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

Having a “community” develop software requires leadership and a clear vision. Human egos get in the way and while many people will work just to contribute (and have ego fun) the manufacturer and its “user community” has to have a clear well developed relationship to provide the most effective result.

Even the HP Computer user’s group has not survived the egos of the manufacturer’s managers. The community was so large that the Saturday night dinner at their Conferences had 10,000 people in attendance. The user community is constant, it is the manufacturer that keeps changing. For a bit of history on this see the bottom of the web page at:

http://holyjoe.net/hhc2005/

X Y,

Richard

When I re-read my blog post above, I wonder if consumer device executives get put off by my claim that an open-source community might extend the life of an older device rather than create more demand for a new device soon to launch. Yet this is the paradigm shift I am advocating.

For example, HP captured a market lead position with its open development approach for its HP-41 consumer device. This expensive programmable calculator may have captured more than 50 percent of the scientific / professional user base for a 10 year period. Much of the sales was driven by open-source and professional groups that purchased this device to develop new code offerings together for each other’s use. The open-source application and development tools became available for use by the professional user community too. Thus driving even more demand without much marketing cost.

The current market tradition held by most device manufactures seem hell bent on releasing new devices every 6 months or less along with a splashy / expensive marketing push that in turn commands only a relatively small market share in the very competitive consumer device sector. Can compelling software ever be well crafted on new hardware platforms released this fast as well - I wonder?

Not sure, then maybe this will help: can legions of Microsoft engineers, on and off their payroll, develop a compelling/stable operating system with office productivity suite in the next six months - considering that the Intel IA32 hardware platform has been stable for the last 20 years? No slight on Microsoft, Apple and others are still working hard to fix their software too. It’s the nature of the beast.

I hope this explanation helps bridge the paradigm shift I spoke of in this post, without being too offensive in today’s traditional consumer device development and marketing approach!

Best regards,

Ron

To work with a cell phone as an embedded device, such as GSM handset, I suggest that you seek out developer programs supported by the major cell phone manufactures. You can get Java ME software developer kits, for example, to touch some of the phone’s internal peripherals. Here is one place to start your search:
http://whitepapers.techrepublic.com.com/whitepaper.aspx?&docid=107903