CASIO fx-5200P Scientific Computer teardown

[jebem]

(06-14-2019 05:21 PM)Eddie W. Shore Wrote:  Why would they create BASIC programming machines with such little memory? I can understand if we are dealing with keystroke.

That is true. Many Casio models of the 80's could have a memory expansion installed to mitigate that limitation.
Also some memory saving came from the way the commands and functions are stored, if I recall it correctly: each one just consumes 1 byte; a line number would take 2 bytes; variable names 1 byte per char; etc.
The big consumers are the variables containers with 8 byte each.