ben.titmus wrote: ↑Mon Oct 10, 2022 12:55 pm
Personally I'd really like a SwissMicros RPL platform. However, this would be a significant difficulty since it would need to be much more powerful and the case would need to completely change (as well as needing better batteries). Then there's the question of the display - should it be colour (I would rule out touchscreen which I found a pointless 'feature' on the Prime)?
The hardware of the DMCP, when powered by USB, is actually more powerful than that of the 50g. On battery the speed is about a third, which IMO would not be a dealbreaker for newRPL, but I have not tested newRPL extensively yet. If the tidbit from Bob's presentation that the new version is as fast on battery as the old one on USB power then we're in great shape on processing power.
However, it might need more RAM, if we want newRPL running as an application within the DMCP OS. The SoC does have provisions for external extensions of memory.
I would go for pretty much the same thing as the DM32 hardware. Two extra rows of keys (one extra row would be same as 48, but that is two keys fewer than the 50g, and I like keys), extended RAM. Maybe a somewhat higher power battery solution, enabling a bit of extra speed, but please stay with long life coin cells. Ideally I'd like some solution for interfacing with other stuff as well, but that might up the battery requirements too much.
ben.titmus wrote: ↑Tue Oct 11, 2022 1:45 pm
My ideal calculators are the WP43 and a newRPL calculator. We're not that far away from the WP43 physical calculator. The newRPL calculator will be more challenging. I currently run it on my HP-50G; I have a G2 Prime (so it won't run on that). Really newRPL is lacking some features (although most of the programming functionality is implemented and works really well) but most of all it lacks a hardware platform. The HP models it works on are not being produced anymore. So my ideal next SM calculator would be a newRPL platform. But that would be a lot of work!
Above I make the argument that SM hardware for newRPL need not be a lot of work. Indeed, while quite compromised in terms of key layout, newRPL could run quite well on current SM hardware. However: it would be a lot of work.
Software work. And decisions, the first one being whether to make a version of newRPL that strips out all the OS stuff and runs on the DMCP OS instead (which might be a whole lot of work or might not, depends on the software architecture of newRPL, and might need more RAM as noted above but might also slim down enough in the process to not really need it) - or to port newRPL including its OS functionality to the SM hardware (which might also be a whole lot of work, depending more on how large the hardware differences are).
Finally, newRPL needs a program editor and an equation editor and solvers and libraries and CAS. I'm not sure how far along that journey is as of now. Does the original HP equation library and periodic table run on newRPL, is it that compatible? I do think progress would be faster if the hardware was made and launched, "for developers only" at first, maybe don't show it on the main site and just link to the product page from this here forum or something.
Then there is the final wrench in this: my optimal RPL calculator may not be newRPL. It may be a hardware platform with an emulator that can run the available HP ROMs. I'm not sure, it depends on how complete and how compatible newRPL can be.