HP Prime FW for 2023?

[bbergman]

It's not so much that they care what the schools think, but it's tied more closely to the textbooks and curriculum. In the 1990's and early 2000's, there was a ton of focus on, and effort to, include actual calculator examples and instructions in textbooks, based around one TI model, and sometimes a Casio or HP model. We're talking full addendums and 10's or 100's of extra pages in these textbooks, from K-12 grades through grad school level. So they have a ton invested in examples for particular models, and the schools who design the curriculum, including the textbook choices and content, are aimed at specific models. They don't want to have to rewrite their content just because there is a better calculator out. Nor do they want to spend the effort on a calculator that's not a proven seller.

Imagine putting an addendum in a math text showing how to do the calculations on an HP-41C... It would be a waste of money and space. And the fact that it's an old calculator is just as relevant as if it was some brand new cool model.

Then there are the testing agencies, who make it difficult to allow a new model in on their tests.

Look at it from the perspective of the student: if I knew I was going to take a super important test at the end of my coursework, and also spending the time to learn and be competent with my calculator, so that I'm not wasting time in the test itself, then I would NOT want to buy a cool calculator that I can't ultimately use in the test. Thus the sales suffer.

Cyrille (I think?) did a presentation at an HHC maybe 7-8 years about the educational calculator market, and it was super enlightening. I was surprised at the complexity of that market, both within the USA and globally (where they are very different). One would think -- like you proposed at the start -- that you could just create calcs willy-nilly and sell them. The reality, though, is that the manufacturers are constrained by many market factors that make it difficult and simply not fiscally feasible.