Your dream calculator (maybe real sooner than you thought)

u/DarkestEx October 04, 2016, 10:25:55 PM

Important update!

The CPU decision is made!
It will be an Atmel ATSAM4S4A. This is the CPU of the original microcat prototype:

The main reason is that I have a lot of these chips still laying around and I have all the test and programming equipment for them. They are also really fast and quite nice little things.
Also, I have already written software for them including a little bootloader and gained experience with them.

The new and final specs are:
128 MHz ARMv7ME CPU. 64 KB RAM. 256 KB Flash memory. 32 GB SD program memory (note that programs are NOT copied to RAM!).

u/p2 October 05, 2016, 08:29:19 AM

Looks great

But I know I might sound stupid now... but if your cpu runs at 128MHz (compared to the z80 which is at <20MHz) how comes it takes so long to display a text? ^^

u/DarkestEx October 05, 2016, 10:07:38 AM

Quote from: p2 on October 05, 2016, 08:29:19 AM
Looks great

But I know I might sound stupid now... but if your cpu runs at 128MHz (compared to the z80 which is at <20MHz) how comes it takes so long to display a text? ^^

The emulator is not a z80 one but a 6502. The slowness is due to refreshing the screen completely for every character. I have not found time to optimize it yet.
The screen uses 16 bit colors and is 128x128 so it takes time. Also the cpu I running at 8 MHz for testing.

u/xMarminq_ October 05, 2016, 11:20:31 AM

What battery will it have? Will it be a lithium ion battery or a double A battery?

u/p2 October 07, 2016, 07:51:28 AM

my actual dream calculator would be one running OS-2.43 of the 83+/84+ family but with a GB of ram and archive and variable clock speed ^^

Edit: @DarkestEx you maybe shouldnt post videos showing your IP adress on youtube ^^

Last Edit: October 07, 2016, 07:53:53 AM by p2

u/DarkestEx October 07, 2016, 09:10:24 AM

Quote from: p2 on October 07, 2016, 07:51:28 AM
Edit: @DarkestEx you maybe shouldnt post videos showing your IP adress on youtube ^^

What do you mean? And where?

u/p2 October 07, 2016, 09:29:25 AM

on the bottom of your posts (right size) you can always see your IP adress....
and in the video take a look below the console window you type that DISP HELLO....

u/DarkestEx October 07, 2016, 10:43:13 AM

Quote from: p2 on October 07, 2016, 09:29:25 AM
on the bottom of your posts (right size) you can always see your IP adress....
and in the video take a look below the console window you type that DISP HELLO....

Ah yea. That shouldn't matter a lot. This video is quite old anyways.

u/Dream of Omnimaga November 08, 2016, 08:01:40 PM

His IP address probably changed by now or will do so in a few months. In my case, it changes every 4 month maximum and usually changes beforehand. For some people it changes almost daily.

ANyway, I am late as you can see but I am glad this progressed earlier this month and I'm glad to see it in action above

u/alexgt November 16, 2016, 03:58:58 AM

Nice work @DarkestEx , I like what I see

.

I have started a Rasp Pi project similar to this, I am hoping to make it at about the same form factor as a ti 84+. It will feature a 480x320 Resistive touch display (I could not find any at that resolution with capacitive touch), a super slimmed down Rasp Pi 3 (completely removing the ethernet port, because of the built-in WiFi and replacing the double USB with single high ones), A full qwerty custom keyboard (with the display beeing directly hooked up to the GPIO pins and not leaving many left I decided to use an Arduino pro mini to multiplex the keyboard to save on GPIO, plans could still change though), and a 3.7v 2000mAh Lipo battery.

My goal with this s to have the portability of a calculator and the power of Pi smashed into one. Also, I could hook it up to any TV in my house and stream games to it from my host PC (don't know how well that would work with the lack of an ethernet port though). This will be a long-term project since I literally have none of the parts or the money to order them

. And instead of rushing it and not having it just right I want to take m time ad plan everything, I plan on using it sooo...

u/Dream of Omnimaga December 07, 2016, 05:25:29 AM

@alexgt when you have the money and when it starts coming together, you should make a new topic about it.

(also I'M late lol)

u/DarkestEx February 03, 2017, 09:14:36 PM

Quote from: alexgt on November 16, 2016, 03:58:58 AM
Nice work @DarkestEx , I like what I see .

I have started a Rasp Pi project similar to this, I am hoping to make it at about the same form factor as a ti 84+. It will feature a 480x320 Resistive touch display (I could not find any at that resolution with capacitive touch), a super slimmed down Rasp Pi 3 (completely removing the ethernet port, because of the built-in WiFi and replacing the double USB with single high ones), A full qwerty custom keyboard (with the display beeing directly hooked up to the GPIO pins and not leaving many left I decided to use an Arduino pro mini to multiplex the keyboard to save on GPIO, plans could still change though), and a 3.7v 2000mAh Lipo battery.

My goal with this s to have the portability of a calculator and the power of Pi smashed into one. Also, I could hook it up to any TV in my house and stream games to it from my host PC (don't know how well that would work with the lack of an ethernet port though). This will be a long-term project since I literally have none of the parts or the money to order them . And instead of rushing it and not having it just right I want to take m time ad plan everything, I plan on using it sooo...

Tried a while back. It's a never ending rabbit hole. TLDR: The battery will not fit. We are working on a modified Casio Classpad 300 which fits a Pi3 + TFT shield + battery perfectly fine.

u/Dream of Omnimaga February 05, 2017, 08:01:02 PM

Aren't Classpad calcs prohibitively expensive, though? When I tried to build my calculator collection in 2009, the cheapest available ClassPad 300 and 300+ on Ebay were $310 in used condition without the instructions/cable/box... (three times what I paid my Clickpad Nspire with the 84+ keypad)

u/DarkestEx February 05, 2017, 08:44:52 PM

Quote from: DJ Omnimaga on February 05, 2017, 08:01:02 PM
Aren't Classpad calcs prohibitively expensive, though? When I tried to build my calculator collection in 2009, the cheapest available ClassPad 300 and 300+ on Ebay were $310 in used condition without the instructions/cable/box... (three times what I paid my Clickpad Nspire with the 84+ keypad)

Bought a class pad in mint condition. Was fully working. Got it for 30€. However, the internals were all ripped out (except for the keypad PCB which is reused) to make space for the RPi and new Screen.

u/alexgt February 16, 2017, 03:15:16 AM

Quote from: DJ Omnimaga on December 07, 2016, 05:25:29 AM
@alexgt when you have the money and when it starts coming together, you should make a new topic about it.

(also I'M late lol)

I haven't worked on this in a while money, time (FRC Robotics), and school have stopped me...

Quote from: DarkestEx on February 03, 2017, 09:14:36 PM
Quote from: alexgt on November 16, 2016, 03:58:58 AM
Nice work @DarkestEx , I like what I see .

I have started a Rasp Pi project similar to this, I am hoping to make it at about the same form factor as a ti 84+. It will feature a 480x320 Resistive touch display (I could not find any at that resolution with capacitive touch), a super slimmed down Rasp Pi 3 (completely removing the ethernet port, because of the built-in WiFi and replacing the double USB with single high ones), A full qwerty custom keyboard (with the display beeing directly hooked up to the GPIO pins and not leaving many left I decided to use an Arduino pro mini to multiplex the keyboard to save on GPIO, plans could still change though), and a 3.7v 2000mAh Lipo battery.

My goal with this s to have the portability of a calculator and the power of Pi smashed into one. Also, I could hook it up to any TV in my house and stream games to it from my host PC (don't know how well that would work with the lack of an ethernet port though). This will be a long-term project since I literally have none of the parts or the money to order them . And instead of rushing it and not having it just right I want to take m time ad plan everything, I plan on using it sooo...
Tried a while back. It's a never ending rabbit hole. TLDR: The battery will not fit. We are working on a modified Casio Classpad 300 which fits a Pi3 + TFT shield + battery perfectly fine.

I planning to 3d print the case so that would solve fitting issues.

Wow, been a while since I posted