Survey posted 2005-02-21 19:15 by Jon.

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Anyone ever heard of the HP-49G+ ?? It has an infrared port built in.

isn't it ban on some tests cause of cheating?

On the ACT, for instance, they require you to cover up the infrared port with opaque tape.

Why do they bother... I have a 49g+ (and I've sold my TI-89), and I have first-hand experience that the range of said IR port is roughly 4 inches. It's not even enough to cheat with the person directly in front of you.

Really? That's funny! They're pretty paranoid...

A V200 addon into the *INCLUDED* viewscreen port (or the link port) and a modified OS would be fine fpr me.....

Impossible on the view port... for the link port IR-transmitters already exist ^^

To use something plugged into the ViewScreen port, you wouldhave to modulate the screen. It is (theoretically) possible, but the uninformed user would think their calculator was crashing, and you would have to have a radically different module for the 83/84 series, the 85/86 series, the 89 series and the 92 series, as they all have differently sized screens. Plus you would have to have a teacher version with the port, except the 92 series, and that is so limited usership, anyway, that it would be poinless (the only other person at my school that has a 68k calc is my math teacher, and she has both and 89 and a 92+).

What about the IR Link (see link)?
And wouldn't it be neat if it had encryption?

It would be pointless. At this range (six inches to six feet), you can't intercept it (IR is line-of-sight). Even if you're using someone as a relay, encryption would be pointless for IR, because the relay person would be able to read the encrypted file. The best option would be to encrypt the file, then transmit, and we already have a utility for that: Krolypto (and there's probably one for the 68k calcs, too).

I'd buy a wireless modem that would attach to a current TI calculator, if it would be practical. Unfortunately, even on the fastest TI-calc, it would take too long for a page to load because the calc would not only have to parse tonnes of HTML but also have to load images and convert them to grayscale. Both of these processes would also eat up all of the memory of the calc (unless the module itself had a sizeable cache or used hardware to quickly convert web pages into a format easily parsed and displayed by a calc). Would it even be possible to load web pages???

If cellphones could do it, why couldn't calculators? A hefty addon wouldn't be so bad for me...

ZiLog has a 50 mhz processor in the same family as the normal z80 family, but that still wouldnt be nearly fast enough because the cell phones and pdas that have picture abilities run on up to 666 mhz processors (but maybe faster)

Then change the processor! I have no problems with that... A new calculator would be great!

It's a lot harder than you think...

For one, cell phones are optimized for web-surfing at both the OS and hardware levels, and have chips and busses that are typically much faster than calculators. Also, most cell phones don't use WiFi to access the Internet; I think they usually call a server for information (like a dial-up modem?), which (I think) requires less computing power than connecting with another computer via a wireless router.

READ: HEFTY ADDON

I wouldn't buy it if the add-on were to be bigger than the calculator itself. Also, the power drain would be incredible--the add-on would need its own power source. Also, the modem would get pretty hot after a few minutes of usage.

Bull. It wouldn't have to do ANYTHING with the images. Have you not heard of lynx or links?

The process of converting color images to grayscale images would take too long or would take up too much space. I'd explain why, but I haven't got the time (or the message space).

Lynx and Links are image-free (they use the ALT text instead of a picture). They are actually quite nice. I used one of them on my Mac in the UNIX Terminal when I got bored once. It even supported frames.

The problem there is that sometimes textual information may be stored in the image only, and the author forgot to put the text in the ALT field. Also, some websites, to properly convey their information, require visual aids.