HP-50gII Discussion (split from 15c CE thread)

[John Keith]

(08-28-2023 04:52 PM)johnb Wrote:  ... Do we need to accomodate 48-style pluggable modules? If so, more than 2 of them?]

No, because the 1990's RAM/ROM cards run at much slower speeds than modern hardware and accommodating them would be an interfacing nightmare, and would add significant cost. Most if not all modules are available in binary form, and all of them would fit on a Micro SD card with room to spare.

If the modern 48/50 is going to appeal to more than a handful of hard-core collectors, it will need to be much faster and have much larger memory. I would consider the specs of the Prime G2 to be a floor in terms of performance and memory capacity. On the software side, I would like to see it run both NewRPL and a "compatibility mode" that can use standard HP 50 ROMs, similar to Emu48. NewRPL is much faster than "old RPL" but there are a huge number of programs and libraries out there which are written in System RPL and/or assembly, which we do not want to lose access to.