Well, deffinitely looks great, great graphics, original and stilistic case, but anyway it would be better to know the tec. spec. i think this one deserves at least a 15 Mhz Procesor and 2.6 User memory Rom, anyway if anyone knows these spec. please answer my post

only 15MHz? why not start competing on specs with HP and put like a 75MHz in it, SD slot, and an infrared port. If you don't believe me on those specs, go to HP's website and look at the specs for the hp 49g+. The reason TI's calcs are so popular is that they are way easier to use, though.

I didn't knew the HP spec, But let me tell you that you're right, I think after reading ALL the posts that TI must blow up and give their best shot on this one.

I didn't knew the HP spec, But let me tell you that you're right, I think after reading ALL the posts that TI must blow up and give their best shot on this one(100 MHZ).

Careful. Clockspeed isn't everything.

I don't know if the (IIRC) ARM processors in the HP's are faster in real usage or not than the M68K that TI uses, so I'm not commenting on that situation specifically, but as a general rule, the clockspeed of a processor does not solely determine its performance.

One current example: AMD has been producing processors with more than a 1 GHz handicap to Intel's Netburst, but with similar or better performance. Now Intel has scrapped Netburst for a lower-clocked architecture, but performance is better than the old Intel CPUs and is keeping AMD's hands full to say the least.

Also, if I remember correctly, and this may have changed since, but isn't HP actually emulating the OS that was designed for different hardware?

After watching that flash, I can tell you two things:

1. Never going to be allowed on ACT/SAT. Ever.
2. Wicked awesome. I want to see its programming model.
3. I am going to segregate $300 in my savings account specifically for this.
4. I WANT!!!
5. If they put Bluetooth in it (unlikely), I will so use it to control my Lego Mindstorms NXT.

Oops. That was a few more than two things.

I think this one deffinitely worths those months of saving for college, anyway the biggest question that i have in mind about this is: ¿Anyone knows how big is the screensize in pixels? i mean it looks like some 200x160.

Looks to be QVGA in 2 bit color, that's 320x240 (the pic is 314x237 and it may be either compressed or pixels have been clipped, 6 off the side and 3 off the top or bottom). I'm guessing it's actually QVGA as standard resolutions are great!

Most handhelds run on QVGA, and the Gameboy/Color is 160x144, the GBA is 240x160,NES and SNES are both 256x224 just for comparison. I wish they would just add frikkin color!! Come on, all we need is a blue, red and green screens in one calc!! Then we can have 4x4x4 colors (64 colors for those who can count). That's more that enough for graphics to work!!

4 bits for red, 4 bits for green, and 4 bits for blue equals 12 bits; and 12 bits allows 4096 color combinations.

He probably means 4 values (2 bits) for each of the channels, not 4 bits each. So it's 6 bits for a total of 64 colors.

The screen would use red, green, and blue only if it is a transmitting type and not a reflective type. If it were reflective (such as the color screen the Casio calculators have), it would use cyan, magenta, yellow, and black channels (which are basically light filters) to produce various colors, so with 2 bits for each channel, a color would fit nicely in one byte.

ahhh... okay.

Small TFT LCD displays are very cheap now. I do not see any reason that we cannot have an 8 bit or 16 bit color display at 320x200 resolution. This would require nearly 64Kb of video memory. Yeah sure, 64Kb of memory is significant on yesterday's calcs. But today, memory is dirt cheap.

So, if the color LCDs are dirt cheap and memory is dirt cheap, why can't TI give us an affordable color calculator? Unless their idea of a color calc is 256 shades of gray -- practical but boring.

power is also a concern considering that it probably runs of 4 AAA's and they want the battery life to be reasnable for normal use. more RAM and a bigger/brighter would use more power.

oops it should read bigger/brighter screen.
we really need an edit button

Our current calcs require around 5 volts. So they need 4 AAA in series to provide enough power.

Most "new technology" embedded electronic devices (like GP32, GBA) require less than 3 volts. This includes devices with big bright color screens. Super bright LEDs provide an enormous amount of light for very little power. So, 4 AAA in series/parallel will provide enough power for a "decent" runtime.

Add in a 68K and a memory-mapped Z80 co-processer for sound and you've got Sega Genesis!

(No really, the Z80 in the Genesis really does use memory-mapping for hardware I/O, not ports. They just read nonsense in normal mode.)

(As demo plays on screen) sits in front of computer drooling

Same here. This is REALLY impressive - grayscale, PDA-like interface, amazing math features - finally, something new from TI. This is really on the level of the high-end HPs now, beating out even the v200. I wonder if they designed this to also be used by architects/engineers/scientists/etc.? (I just sort of got that idea for some reason from the flash video and specs.)

The SAT allows the 89. No reason this would not be allowed, seeing it lacks the QWERTY keyboard.

Yes there is. From watching the flash video, and checking the European Patent Office link, it looks like it has a touch-screen interface, which IS banned from the SAT.

Didn't really seem like it too me, though I didn't read the patent yet.

see me after class on that Lego thing :D

Im working on controlling my RCX with my 84+SE

How? IR or a sensor port?

hacked sensor cord.

and some resistors so I dont fry my TI's I/O port.

Interesting. I may want to try that. How are you hacking the sensor formats? And which sensor are you pretending to be?

Im probably either going to spoof RAW or touch sensor. then work out a communication protocol between them.

Dude, if you get an 84+SE to use infared, I WANT!!!!
I have the 84+SE.

See link.

It's for the 83+ but it should probably work.

How come they released it in Germany before America, when they're in Texas! That's dumb. They should release it to America first!!!

*sigh* Why not just release it to all countries at the same time?