HP Prime FW for 2023?

[akmarul]

Hello. Anyone has any idea, if there is new firmware to be released soon? Are the HP prime firmware designer in this forum? Thanks.

[Mark Power]

It might be worth you watching this:

[John P]

(01-08-2023 05:43 PM)Mark Power Wrote:  It might be worth you watching this:

Hello,
I watched the whole video and I find the whole affair with the HP PRIME a bit strange. Yes, HP PRIME is a great calculator and more precisely could be even greater if the HP company cared. Obviously, HP does not want to have anything to do with calculators anymore. Because they think, and I agree, that the era of calculator has come to the end, and the calcs. do not bring enough profit to justify the expenses in maintaining the calc. division. There are tons of simple calculators for iPhone, Android and whatever you want. What I have problems with what the guy from Moravia said is: why to reproduce the old HP calcs. 20 or more years old. Why not to hire hardware and software engineers to design some amazing calculator based or similar to the HP PRIME fit for the XXI century. Why to push the HP PRIME with the schizophrenic personality, HOME and CAS modes of operation that has a lot of errors and inconsistencies. Why not to rethink the whole concept of the current HP PRIME and not to brink something really, really incredible and useful for people in engineering and science that work with numbers and concepts that is fit for XXI century?

[compsystems]

Si liberan el código fuente del firmware, la comunidad lo mejoraría mucho, mientras que si seguimos esperando a que HP nos envíe actualizaciones, lo harán a paso de tortuga.

[SammysHP]

(01-11-2023 07:30 PM)compsystems Wrote:  Si liberan el código fuente del firmware, la comunidad lo mejoraría mucho, mientras que si seguimos esperando a que HP nos envíe actualizaciones, lo harán a paso de tortuga.

Wir warten doch gar nicht mehr auf HP. Soweit ich es verstanden habe, liegt die Entwicklung der verbliebenen Rechnermodelle jetzt komplett bei Moravia. Den bisherigen Quellcode zu veröffentlichen dürfte schwierig werden. Ich kann mir vorstellen, dass die Toolchain und genutzte Bibliotheken zumindest zum Teil irgendwelchen NDAs unterliegt. Es würde außerdem den Prüfungsmodus aufweichen, sodass die Zulassung bei Prüfungen entfällt. Ganz zu schweigen von den Vereinbarungen mit HP.

Apart from that Moravia could evolve into a competitor for SwissMicros and design and manufacture calculator hardware for community software.

[toml_12953]

(01-12-2023 06:45 AM)SammysHP Wrote:  

(01-11-2023 07:30 PM)compsystems Wrote:  Si liberan el código fuente del firmware, la comunidad lo mejoraría mucho, mientras que si seguimos esperando a que HP nos envíe actualizaciones, lo harán a paso de Tortuga.

We're not waiting for HP anymore. As far as I understood, the development of the remaining computer models is now completely up to Moravia. Publishing the existing source code is likely to be difficult. I can imagine that the toolchain and libraries used are at least partly subject to some NDAs. It would also soften the examination mode, so that admission to examinations would no longer apply. Not to mention the agreements with HP.

Apart from that Moravia could evolve into a competitor for SwissMicros and design and manufacture calculator hardware for community software.

I wish companies other than Casio and TI would stop worrying about what schools allow. Those two companies have the education market sewn up: Casio in Europe, Asia and Japan and TI in the USA. Don't design a calculator with schools in mind. Design one good enough to replace PCs and laptops for engineers, surveyors, and scientists. Don't let the marketing department hamper the engineering department by deliberately limiting some features to protect some other product line. Design and build the most powerful, best product you can. Maybe include optional plug-in sensor modules and/or software for things such as temperature, distance measurement, spatial orientation for leveling, sound/waveform generation and analysis. The needed technology is available. Let's use it! Let your imagination run free. Don't just consider traditional calculator roles. Of course, it would have Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity and maybe AirPrint capability.

It would have all the capabilities of a smartphone (plus some) but with a real keyboard. Haptic feedback with on-screen images of buttons simply isn't enough.

[Steve Simpkin]

“Don't design a calculator with schools in mind. Design one good enough to replace PCs and laptops for engineers, surveyors, and scientists.”

Is that realistic though? Engineers, scientists, technicians etc. didn’t stop using calculators en masse because they weren’t powerful enough. They stopped using them for many tasks because there were better tools available. I used scientific calculators at school and work for over 40 years. They were my primary engineering hand tool for much of that time. Even after I initially had access to a computer the calculator was a very useful engineering tool but over time, it’s usefulness to me grew less and less. My use of a calculator went from hours a day to almost never. I found myself trying to find a reason to use my HP-48SX because it had been my primary engineering tool for many years. Slide rules were a mainstay tool for over 200 years in the science/math/engineering fields before they were replaced by scientific calculators. Calculators, outside of education, had a much shorter useful lifespan in those fields. They are still useful of course, but now much less so.

[toml_12953]

(01-12-2023 10:16 AM)Steve Simpkin Wrote:  “Don't design a calculator with schools in mind. Design one good enough to replace PCs and laptops for engineers, surveyors, and scientists.”

Is that realistic though? Engineers, scientists, technicians etc. didn’t stop using calculators en masse because they weren’t powerful enough. They stopped using them for many tasks because there were better tools available. I used scientific calculators at school and work for over 40 years. They were my primary engineering hand tool for much of that time. Even after I initially had access to a computer the calculator was a very useful engineering tool but over time, it’s usefulness to me grew less and less. My use of a calculator went from hours a day to almost never. I found myself trying to find a reason to use my HP-48SX because it had been my primary engineering tool for many years. Slide rules were a mainstay tool for over 200 years in the science/math/engineering fields before they were replaced by scientific calculators. Calculators, outside of education, had a much shorter useful lifespan in those fields. They are still useful of course, but now much less so.

If school is the only place calculators are still used then HP (Moravia?) might as well quit making them at all. There's no way to compete with Casio and TI in that market and generate the sales necessary to make them profitable.

The main reason I stopped using calculators in my work was because they were slow and not as easy to use as a computer. Also, the presentation of information wasn't as useful. My design proposals would change that. They would be as fast as a computer and have a hi-res graphics screen for the display. What would set them apart from a computer is the add-on, internal modules and, of course, portability (much easier to carry with you than a laptop) A surveyor could measure distances, elevations and angles easily. A sailor could know his position on the Earth within less than a meter, and make course calculations on the fly. A chemist could analyze compounds to perform both quantitative and qualitative analysis, etc. The need is there if designers would let their imagination run free. We need a Lockheed-Martin style Skunk Works project where engineers are free to promote ideas without the restraints of marketability. A
device that could replace traditional computers would have a market big enough to be self-sustaining.
Progress doesn't come from doing the same thing over and over. "It's always been done this way" should be a phrase that's banned from business. Don't reinvent the wheel, come up with a total replacement!

We have to be willing to think bigger than the accounting folks would be comfortable with. Are there any unknown Tony Stark-type entrepreneurs out there?

[Kevin Ouellet]

At this point I think there are higher chance to see an HP Prime G1 port of ExistOS first before a new official firmware from Moravia. For G2 calcs I heard that third-party firmwares with no hardware modding was impossible, though.

[Jean-Baptiste Boric]

(01-12-2023 06:46 PM)Kevin Ouellet Wrote:  For G2 calcs I heard that third-party firmwares with no hardware modding was impossible, though.

Last time I looked at it, the HP Prime G2 has a chain of trust (and therefore rejects non-official update firmware files), but no enforced root of trust. Booting a third-party firmware from the SoC recovery doesn't require hardware modding, but it does require disassembling the calculator to reach the test point needed to trigger it. There are known ports of U-Boot, Linux and Windows 10 IoT running on the HP Prime G2.

To my knowledge, no one has demonstrated booting a third-party firmware without going through the SoC recovery and therefore without disassembling the calculator.

[bbergman]

It's not so much that they care what the schools think, but it's tied more closely to the textbooks and curriculum. In the 1990's and early 2000's, there was a ton of focus on, and effort to, include actual calculator examples and instructions in textbooks, based around one TI model, and sometimes a Casio or HP model. We're talking full addendums and 10's or 100's of extra pages in these textbooks, from K-12 grades through grad school level. So they have a ton invested in examples for particular models, and the schools who design the curriculum, including the textbook choices and content, are aimed at specific models. They don't want to have to rewrite their content just because there is a better calculator out. Nor do they want to spend the effort on a calculator that's not a proven seller.

Imagine putting an addendum in a math text showing how to do the calculations on an HP-41C... It would be a waste of money and space. And the fact that it's an old calculator is just as relevant as if it was some brand new cool model.

Then there are the testing agencies, who make it difficult to allow a new model in on their tests.

Look at it from the perspective of the student: if I knew I was going to take a super important test at the end of my coursework, and also spending the time to learn and be competent with my calculator, so that I'm not wasting time in the test itself, then I would NOT want to buy a cool calculator that I can't ultimately use in the test. Thus the sales suffer.

Cyrille (I think?) did a presentation at an HHC maybe 7-8 years about the educational calculator market, and it was super enlightening. I was surprised at the complexity of that market, both within the USA and globally (where they are very different). One would think -- like you proposed at the start -- that you could just create calcs willy-nilly and sell them. The reality, though, is that the manufacturers are constrained by many market factors that make it difficult and simply not fiscally feasible.

[parisse]

If you have a look at https://www.amazon.com/Best-Sellers-Grap...cts/172523, you will see that the ti84 is about the same price than the ti nspire cx 2 (non CAS), but about 10* more popular, despite the fact that the nspire cx 2 hardware is much more powerful than the ti84. This shows that the educational market is very conservative: even the marketleader in the US (TI) can not displace an old generation calculator with a new generation one. A counterexample is Numworks in France, where a newcomer could reach 1/3 of the marketshare in about 5 years, but there are reasons very specific to the French market that can not be duplicated worldwide, and Numworks marketshare in the US seems still very small.

Now one could design a graphic calculator without targetting the educational market, but who would buy it? Young people will not, and old generations will use hp41/48/49/50 or DM42 for scientific calculators.
And one should not underestimate the work required to build a reliable software for a graphic calculator...

In my opinion, our best hope is something like ExistOS on the Prime G1 and/or convince Moravia to find a way to open the source the Prime (with restrictions related to exam mode)

[pier4r]

(01-14-2023 08:02 AM)parisse Wrote:  If you have a look at https://www.amazon.com/Best-Sellers-Grap...cts/172523, you will see that the ti84 is about the same price than the ti nspire cx 2 (non CAS), but about 10* more popular, despite the fact that the nspire cx 2 hardware is much more powerful than the ti84. This shows that the educational market is very conservative: even the marketleader in the US (TI) can not displace an old generation calculator with a new generation one. A counterexample is Numworks in France, where a newcomer could reach 1/3 of the marketshare in about 5 years, but there are reasons very specific to the French market that can not be duplicated worldwide, and Numworks marketshare in the US seems still very small.

good point. I still find amusing that in our community some people think (me included at times) that the calculators outside schools could displace computers, smartphones, tables and co for professionals.
The amount of effort needed for a new device or firmware is likely equivalent to the effort for an app and then one is better server to distribute and market the app for professionals.

Although I still think that a physical calc has a superior input (since one can feel the keys), at the end the mobile market wins. A 8'' tablet, that can be substituted every 2 years with a new model, can support much better apps than an ad hoc designed device.

PS: I was able to get a prime 2nd hand in Europe for 60 €. "Same" level Casio are at 30€ and Ti at 40. That tells already a lot (market share). ("same" because the prime is a monster but for most users it doesn't matter)

[bbergman]

(01-14-2023 08:02 AM)parisse Wrote:  If you have a look at https://www.amazon.com/Best-Sellers-Grap...cts/172523, you will see that [...]

There's not a single HP calculator in the Top 50 on that list.

HP was even beat out by a BATTERY DOOR in the Top 50! So sad...

[tppytel]

(01-14-2023 08:02 AM)parisse Wrote:  This shows that the educational market is very conservative

Not so much "conservative"... just short on money and time. I was the math department chair in a big city school in the US for many years. We owned hundreds of TI-84's as class sets, teachers knew how to use them, and kids often arrived with them from elementary school. What would Primes or NSpires really add for most classes? And what financial and training tradeoffs would be required to change? Did we really want to tell our not-wealthy families that they needed a different $100+ unit than they had just bought? Honestly, an 84CE is a pretty damn good calculator for most HS students. About all I'd like to see it do is handle exact radical values on the home screen like the Casios do. A touchscreen like the Prime has would be great for graphing but really doesn't matter most of the time. The cost/benefit tradeoff in changing just isn't there for anybody involved. We had and have a million other more impactful issues on the job than our choice of technology. So the 84's live on... because they were there first and because they're fundamentally good enough. (That being said, the fact that TI can still charge ~$125 for one is a triumph/failure of capitalism.)

I do personally encourage my precalc/calculus students to pick up a Prime if that's feasible, and several of them have. Those students have been very happy with them.

[jte]

(01-15-2023 12:36 AM)tppytel Wrote:  ⋮
⋮ lots of insightful, practical comments born from years of teaching…
⋮
What would Primes or NSpires really add for most classes?

One of the features of the HP Prime that differentiates it from other graphing calculators is the Advanced Graphing app. It can allow for some enrichment / fun mathematics activities / lesson plans that lie a bit outside the well-trodden path. (Yes, not for most classes, or at least most typical lessons / assignments, but some “outside of the box” approaches can really light the spark for some students — can help kindle an internal motivation / drive to learn, to better understand mathematics.)

[parisse]

(01-15-2023 12:36 AM)tppytel Wrote:  

(01-14-2023 08:02 AM)parisse Wrote:  This shows that the educational market is very conservative

Not so much "conservative"... just short on money and time. I was the math department chair in a big city school in the US for many years. We owned hundreds of TI-84's as class sets, teachers knew how to use them, and kids often arrived with them from elementary school. What would Primes or NSpires really add for most classes?

CAS, 3d graphs/geometry, more memory/speed for more advanced computations/programs, that means a calculator that is still useful *after you leave highschool*. You can have all that if you install KhiCAS on a ndless-able TI Nspire CX/CX2 (even non CAS), Casio FXCG50 and it's available on the HP Prime. The Casio is significantly less expensive than the ti84 (80$ vs 107$ on amazon.com) with a more powerful hardware (8Mo of RAM, 32M of storage with 16M available to the user). If you really think about not-wealthy families, then introducing more competition *is* very important. For comparison, the French model equivalent to the TI84 is sold at 87 euros currently (https://www.amazon.fr/Texas-Instruments-...6922?psc=1) and 80 euros during back to school, this price includes VAT. The reason for the price difference is that the French calculator market is much more competetive.
I know switching is not easy, especially in the educational market (that's why I said it's conservative), but it's possible if there is enough goodwill to do. As I said, Numworks could gain one third of the graphing marketshare in France in 5 years. I don't support Numworks by the way, since they locked their calculator, Casio is currently the most open to third-party development.

[parisse]

(01-14-2023 10:12 PM)bbergman Wrote:  

(01-14-2023 08:02 AM)parisse Wrote:  If you have a look at https://www.amazon.com/Best-Sellers-Grap...cts/172523, you will see that [...]

There's not a single HP calculator in the Top 50 on that list.

HP was even beat out by a BATTERY DOOR in the Top 50! So sad...

The rank may be misleading, because it's based on the number of calculators sold by amazon during a short period of time before you look at it. The number of advices is a much better proxy, the Prime G2 has two entries on amazon.com: one with 974 advices and an older one with 311 advices. That's about 1/5 of the TI Nspire CX2 CAS US model, and much more than the Casio Classpad 500 at 267 advices.
During the last 4 months (i.e. the 2022 back to school period), the number of advices on amazon.com was: TI84 color 3956, TI84 mono 1503, CX2CAS 582, CX2 462, Casio FXCG50 278, HP Prime 134 and Casio classpad 34. The TI84 is ultra-dominant, and that's why it costs so much.
By comparison, the number of advices for French graphing calculators on amazon.fr was TI 540, Casio 534 and Numworks 537.

[pschlie]

I suspect the best HP/Moravia can hope for, is to not be prohibited use within the educational and professional exam market, and instead concentrate on offering sufficient superior differentiable functionality to attract students and professionals who don't need to be instructed on which buttons to push within textbooks to accomplish their goals; as may possibly be offered by continuing to improve its alternative RPN, graphical, symbolic, programmability, and general ease-of-use capabilities (including documentation).

Attempting to unseat TI in the grade/high-school educational market is most likely a waste of time, and as the vast majority of students will never use a calculator again after graduating, concentrating on technical university and professional market needs, seems likely to be most productive use of limited resources. (At this point one can only hope, time will tell it seems.)

[pschlie]

As a final thought, it's likely similarly important to continue to offer (even at a nominal price) minimally equivalent apps for Android/IOS/Windows/MacOS platforms; as this enables customers continuity of use; not to mention having the ability to message/email a resulting equation/solution/graph/program, helps reenforce the usefulness of the platform. (Being able to create and select different libraries of configurations for use on the platform of choice, also seems like a nice thing to be able to do as well.)