I generally concur with your observations and conclusions, but what can HP tell us about upcoming products?
For a long time, I've wanted something akin to the HP (Compaq) iPAQ, but with a keyboard functionality. Perhaps something a little like an HP 32 calculator. We'll all be watching Apple's announcement in San Francisco, but I feel like Compaq and HP were a long way toward establishing the business-savvy hardware capable satisfying many science/engineering/finance/management professionals a decade ago. Smartphones like the iPhone with music, games, and video are nifty, but my Blackberry was the workhorse for my supervisory responsibilities. Why hasn't anybody married that with professional functionality for technical professionals?
And no, the apps for Blackberry are not equal to a dedicated keyboard and dedicated calculation functions and menus.
-Keith
--- On Tue, 1/26/10, Tim <timwessman@...> wrote:
From: Tim <timwessman@...>
Subject: [50g] Re: Creating a new ROM based using native ARM
To: 50g@yahoogroups.com
Date: Tuesday, January 26, 2010, 3:52 PM> quiet observer of this group. As it appears HP are no longer
> developing calculators,
Hmm. News to me as I am busy building calculators for HP right now.
> has this group [or a subset of this group] considered obtaining
> permission from HP to develop a new ROM which is based on the
> native ARM instructions instead of running through a SATURN emulator.
You can always build a ROM, but don't expect HP to provide source code. Corporations never give things away. . . (save a few very rare exceptions)
> My apologies if this is the wrong forum to raise this topic, or if
> it has already been raised and dismissed.
Not dismissed, but rather you are seriously underestimating the amount of work to recreate a 50g level machine. You are talking 5+ years of work there with a dedicated team that knows what they are doing.
Also, you wouldn't WANT to reuse the code that is existing. That is the whole reason it is difficult to do anything with the 50g. Lecacy code and issues have been patched, extended, and hacked so many times it is incredibly difficult to deal with. . . :-(
TW