HP 10bii+ repurposing

[ijabbott]

Could a HP 10bii+ be reprogrammed into a different machine like the 20b and 30b can? I guess it comes down to how much public information is available about the hardware. Was it ever considered as a platform by Walter and Pauli?

[Paul Dale]

It wasn't considered.


Pauli

[Pjwum]

The 10bII+ only has 10 registers plus M and it is not programmable. I guess there is simlply not enough memory to hold a program in a repurposed version.

[ijabbott]

(09-08-2019 09:44 AM)Pjwum Wrote:  The 10bII+ only has 10 registers plus M and it is not programmable. I guess there is simlply not enough memory to hold a program in a repurposed version.

Good point about the lack of storage. The statistics data and cash flow memories could be used to store short programs in a repurposed calculator, but perhaps it is not worth the development effort.

[rprosperi]

The H/W inside is probably much more capable than the 10bII+ exhibits in its feature set, but it was programmed that way to meet the product line features, price point, etc.

I'd GUESS that it is similar to the h/w used for the 15CLE, which has far more storage than the 10bII+, so it could be repurposed into something much more powerful, but it is completely limited by it's keyboard and especially the LCD.

It's an amazingly good financial machine (by far the largest feature set of any financial machine I know of) and a great value, but a poor choice for hosting a serious scientific calculator, and what else would folks put serious effort into building?

[cyrille de brébisson]

hello,

from memory, it is using the same atmel CPU as the 12C, so it should be repurposable...

Cyrille

[RobertM]

(09-08-2019 09:44 AM)Pjwum Wrote:  The 10bII+ only has 10 registers plus M and it is not programmable.

Just to be accurate, the 10bii+ has 20 registers (RCL 0-9, RCL .0-9), plus M, plus statistical/financial registers (I believe 120: 60 X/Y or CFj/Nj values).

[BartDB]

(09-07-2019 07:47 AM)ijabbott Wrote:  Could a HP 10bii+ be reprogrammed into a different machine like the 20b and 30b can? I guess it comes down to how much public information is available about the hardware.

Yes, Marcus describes the hardware in this thread:
https://www.hpmuseum.org/cgi-sys/cgiwrap...953#184129

(09-07-2019 07:47 AM)ijabbott Wrote:  ... Was it ever considered as a platform by Walter and Pauli?

See Walters post in this thread:
https://www.hpmuseum.org/cgi-sys/cgiwrap...109#187111

As to the talk about registers available to the user, that is what the current 10bii+ firmware offers. What a repurposed calculator can offer depends on the available resources and how they are allocated.

[Jeff O.]

(09-07-2019 07:47 AM)ijabbott Wrote:  Could a HP 10bii+ be reprogrammed into a different machine like the 20b and 30b can? I guess it comes down to how much public information is available about the hardware. Was it ever considered as a platform by Walter and Pauli?

I once considered repurposing the 10bii+, as discussed in this thread. While I cannot find any evidence, I am 99% sure that I actually re-flashed a 10bii+ into... something else. I seem to recall flashing it, pressing keys and watching the display to see what happened. I do not recall if I attempted to turn it into a 15C (LE), wp34s, or other. I just dug it out, and it is currently a 10bii+, so I must have flashed it back to its orginal self. Of course if I cannot find pictures, I guess it didn't happen.