beep

[matthiaspaul]

I realize that members of this forum are not the target audience for the Prime, but it is still sad to see HP missing out opportunities to widen the user base. This is an obvious feature wanted by many in an advanced programmable calculator (if not a "checklist item") and it is rather easy to have hard- and software-wise (now only in a future model variant, of course). Even though the processor would be capable of producing sophisticated sound output, all that's actually needed is a simple beeper and corresponding BEEP command.

I doubt the 48 was banned in many exams for its capability to generate sound (like many other calculators it was for being programmable), but if that would have been the problem, the issue could have been reduced significantly simply by setting the default option for sound to "off". In the Prime, the "off" setting could be even coupled with Exam mode to ensure that it cannot under any circumstances generate sound while in an exam.

See also:
http://www.hpmuseum.org/forum/thread-846...l#pid74376
http://www.hpmuseum.org/forum/thread-455...l#pid41095

Greetings,

Matthias