I guess this is kinda an evolution thereof.

Oh. Snap. Check it. Swiveling/tilting connector, kinda like a tablet, with 2nd/alpha and arrow keys on the screen part. Instant calculator gameboy! Would that be feasible? The hardest part would be the connector, and I might be able to reuse an old tablet one.

I've been interested in doing something like this for a while, but never got to, mayble ill start over thanksgiving break. I'll try to keep you guys updated if i do do something. maybe if i get time i'll upload some sketch ideas on what i'm thinking. Looks good so far.

Sounds good. While I'm here at school this morning I'll fetch the tablet hinge from my (current-2) tablet and look at the mounting it requires. Might be a bit too stiff for this purpose.

http://www.cemetech.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=20

EDIT: haha I found one of my old renders:



BTW that's totally not based on the GBA form factor...

Awesome, nice find. Do you remember the lovingly-rendered rotational pseudo-clamshell idea that I had going at one point?

The one that was totally not based on the GBA SP form factor?

No no, the one that I made hand renderings of and later used AutoDesk VIZ to CAD up.

Oh that one; I don't remember seeing CAD drawings for RE; very nice

That is a really great idea its unique and something that would definitely interest people I sure would get one, Keep us informed

I would get one too, if you had a version that didn't have QWERTY layout (not because I don't want QWERTY, but because the other functions are in odd places. How about having a normal keypad and a slide-out QWERTY with no other functions?

I had been thinking of something like this, too. although my version had a slide-out keyboard, had the touch screen (so you could see where you were in the program while still being in a menu to choose)

Something like this:

Top screen:


Bottom screen:


and the pull-out keyboard would look like

Where the DS has its control pad, there would be an extra 2nd and Alpha, along with the F-row. and the right side would have the arrow keys. that would probably take some fancy programming, but so would Kerm's QWERTY layout.

So the latest progress on this is that I got two broken TI-83+s from eBay, which arrived last Thursday and Saturday respectively. The idea now is to revive one of them for use as my calculator while I rip up the second one for parts and my current 84 for the brains of the calc laptop, then start fabbing the body of the device and thinking about what boards and microcontrollers I'll need.

Kerm's layout has nothing to do with fancy programming, just fancy hardware. From a software perspective, it's exactly the same. As for two screens, TI BASIC doesn't support that, so you wouldn't see that even if you attached a second screen. You could write new programs in asm that use it (assuming it would be possible to attach to the z80), but it's not going to magically know to put some stuff on the top and some stuff on the bottom screen when running old programs.
And Kerm, did I mention that you should not put the power button next to commonly pressed buttons?

MY LAST POST (for a while, at least)

No, the OS would be the one to use the extra screen. Did you see the shots?

*bump* Here's the keyboard mocked up in actual keys. Gratuitous shot of a portion of my broken/working-but-disassembled calculator collection.

I hope that's not the chosen layout for the lower bank of keys, because it's entirely illogical. Aside from that, looks like a good design.

How do you plan to integrate this new keypad into the calc? Etch up a new board for the keypad and hook it into the calc's mainboard?

oooh, getting ready for fab?

Umm... QWERTY?

OR.... you could just get a netbook and install matlab on it.

Already have a netbook with Matlab, what's the point of that? That's easy and takes no special engineering skills, but this is fun to make!

And yes, Tari, that's a QWERTY layout.

That would be the intelligent thing to do; can't have that now can we?