3 ms·

hp-48gx emulator?

• kayfox 11y ago
  Or just an HP-48GX
• tonyarkles 11y ago
  Funny enough, that's what you get when you purchase an HP-49 (not even sure if it's still available, but it's what I bought for engineering school 13 years ago). The story goes that HP couldn't get a faster version of the (12MHz Saturn?) CPU in the '48, but wanted to release a faster version. Since they couldn't get a faster compatible CPU but wanted to continue using their battle-hardened codebase, they decided to replace the CPU with a 200MHz ARM and write an emulator. I suppose that's maybe easier than trying to port a heavily optimized codebase to a new architecture. Plus, moving forward, you could write C code and compile it directly for ARM. If I'm remembering right, I did manage to get a C "hello world" building with gcc before losing interest.
  • makomk 11y ago
    Wikipedia reckons that the fab they were using could no longer make the Saturn CPU, and I guess it was a lot cheaper to write an emulator at that point than to redesign it for a more modern process node.
    • tonyarkles 11y ago
      Awesome! It was quite a while ago, glad I got most of the details right!