Don’t have enough computing devices on your wish list yet? Do you have a need for a graphing calculator? No? What if it can run Linux and even Windows 10? I see I’ve got your attention.
The HP Prime is a graphing calculator on the market since 2013, with a hardware revision in 2018 (the G2 model). It has a touch screen and as far as I can find, most people are happy with it and find it a very capable and fast calculator. Here are some pictures of the opened up calculator and here is a website with some more downloads.
I’m not really interested in the calculator part. For most calculations I do for my day job, embedded programming, the HP-16C is a better fit. I was interested in this device because I found posts online suggesting it could run Linux and even a Windows 10 port.
↫ Remy van Elst
I had no idea just how overpowered – for a graphing calculator – the G2 really is. It’s basically an Android smartphone from a few years ago, and that means that yes, it can run Linux, including X, Doom, and tons of other applications. It’s not the easiest of devices to get custom software onto, but also not particularly difficult – you need to open it up and short two pads – so if you have one, it’s definitely a fun project. Apparently, someone also ported EUFI for Windows 10 to this thing, so you can do silly stuff like run the Windows calculator on the G2 calculator.
Wild. Now I kind of want one.
I still have fond memories of my HP48G: it cost a fortune but provided insane capabilities at its time, when an Engineer had to look up tables of pre-calculated values in massive books of thinnest paper (“Wendehorst”!). I programmed the specific Momentum equation solvers myself into the HP48G and never had to carry this book with me, only showing up on my bike with a pen and this calculator. I have always been a very lazy man 😀
Totally unrelated: every “evil” company seems to have at least on product that does not fit in but is amazing instead. HP had the calculators, Microsoft had Excel, Google has Maps.
My uncle is an electronics engineer and he would sell his kids before selling his HP lab equipment: signal generations, osciloscopes, bench PSUs, etc.. He is in his 70s, still working, and still using the same equipment he got when he was just starting. HP has also their old LaserJets.
Windows NT/AD is not bad. Applying a full complex distributed security model to dozens of thousands of objects all the time? Dave Cutler is a smart person. However, well, all the crap on the top doesn’t help it. I’d definitely use a clean modernized version of Windows NT. Only the basic stuff. No Gaming Services, no telemetry, no copilot integration. Just the crazy broad hardware support and a modernized version of the security model.
Google Earth is also not bad (yes, related to maps). I like that the offline application pays respects to one of their team members and it is very fast. Search is, in its core, good. But it went the Windows path.
Windows LTSC is Windows NT without the cruft.
HP spun off the lab equipment. You can tell how old stuff is by whether it is labeled HP or Agilent.
I used TI calculators in school instead of the HP and still occasionally use a TI-89 when I want a CAS without booting up the compy. I have some HPs including a 48g — one thing about those vs. the old TIs is they feel much more professional-oriented and less education-oriented. They feel like they grew out of HP’s professional calcs even if they were designed with college students in minds whereas the TIs feel designed for students. The HPs did see professional use in surveying for a time. The HPs are also a quirky hardware/software platform with their 4-bit Saturn processors and stack-oriented programming. The TI-89 by comparison runs a standard (for the time) LISP-based CAS on a 68000.