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HP Releases Hackable ARM-Based Calculator

Posted by Soulskill on Sat Aug 16, 2008 11:22 AM
from the turning-tools-to-toys dept.
Hardware Hacking HP Hardware
mikeselectricstuff writes "HP's 20b business consultant calculator isn't the sort of thing that would normally interest the average Slashdotter, but HP has released a Devkit for it, including schematics and source for a sample application, and they appear to be actively encouraging people to re-purpose it. Maybe the engineers thought a business calculator was just too boring for their hardware? The calculator is based on an Atmel ARM chip, and it has a bootloader and JTAG interface to allow user applications to be written and downloaded, turning a boring calculator into anything you can do within the constraints of the hardware."
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Submission: HP releases hackable ARM based calculator by mikeselectricstuff (556110)
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  • Sweet (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 16 2008, @11:23AM (#24626949)

    But how do I embed the calculator in my arm? Knife and some glue?

    • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

      by edalytical (671270)

      Hacksaw, maybe? I mean the title said it was hackable, I assume that means with a hacksaw. You'd probably want to _integrate_ rather than embed anyway.

  • More Companies Should Do This (Score:5, Informative)

    by Marillion (33728) <ericbardesNO@SPAMgmail.com> on Saturday August 16 2008, @11:27AM (#24626963)

    Of course most customers will use this as is. I'm thankful that HP isn't so paranoid of what their niche customers might do. The right of people to tweak products to suit their needs is a right that needs to be preserved.

    • Re:More Companies Should Do This (Score:4, Insightful)

      by thermian (1267986) on Saturday August 16 2008, @11:35AM (#24627033)

      Its not exactly as if someone can harm HP, or any other hardware company by repurposing their calculators, so yes, more companies should do it.

      I suspect what they are hoping is that tech types will play, the calculators name will be thrown around the water cooler, and procurement will find requests to purchase on their desk.

      Which is, of course, all well and good.

    • Re:More Companies Should Do This (Score:4, Informative)

      by ettlz (639203) on Saturday August 16 2008, @11:35AM (#24627043) Homepage Journal
      When it comes to calculators, I don't think HP have ever been at all bad in that respect. It's not for nothing that their calculators are something akin to the "workstations" of their class: there's always been loads of documentation out there for the HP 28, 48, etc. plus a metric ton of third-party software. A HP graphic calculator can expect to be "re-purposed" any number of times in its useful life (which is a very long time) as part of normal use.

    • Re:More Companies Should Do This (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Registered Coward v2 (447531) on Saturday August 16 2008, @01:25PM (#24627791)

      Of course most customers will use this as is. I'm thankful that HP isn't so paranoid of what their niche customers might do. The right of people to tweak products to suit their needs is a right that needs to be preserved.

      Considering HP has made available the code to a number of their calculators to allow emulators to run on various platforms, such as WinCE and PalmOS; they're pretty good at taking care of their customers and trusting them.

      Their calculator division, at least, has always truck me as a group run by engineers and people who understand technology as well as how to make it into useful tools.

      I still have my HP-45; and it still runs. The only problem I ever had was trying to use it on a submarine when we rigged for red.

      • IIRC, HP actually hired the developer of MetaKernel, which was a replacement OS for the HP48 line, to develop the OS for the 49g and newer models - in fact, my 50g has a MetaKernel splash screen.

  • HP calculators (Score:4, Interesting)

    by chrysalis (50680) on Saturday August 16 2008, @11:30AM (#24626989) Homepage

    HP calculators have always been hackable. The 48 S/SX/G/GX calculators had a large and active scene. I spent countless hours coding on it. The Saturn processor was very nice to code on.

    • Re:HP calculators (Score:5, Insightful)

      by harrkev (623093) <.gro.ylimafnoslerrah. .ta. .dsmfk.> on Saturday August 16 2008, @12:41PM (#24627481) Homepage

      There is a difference between "programmable" and "hackable," or at least to me...

      "Programmable" implies that a programming language is made available. Nothing more, nothing less. You can do what the programming language allows you to do. Of course, certain limits may inherent (or added to) the language. It is like giving you a sandbox to play in.

      In this case, "hackable" means that they have thrown the doors wide open, and published almost everything that they know about it (schematics, etc), and are inviting people to dream up new uses (which presumably includes hardware hacks). This is like giving you the keys to the house and saying "It's yours. Make yourself at home. Feel free to paint or remodel if you want."

      I happen think that HP makes (or at least made) the best calculators in the world. Then, TI kind of took over after HP rested on their laurels after releasing the 48G series. The 48G firmware, at least to me, was an ugly hack of the 48S code. For example, HP added new units to the 48G. Of course, it would be too easy to add these units to the "units" menu where they belong, so they had to throw them in a "secret" menu that you will only find by reading the manual.

      I love RPN, and love my old 48SX. Even the keypad feels nicer than any other calculator in the world.

    • Not only that, most graphing calculators are programmable. The TI-86 I had to buy for university had a wide selection of user created software for it. Everything from Tetris and Mario Bros, to programs to do more traditional calculations. It was programmable in both its own version of basic and Assembly. The manual even showed how to program in Basic. You could buy a serial cable from TI which allowed you to create assembly and basic programs on the computer, and upload them to your TI-86. I remember

  • Password-Pad (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 16 2008, @11:30AM (#24626991)

    Might be nice to use it as an password-pad
    and still have an RPN calculator at the same time.

  • Good on 'em (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anastomosis (1102421) on Saturday August 16 2008, @12:10PM (#24627269) Homepage
    Whoever is in charge of decisions like this at HP really needs to be hired at Apple.

  • Embedded Hardware (Score:4, Interesting)

    by lm317t (971782) on Saturday August 16 2008, @12:27PM (#24627375) Homepage
    The L series is a typical AT91SAM7 32bit chip that should work with the usual openocd toolset [sparkfun.com]. It does not look like HP is using an RTOS like FreeRTOS [freertos.org] which, among other things, has a udp/tcp/ip stack that I like to use on the AT91SAM7X series which contain an embedded MAC (no apple fanbois, thats a Medium Access Controller). The code is using IAR compilers :( so you can't just dive in to using the Gnu arm toolchain [gnuarm.org] without some serious homework 1st creating a makefile and tweeking various files.

    The engineers did populate the connectors for the JTAG and provide unpopulated pads for ADC, PWM, SPI, and basic digital I/O, so I would say that anyone looking to get started in embedded electronics could start here, they'd just be locked into using IAR. Also a display is awesome for providing a UI, something most embedded dev kits lack!

    Thanks HP, it really is nice that you guys considered the hacker community as customers.

  • Brick! (Score:5, Funny)

    by cplusplus (782679) on Saturday August 16 2008, @01:00PM (#24627589) Journal
    I bet the first thing I'd turn it into would be a brick.

  • Some people need to learn that a hardhack is not the same as a difficult hack or a hack that involves something running on hardware. If that were the case, all hacking could be considered a hardhack.

  • Maybe after I figure out what actual purpose my Altair 8800 can serve, I'll try to figure this one out
  • To me, the most interesting aspect of the dev kit is that the HP calculator group did not even have the engineering resources available internally to draw that simple little schematic and instead outsourced the hardware design to the Taiwanese design and manufacturing house Inventec. Pretty sad that HP - once a premier engineering company - does not even design their own hardware anymore. I also like how they created the pdf version of the schematic with a trial version of some pdf writer.
    • It is pretty normal that companies outsource the technology that is not their core competence. It makes economic sense to have your engineers work on innovative tech instead of old tech.

  • Hacking the 20b (Score:3, Informative)

    by the eric conspiracy (20178) on Saturday August 16 2008, @05:09PM (#24629555)

    People have been doing hardhacks to HP calcs for decades.

    Here is a good place to go for info on HP stuff.

    http://www.hpmuseum.org/cgi-sys/cgiwrap/hpmuseum/forum.cgi?read=139798#139798 [hpmuseum.org]

    • Re:Why? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by chuckymonkey (1059244) <(charles.d.burton) (at) (gmail.com)> on Saturday August 16 2008, @11:38AM (#24627067) Journal
      Be allowed into tests at universities.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by xaxa (988988)

        Be allowed into tests at universities.

        My university provided calculators if they were needed, you couldn't take your own.

        • My university provided calculators if they were needed, you couldn't take your own.

          I have never heard of this being done elsewhere, but at least this means that everyone is a on a level playing field in the exams, well at least when it comes to the calculator in use. One thing here is that it pays to have used the calculator before the exam, so that you aren't also faced with trying to learn how to access some of the advanced functions.

          • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

            by TheRaven64 (641858)
            It's pretty common now in the UK. When I was at school, you were allowed programmable graphical calculators as long as you reset them and wiped their memory. I wrote a little app for mine and showed it to the teacher that simulated wiping the memory (same UI in every way - it even included a version of the program list and a few other things that simply showed no programs (I had no way of backing it up, so I lost it when I really did reset mine for an exam). Between things like this, and the fact that mo
            • Some school districts in the US do so as well. Some only for use on tests, and some for general use in class. Generally they are the same model calculator that they recommend the student purchase.

      • Different universities usually have their own preferred calculator for use on their courses and exams. My university has made the Casio FX-85 series as the officially permitted calculator. What are the choices in other universities?

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Smaller, lighter, much lower power, and oh yeah, only costs $40.

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by Free the Cowards (1280296)

      Try getting your own code onto your smartphone. Depending on what you have it'll range from merely annoyingly difficult to being expensive beyond the ability of the common man to afford.

      • Re:Why? (Score:4, Interesting)

        by Tacvek (948259) on Saturday August 16 2008, @12:15PM (#24627303) Journal

        Any Windows mobile phone can easily be programmed for using the SDK. This does require Visual Studio or some ticks to use the free platform SDK, but most windows developers will already have Visual Studio.

        Once one has the Windows Mobile SDK, one can compile and install applications with absolutely no difficulty. (Almost no providers choose to required signed apps on Windows Mobile phones, and even when they do, the end user can disable that with slight difficulty.)

      • Re:Why? (Score:5, Interesting)

        by Jeffrey Baker (6191) on Saturday August 16 2008, @12:32PM (#24627415)
        You must have an iPhone. On every other platform (Windows Mobile, Palm, S60, and BlackBerry) you can easily write and deploy your own code.

        • On every other platform (Windows Mobile, Palm, S60, and BlackBerry) you can easily write and deploy your own code

          With Series 60 it's easy to deploy your code. I don't think I've ever found anyone who'd claim it was easy to write it though...

      • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

        by cplusplus (782679)
        It took me about 6 minutes to create a "Hello World" app and deploy it to my Windows Mobile Smartphone, then run it. And it doesn't take a lot of money, either. Go google "Dev Studio Express" and you can find a lite version of Microsoft's Developer Studio, and you can also download the different Windows Mobile SDKs if you look around.
    • Providing to your opponent before negotiations, interfacing with a laptop, interfacing with a graphing display, interfacing with a network, math tutorials, business how-tos and templates and thats just off the top of my head...

    • I know I'd enjoy hacking on this thing, changing the microcode and making of it something entirely different from a calculator, or make my own functions, my own interactive system, etc. etc.... So I can see the point. Maybe there are more people like me. Maybe your view of the world is narrow.

        • Re:Why? (Score:4, Interesting)

          by blind biker (1066130) on Saturday August 16 2008, @01:05PM (#24627633) Journal

          i did enjoy working as an assembler programmer back in the days of the first home computers

          That's exactly the kind of enjoyment I had in mind. Just to be able to get one pixel on that LCD screen to blink would provide me with some fun. Call me nostalgic, I don't mind; coding close to the HW has always been my passion, ever since the 80's.

    • The "running for 9 months on a couple of cr2032s" trick is one I'd like to teach my laptop or smartphone. Also, for calculator use, a real calculator keypad is a very nice thing to have.

    • Re:Why? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Jeffrey Baker (6191) on Saturday August 16 2008, @12:37PM (#24627457)
      Do the batteries in your laptop last for years? I think I replaced the batteries in my HP48G twice during my entire undergraduate career. You can take an HP calculator out into the field on a data-collecting expedition for days or weeks on end without worrying about the charge. And whereas I've worn out the keyboards on a number of laptops over the years, the keys on my 15-year-old HP calculator still work perfectly. There's still a lot to be said in favor of special-purpose hardware.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by niceone (992278) *
      By that argument this calculator shouldn't even exist - why don't people just do their business calculations on their laptops or smartphones?

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by lm317t (971782)
      Aside from power, weight and poor tolerance to extreme temperature changes, try controlling a servo or stepper with a laptop in a critical realtime environment, like with sensors. You might be able to do this with a parallel port, but it would be extremely unreliable without a true realtime OS and alot of hacking, also expensive. Unless you admire Rube Goldberg this would be foolish. You can actually guarantee better response time with a fairly slow embedded processor.

      There's much more to the computing

    • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

      by ettlz (639203)

      nothing beats the soviet-build-like 12c, tho'

      Remember that John Titor, the guy who travelled back in time to pick up an IBM 5100? You know why we've not heard any more of him? Because he should've picked up a HP 48 instead.

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