most existing sites prioritize IE compatibility over standards compliance. No browser will be useful in the real world if it can't handle the most common errors.
What he was suggesting was to find several cracks, then start releasing them one by one, and in the meantime, try to find broader cracks. That keeps the industry on the defensive, and gives the crackers time to try to do more before things get patched. Unfortunately, enough crackers are after fame that that strategy would never work.
I'm not sure how 30kg compares to what the average adult can do, but any decent rock climber can do a lot more than that. I've known quite a few people who can do things like one-fingered pull-ups on a campus board, something most slashdotters can only dream about.
I don't think the thumbpad/button split was all that revolutionary. Arcade games and the like have had joysticks for one hand, and button clusters for the other hand. Putting it into a handheld form factor is not earth-shattering. The Wiimote, on the other hand, adds so many extra dimensions that it will take years for developers to refine their control schemes. People are not good at incorporating another dimension of movement or rotation into their thinking. We are jumping from a 2-stick, 2-throttle/trigger scheme to a 1 or two gyro scheme. Where the old controlers (Xbox, gamecube, etc.) had at most 6 analog degrees of freedom, the Wiimote alone has that many, and the nunchuk adds another 6 plus two in the analog stick. It will take a long time before games take full advantage of those gyros.
I think we will see quite a few FPS style games ported but with bad control schemes before developers get used to a different way of thinking. At the very least, the differences between the Wii and the 360/PS3 versions of games will keep getting larger, and fewer games will be ported across control schemes. The cross-platform franchises will probably split so that studios don't have to keep trying to make the Wii and 360/PS3 games comparable.
Do you have any evdience? The world you describe sounds plausible, except that it assumes that Nintendo cares about media buzz more than profits. In the real world, it is Nintendo that cares about profits, and Microsoft and Sony that care about media buzz. Note that Nintendo is earning a profit and getting media buzz, but MS and Sony are only getting media buzz (and a lot of that buzz is negative, too). I don't think Nintendo needs to be playing with supply in order to boost their long-term profitability.
In fact, I don't see how an artificial shortage could help Nintendo at all at this point. They are already guarenteed at least some (positive) buzz from the geriatric market, so the Wii is not in danger of disappearing below the radar. Right now, the Wii needs to build up a large installed base so that third party developers will take it more seriously and actually make games that are well suited to the Wii.
The problem is that integration requires effective multi-tasking. I need to be able to talk over the phone (with a headset, of course) while writing down notes or checking the calendar. Current smartphones don't do that well, because they still try to be as small as a flip-phone. Computers have massive screens to work with, and GUIs that accomodate running dozens of programs at once. What I want is a decently large PDA, with a screen at least as large as something like the T|X, but also a cellular radio built in so that I can use a bluetooth headset. I will not invest in a pda that is designed to have my ear touching the screen more than the stylus. The iPhone looks promising, except that I think it is probably too big to use as a handset. And, of course, I prefer my pda functionality to be pretty much like PalmOS3 (including the old graffiti).
My university's library has one in a computer lab. Every time I walk by it, two things go through my head: cool! and wtf?!
Yes, but Palm OS 5 is not the latest Palm OS. Cobalt is, but it was stillborn. Either way, Palm is better off with Linux, if only because that leaves them less work to do to support various hardware.
That article has a lot of good information. Apparently, Palm's gotten the right to modify the PalmOS 5 codebase in order to make it run on top of linux. This means that they have created a direct competitor to the Linux platform put together by the current owners of PalmOS. It also mentions that Palm will not be allowing third parties to use their OS. That could backfire, or it could help them a lot. They did the opposite with their first OS, and it led to a lot of innovation.
My mistake. The GPL puts a legal obligation for them to release modifications. The BSD license gives them the option to keep their changes to themselves, but their customers probably wouldn't be too happy with that. They are obviously trying to impress geeks by using open-source software, and that strategy can only succeed if they release the modified source.
Palm is still mostly a PalmOS shop. They only introduced the first Windows Mobile smartphone (the 700w) in September 2005, and only two more windows models since then. All the PalmOS based products still support even the old 68k apps. It is hard to tell if the new Linux platform will support PalmOS apps, because Palm doesn't own PalmOS. However, if Palm, Inc. uses anything similar to the Access Linux Platform (developed by the owners of PalmOS), there will be GTK+ compatibility, which should satisfy quite a few hobbyists.
Palm hasn't owned PalmOS for years. That is why they are switching to Linux, rather than ship pdas with the latest PalmOS.
If Palm were using ALP, then it would support HotSync and SyncML. Palm would be shooting themselves in the foot if their solution were not at least as interoperable as ALP.
You have severely underestimated the GPL. I suggest you go read it. The GPL is not that dense. But to answer the question at hand, yes, all customers will have access to the source code for the GPL portions (which will be the bulk of the OS). All customers will have the right to re-distribute and modify that code. That is the price Palm pays for using Free software.
Given Palm's history of being developer friendly, it will probably be possible to flash the PDAs with custom ROMs with all proprietary code stripped. Depending on the exact terms, it may even be possible to create a custom ROM with proprietary backwards compatibility code included.
TFA it somewhat ambiguous. It is hard to tell whether Palm, inc. announced that they are going to release a pda based on the Access Linux platform, or if they have gotten back into the software business and developed their own platform.
For those who don't know, several years ago Palm split into PalmOne, the hardware side, and PalmSource, the OS developers. Since then, PalmSource has been bought by Access Ltd, and PalmOne has renamed themselves Palm, Inc. PalmSource's PalmOS 6, aka "Cobalt", was never used in a production PDA. After PalmSource was bought by Access, it was announced that future PalmOS releases would be based on Linux, with binary compatibility for previous PalmOS apps.
Unfortunately, Palm, Inc.'s website doesn't mention anything about Linux in either the press release section or the Developer section. And Access released the Access Linux Platform 1.0 two months ago. TFA does say that Palm, Inc. will once again have control over their own OS. This seems to indicate that they have spurned the ALP. If that is the case, one has to wonder how they will offer backwards compatibility, given that the PalmOS IP is owned by Access. Perhaps the permanent license they acquired gives Palm the right to do this kind of thing.
On the other hand, I don't see how they would have any less control if they just used ALP, given that most of it is GPL, and the rest is the same backwards compatibility code that they will need anyways.
If Cyan had the money, you can bet that they would want to port Uru (flash warning) to the Wii. The control scheme of the Wii is ideal for their games, and the Plasma engine would not be hindered by the speed of the Wii's processors. However, it has been a long time since Cyan's games were meant to be played at 640x480.
Come to think about it, I might go buy a wiimote just to use with my pc for Uru. Yay for bluetooth!
I'd say that HP is the only company to take advantage of newer technology. Most of TI's graphing calcs still use Z80s, and the high end uses 68k. All of HP's current graphing calculators use Samsung SoCs with an ARM9 core that goes up to 200MHz. HP has started to take advantage of the integrated peripherals by adding the SD slot (enabling me to store the complete documentation for every app and the calc itself on a 1Gb card) and USB. Hp has also left the device open to hacking, so it can be programmed in C and ARM native code to use other features, such as the display controller's support for grayscale. The only thing keeping Linux off these machines is the lack of RAM (HP still uses SRAM). On the software side, HPs can do 3d graphing quickly enough that it is sometimes worth using. The same cannot be said about the TI89.
Also, it is worth noting that the top of the line HP graphing calculator, the 50g, can be had for under $130 US. That is quite affordable compared to calculators from 15 years ago.
You have yet to explain how GPU Scheduling and WPF and GPU RAM virtualization are end user features! A back end technology is by definition not an end user feature. Only programmers are able to directly use WPF to accomplish something, because it is an API. To an end user, APIs are completely intangible. The things done with those APIs are what count for end users. And Vista is coming up short on new features with an immediate, tangible benefit to users.
The standard Tile/Cascade/Show Desktop functionality introduced in Win95 is a necessary feature for pretty much any window manager that organizes windows into a taskbar like area. It is not new, and nobody is claiming that they are new. What is new in vista is the Flip3d effect, and Microsoft is making a big deal if it. Too big, actually, since I have seen many computer advertisements showing the Flip3d effect on computers that cannot handle Aero. I personally think that flip3d is also rather inefficient compared to the tiling of expose, because expose makes better use of the screen area by showing all of every window at once, making it easier to identify similar windows. Also, you are dead wrong about live previews. Expose shows live previews even for movies and 3d games. In other words, there is nothing new or improved about flip3d.
You come very close to being right about the sidebar. Windows has had Active Desktop for years. Konfabulator came along and improved on it some, especially in the eye candy department. Then Apple ripped off Konfabulator as Dashboard, and made it popular. Then Microsoft redesigns their already working Active Desktop just so that it can look more like Konfabulator/Dashboard. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, but it isn't innovation.
As for scalable icons, I call BS. Show me some proof that Windows 95 had scalable icons. I'm pretty sure Vista is the first MS operating system that can display icons at multiple sizes without horrible scaling artifacts. If previous versions had been capable of this, MS wouldn't have waited until now to tout that feature.
As for InkCanvas, I'm well aware that Win3.1 had tablet apis. They have never mattered. Yes, Microsoft is almost entirely responsible for the availability of tabletpcs on the mass market. I've used tabletpcs. I know that they are not as usable as microsoft would have you think. I'm also surprised by the way that MS is promoting their tablet features. They are almost into trademark infringement territory with their nomenclature. OS X 10.2 (also released in 2002,btw) added Inkwell, aka Ink. i would argue that this is old stuff that neither Apple nor MS has gotten right yet, but MS has been failing at it a lot longer.
Also, you obviously have no clue what GoBack is. It is not TimeMachine from the forthcoming OS X 10.5. GoBack is a windows app that predates System Restore. I remember using it on Win9x machines. Over the years, it has been owned by WildFile, Adaptec, Roxio, and Symantec. System Restore was an obvious beginning to the embrace, extend, extinguish cycle, and Shadow Folders is intended to be the completion.
The point I have been trying to make is that all of Vista's selling points are essentially moot, because they are not new features. Your responses have amounted to saying things that are trivially proven false, and pointing out that Microsoft is not the only company that tries to sell old things as new. Neither of those tactics can produce a reasonable counter-argument. Don't reply to this until you have actually read my comment, and you can demonstrate that vista has a genuinely new feature for normal users.
The not so sad truth is, no matter what happens, the world will eventually start throwing large sums of money at the people who can use an HP calculator, because they will be the only ones capable of keeping modern society (Internet, bridges and skyscrapers, airplanes, etc.) from falling apart.
The 50g is anything but a fisher price calculator. I have a [dead] 48gII and a 50g, and the improvement in quality is (obviously) like night and day. I do believe they are done with the crappy keyboards of recent years.
Also, they never stopped making quality business calculators. The 12c has been on the market continuously for more than 25 years.
It wouldn't be the TI calculators that do the brainwashing. They aren't that bad. The real problem is that public schools do not encourage the development of critical thinking skills, and thus do not enable students to question their teacher's stupidity. That also happens to make most high-school grads incapable of becoming engineers. These days, the unlearning of bad things and the learning of simple things (like handling units) take up so much time in college that many students never catch up enough to really learn anything.
Of course, those who do manage to get an "engineering" degree are pathetically dependent on their TIs as a crutch. (something I've never seen happen to an hp user...)
They have introduced several new models since closing the ACO. They have a pretty small staff right now, but they are producing. Manufacturing is handled by Kinpo, and R&D is handled by Cyrille de Brebisson. Bernard Parisse, author of the 49 series CAS, is no longer an employee but he is still developing new software, such as a recent geometry app for the 49/50 series. And many of the other former ACO employees are still active on comp.sys.hp48.
I didn't really mean to say that the switch away from beige was all that great. I couldn't care less. But it still was a big accomplishment for Jonathan Ive and Apple.
They won't re-issue the 41. There would not be enough of a market for the expanability. Here's to hoping they release a beefed up 42 with IR and/or USB. Or a 15c. I don't really care, as I would buy both in a heartbeat.
FYI, the 42s was essentially the 41cv sans expansion slots, but with a 2 line dot matrix lcd and a much thinner package.
...because every school across the country seemingly pushes TI use in school, I didn't think people used anything else. I don't see how one implies the other. What engineer would take a high school teacher's calculator recommendation at face value? Public schools use TIs because TI markets to the teachers. Ten years ago, all engineers used HPs because HP marketed to engineers and professionals. Then Carly Fiorina took over and killed the HP calculator business for a few years. But they are now back in the game and developing new models that are once again very good products. If you can be bothered to learn RPN, you will never buy TI for yourself again.