Survey posted 2005-05-02 22:04 by Jon.

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I want power. LOTS OF POWER. I would rather have raw computing power and grayscale than color. Why can't I have both? I can. I'm willing to pay more, but then I do, because I also have HP calculators ;)

I want a calculator that can import pads from Mathcad or Mathematica!

$200 isn't too much for a calculator is it?

uhh... For $200, you could get a palm pilot, or you could chip in another few hundred and getalaptop, so i guess it is too much :)

Imagine, grayscale or even COLOUR in BASIC! That will be the day I tell you what.

Well, with MLC (see link), you can get grayscale in a BASIC-like language...

Yea, but people would need the MLC interpreter in order to see it. I want my games to be independent :P

I'd rather have a calculator with a backlit screen. Black and white LCD, with an Indiglo thing like my Palm III has.

... For all those long car trips at night where you want to program but can't because it's too dark, right? (I've been there many times)

...Or in a dark movie theater when you get there half an hour early, waiting for those stupid commercials to be over? (I've been in both situations many times too)

I think color would rock on a calculator. Maybe they could make one with a three color screen, white being default. A simple program style would be Pxl(9,1,1.
0 = pixel off = white
1 = blue = blue
2 = red = red
3 = yellow = yellow
4 = blue/red = violet
5 = blue/yellow = green
6 = red/yellow = orange
7 = blue/red/yellow = black
It wouldn't be too much memory wasted on it, especially if ti developed a the shade command to do this like Shade(1,-10,-10,10,10, which would make the whole screen blue. In assembly, they could control each color with a percentage like the blue being at 50% power. This might add to the battery consumption, but I don't think it would be too terrible. Most of the power is wasted on the processor and memory. That's why they use LCD screens on watches, simple solar powered calculators, gameboys. Adding a backlit screen like on a Game Boy Advance SP would be cool too. A simple command like Light(1 for On/100% Light(0 for off/0%, and Light(.5 as half power/50%. A simple transistor would power 1 White LED which would be plenty enough to light a complete screen using etched plexiglass. A speaker is a bit too much though.