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But can your calculator run Linux?

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Re: But can your calculator run Linux?

#12

Post by ButlerianJihad »

shevy-java wrote: post #4

If a toaster can run on Linux, so can a calculator. (NetBSD used to have that slogan with regards to toasters. I have not followed it for several years, so I don't know which operating system dominates toasters nowadays.)

There was not a "slogan" but an inside joke, and you've reversed the sense of said joke.

In response to the joke about BSD running on a toaster, some joker created and documented a "toaster running BSD" which was accomplished by bypassing the toaster circuits and adding a motherboard with CPU, memory, storage and I/O.

Now those all make for good jokes, but it does not mean that toaster hardware is POSIX-ready, any more than a Macintosh SE is suitable as an aquarium.

But let us never forget that the Video Toaster runs with Amiga or Windows!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_Toaster

Re: But can your calculator run Linux?

#13

Post by stackghost »

NetMageSCW wrote: post #7
stackghost wrote: post #3

These calculators are, without question, excellent little devices and the HP ones in particular had great engineering behind them. I had an HP48 in undergrad, which was considered pretty much mandatory for engineering. There was a thriving student sneakernet of programs you could get that would trivialize certain problems. Some friends had the HP49G which was, in my opinion, a step down in terms of build quality. Yea…

I still have my 50g on my work desk for one reason - to do calculations with units. Admittedly I use emulation on my phone mostly, but the 48-50 units calculations are still the best I’ve used. (But if I don’t need units I use my SM 42).

MathCAD or GNU units work well enough for me

Re: But can your calculator run Linux?

#14

Post by anthk »

DrewADesign wrote: post #6

I use the Prime G2 daily. I VERY much prefer RPN, love that I can program it with Python (and occasionally PPL,) and am often in environments where having a backlit screen is a lot more convenient than pulling out a flashlight. Linux on it would be a fun novelty, but the clunkiness would make it a lot less useful to me. The big collection of physical buttons behaving predictably without needing to look at the screen…

Install emacs with gnuplot and run M-x calc.

Re: But can your calculator run Linux?

#15

Post by DrewADesign »

anthk wrote: post #14
DrewADesign wrote: post #6

I use the Prime G2 daily. I VERY much prefer RPN, love that I can program it with Python (and occasionally PPL,) and am often in environments where having a backlit screen is a lot more convenient than pulling out a flashlight. Linux on it would be a fun novelty, but the clunkiness would make it a lot less useful to me. The big collection of physical buttons behaving predictably without needing to look at the screen…

Install emacs with gnuplot and run M-x calc.

And reprogram all of the keys to do the things they already do so I can wind up with the same exact functionality I had before, only with more steps? Probably not. I’m using a calculator because it’s a more efficient task-specific interface for computation.

Re: But can your calculator run Linux?

#17

Post by vimredo »

gorkish wrote: post #10

Yes, in fact it can. [1] https://calculinux.org/

For that project to work, you have to replace the brains of the PicoCalc with something that can run Linux, so you might as well just connect the display of a Ti-84 up to a Raspi with an adapter board and advertise it as "running Linux".
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