Re: Which TI should I get?
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Re: Which TI should I get?
STL137 wrote in message <19990110231730.13454.00008833@ng112.aol.com>...
>Anyways, the HP processor runs at 4Mhz. TI processors [in the 85's]
>run at 2, but they're built for 6.
What?! I don't understand.
According to ticalc.org the TI-85, along with most of the other TI-8x
calculators, has a 6MHz CPU (http://www.ticalc.org/calculators/85.html).
(Yes, TI-Files and Dimension TI say the same thing). I don't think they'd
lie to us. In fact, many people in this group have said that the
TI-82/83/85/86 are superior to the HP48 because they have a 6MHz processor.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think the TI-85 CPU speed can be safely
tripled to about 18MHz with a capacitor.
Since a standard TI-85 has a 6MHz chip, one would expect it to be ~50%
faster than an HP48. But the Saturn and Z80 are very different, with the
Saturn designed *specifically* for calculators, with fast BCD math, 64-bit
registers, a 20-bit address space (bank switching is used in the HP48 G
series for up to more than 4MB of RAM), and low power consumption (even
though it only has a 4-bit word size, it's pretty good for a 15 year old
CPU, isn't it?). This means the 4MHz Saturn is very comparable to a 6MHz
Z80 for performance, so I feel this is an equal comparison.
One of these days I may borrow a friend's HP48SX, with a 2MHz processor, to
see how the HP48 compares with the TI-85 at a third of its CPU speed when
finding prime numbers.
Regards,
Eric Rechlin
Bismarck, ND
eric@ hpcalc.org
http://www.hpcalc.org/
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