Prime Reverse-Engineering

[dbbotkin]

HP has spent time and money getting the Prime certified to be used on standardized tests for mostly high-school students, so there is likely to be some justifiable resistance to creating a pathway that will lead to a user-modified Prime-Plus. The concern being that some clever kid will figure out a way to cheat on the test and that will call the expensive certification into question.

Putting aside the obvious response that clever kids will find a way with or without help from HP, two alternatives seem easily implementable if the "internals" are made available. First, there could be an advanced Prime with the schoolroom BS removed and designed for serious engineering and science work or there could be a hardware "fuse" that would signal the tester that the Prime had been modified.

The bigger problem is that HP is now in the "printer-ink" business and no longer has any real competence in science or engineering. Perhaps Keysight, the successor to HP meter and instrument business, will take over the neglected HP calculator business and reposition the Prime as a companion to their educational line of oscilloscopes, etc.?