from Hacker News

Performance (On an HP48GX Graphing Calculator)

by leansensei on 12/31/24, 7:04 AM with 18 comments

• by JTyQZSnP3cQGa8B on 1/1/25, 4:56 PM

  I never wrote code for the hp48-gx, but I remember that some games written in assembly looked like Game Boy games. The screen even had shades of gray by writing once every 4, 8, ... loop. I don't have the details but it was pretty convincing. Some source code would help in that case.

• by raydiak on 1/1/25, 10:57 PM

  I don't pretend to know anything about HP calc hacking (did a little TI BASIC for fun, that's not even remotely similar). But doesn't this come up in all kinds of daily situations, graphical or otherwise? You only recalculate and update the parts that may have changed. I assume this is similar to why Zelda on my original black and gray GameBoy as a 90s kid was arranged into scenes with few moving elements, so it didn't have to recalculate rendering for the entire screen during action.

• by magic_smoke_ee on 1/2/25, 3:04 PM

  Ah the Erable HP48G/X. It helped me through AP Calculus BC, SAT-I (math section), and college physics and math for an EE/CS undergrad degree.

  I remember using the HP 48's overpowered IR LED and ability to share apps to get the universal remote app to turn on and off TVs in the lecture hall from quite a distance. :@)

• by thought_alarm on 1/1/25, 9:19 PM

  Flashback to lurking around comp.sys.hp48 looking for downloads.

  https://groups.google.com/g/comp.sys.hp48/c/BS7c8hRAau0/m/P5...

• by dmpk2k on 1/1/25, 6:35 PM

  I wish there was a new generation of HP-48, just with a faster core and better screen. :(

  I have a SwissMicro DM-42, which when setup properly is similar to a HP-48, just minus graphing capabilities. Still want a HP-48 refresh.

• by oliviergg on 1/1/25, 7:50 PM

  From 2016