HP-48 FRAM Cards

[Ron Ross]

JDW's Quote " But basically what you are saying is that a 128k FRAM card merged in Slot 1 and another 128k FRAM card sitting in Slot 2 is all that would be needed on the 48GX?"
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Well, it would have been ALL I would have needed. No, my cards are NOT FRAM as they are about 15 years old and use a battery (I bought in addition to the Hp 49G FHBB calculator, the one with Meta Kernel built in) so that I could make my Hp 48GX as good (actually Better) than the Hp 49G.
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A quick ebay search revealed that 512 KB FRAM cards are currently available for the Hp 48Gx. These would allow you 128Kb ports 3-6 which I suspect would be plenty unless you are a student taking different types of coursework. And if you were such a student, I would strongly suggest you migrate over the Hp 50G and consider a student edition of a math package instead.
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I also saw a 1 Meg RAM card very similar to mine for a similar price AND it had room for 3 more 1 MEG chips, so that looked to be a prospective 4 MEG card if you have any skill at soldering.
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Your Hp 48Gx is a nice calculator and may last another decade or even two, but the typical Hp 48Gs that fail, usually suffer from foam compression failure that can affect even a new in the box calculator, so for anyone to actually support this line is putting faith in a calculator with a KNOWN service flaw that may affect 100% of these calculators.
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Don't misunderstand me, I use an Hp 48G+ as one of my two calculators at work because I like it more than the Hp 50G for work and day to day usage. But that is because I am a Calculator snob used to the older Hp calculator buttons (not only because of the ENTER KEY location) as the Hp 50G doesn't quite feel as good and I don't use the extra features of the Hp 50G (and as I have said, I seldom use the advanced features of the Hp 48G).