New clone idea: How about a PC-G850VS or PC-E500 clone?

[vaklaff]

IMHO the older HPs that are being cloned today distinguished themselves with HW (keyboard quality) and/or SW (postfix) and created sort of cult following, plentiful enough to produce clone creators and users today. The DM-42 is still a useful tool with distinguishing features on the market even now. I can’t see parallels to SHARP, not much of following, not that much different from say Casios at that time and not especially useful today.

Not that I have anything against SHARP, quite the opposite. I have a soft spot especially for the PC-14XX models. Small enough, usable as a direct calculator, easy to take and slap together a short program when needed and last but not least very handsome :-) Nevertheless I doubt I’d buy a modern clone of them.

A small device with a QWERTY keyboard, say of the LX-size, would have an appeal to me but only as a modern full-featured device (Linux/BSD, SSD, WIFI etc). Simply a sub-sub-notebook with a good keyboard. From time to time something in this direction pops up but usually too pricey and with problems like binary drivers preventing you from upgrades.