I appreciate your willingness to post your comments on this subject – here or anywhere for that matter. It’s inspiring for those of us who follow the history, and present activity derived from your hand held personal computing club. I agree, consumer device executives in charge of today’s platforms routinely fail to recognize just how magnificently your club exposed the lowly HP-41 [and friends] calculator’s awesome-flexible-portable computing power.

But of course, I can’t blame these executives one “bit.” I too initially missed your leadership and it’s over arching value when I first started this post, over a year ago – and I am an accidental member of the choir – having launched my own career fresh out of college with the reusable programming power of the HP-41 – and remain just an accidental isolationist with respect to your club’s meetings.

In this blog post from start to finish – I am proposing an all the above approach to open-source leadership for conumer devices with your club as a role model.

Some options that come to mind – along with an implied commitment to continue the drive towards some satisfactory solution:

a) Leverage your existing hp-41 [and friends] open-source emulations as virtual platforms onto current consumer devices. Try this google search for example: [rpn calculator ipod touch] for 12,600 web pages so far and counting. Did I mention many of the current consumer device manufacturers have an open-source or free developer tool kit and one or more distribution channels ready to help developers such as your own hand held computer club members reach every user of their mobile computing devices?

b) Enhance item a) above with an Eclipse IDE plugin for designing everthything from simple emulated programs to cross-compiled M-code images for download by an even larger developer community who might rely on your emulation platforms. Perhaps emulate the various HP-41 hardware accessories for display and instrumentation via wi-fi /bluetooth/carrier connection for those willing to buy multiple consumer devices – to the user, manufacturer, and carrier’s delight;

c) Start a new software initiative on a new hardware platform following the footsteps of your own success. Your point above is that this is damn risky, and I too have outlined many of the key areas of difficulty [and their solution] in real-time embedded software development using multimedia preso’s right here on this web site. I hope to continue being a significant source of knowledge for manufacturer’s and their developer communities who desire to follow this approach – for areas not already coded by such able goups as your own. But to your point, even the very popular “LinuxWorld conference” – just this morning – has announced that it has merged with a new more general open-source initiative with more than Linux in mind for its next events called “OpenSource World”. Your point on difficulty is again well taken considering how many open-source Linux developers have now found the need to merge with a more general open-source program. Now there’s room for Java and even your own club’s software derived for the HP-41 and friends at this venue if it is useful for you and your memebers;

d) Get HP to re-release a new edition programmable calculator with all of the power described in a) and b) above yet with new electronics. They have the greatest chance to appreciate your club’s efforts, but the field of manufactures is so much larger now.

In closing, the whole notion of the value of a math processor has sort of fallen by the way-side here in the US (and world-wide for that matter) in comparison to games and the simple “where’re you at” mobile device conversations of today. Frankly, I see the re-release of your club’s efforts as the center of a new portable programmable math-and-more software initiative onto some existing consumer devices as part of the solution to today’s downward financial trends –a hope for the moral future sort of thing in addition to a pragmatic problem solving unit.

Best regards,
Ron