VOTE: CPU for OTZ80 - eZ80 20 MHz or 50 MHz?

[bwang]

I voted 50 Mhz, since speed is good and if you use rechargeable batteries, battery cost is really not an issue.

[alberthrocks]

Except many people will use just regular AAAs.

[JonimusPrime]

Schools will not buy armies of rechargeable batteries, so we should just pretend they do not exist.

[bwang]

Schools will not buy armies of rechargeable batteries, so we should just pretend they do not exist.

Wait, we're marketing this to schools, not users?

[alberthrocks]

Well, students and schools. But even students won't exactly be tossing rechargeable batteries in - more likely disposable AAA batteries.

[DJ Omnimaga]

Not everyone will want to have to use rechargeable batteries. I personally will never use them. Some students just don't have the money to spend on them as well as a recharger and will buy the packs of 12-24 cheap batteries at the dollar store nearby instead, as they can buy them regulary with the $2 a month they get from their parents.

In my case, I hate how they last about 3-4 hours then you need to wait 5 hours for them to be recharged. Some people will tell people like me to just buy 3-4 sets of batteries and alternate between then but then comes the money issue above for other people.

What would be nice is if during less CPU-intensive calculations, the calculator clock speed could be changed from 50 to 20 MHz or something like that.

[matthias1992]

I keep recommending 50.

The argument that it drains batteries is to my belief false, mostly because of all components in a PC the processor consumes the least. We could better take off the real killer, the screen. Just remove the backlight and add in the juice. I know a calc isn't a pC but just saying proccesor consume little to no power.

The argument that it costs more is also 'debunked' price difference is ~$5

So please vote for 50mhz! It adds greatly to resale value!

[Juju]

I voted 50MHz. You could underclock the chip to 20MHz in the same manner TI underclocks their calculators, and give the possibility to the user to overclock to 50MHz if he wants more speed in processor-intensive applications. So you would have a 20MHz "power-saving" mode and a 50MHz "Turbo" mode. And, of course, if we want multitasking, we should think accordingly.

Of course, it would be awesome if this 20/50MHz switch would be made with a software, in the same manner my laptop processor underclocks itself from 2GHz to 800MHz when idle.

[Mighty Moose]

I like DJ's idea.  As long as there is an option to have a 20 mhz underclocked mode and a 50 mhz over clocked mode, it sounds good to me.

EDIT: changed my vote to 50 mhz/underclocked to 20 mhz.

[miotatsu]

my last post didnt get sent apparently, but anyway I voted for 50mhz. I mean really that is like 200mhz in comparison to a z80 right? that is epic! and if it can be underclocked to save on batteries I dont see the problem

[program4]

I also changed my vote to 50 mhz. However, this calculator is aimed for "average" students, so make sure it isn't too hard to underclock the processor.

[DJ Omnimaga]

I keep recommending 50.

The argument that it drains batteries is to my belief false, mostly because of all components in a PC the processor consumes the least. We could better take off the real killer, the screen. Just remove the backlight and add in the juice. I know a calc isn't a pC but just saying proccesor consume little to no power.

The argument that it costs more is also 'debunked' price difference is ~$5

So please vote for 50mhz! It adds greatly to resale value!

It depends of the country. Last time I checked, rechargeable batteries costs around $13 for 2 batteries here. The charger costs $23 and that's if you get the crappiest one. Now if you are a programmer, you need at least 8 batteries (assuming the calc uses 4 at once and you use both sets every day). That makes it $75 total. If for $1.68 you can get 12 cheap disposable batteries and each set of 4 lasts two weeks, after 5 years you spent $50.80 on batteries while with rechargeable ones, you would have spent $75. I gave 5 years as example because rechargeable batteries lasts around 5 years with heavy usage and almost everyone stop using their calcs after 5 years.

So for some people, that $5 would be more like $25. Note that I include taxes in my prices, though. I also live in Canada (Quebec)

Regardless, if the calc can be set to support two CPU speeds, it would be fine, I think. If somebody programs a game, for example, he should probably set it to run in 20 MHz mode for menus and if it's not a very intensive game, I don't think 50 MHz is necessary at all. For math operations, 20 is enough for almost everything except graphing .

Also I changed my vote to 50 MHz.

[alberthrocks]

I've updated the poll for a clearer option. Revote if needed.

[graphmastur]

by too hard, I would say do it completely in software, and no hardware required.  I don't know how difficult that would be.

Personally, 20MHZ would be okay, but 50MHZ would be awesome!

Vote changed to the 3rd option.

[t0xic_kitt3n]

I keep recommending 50.

The argument that it drains batteries is to my belief false, mostly because of all components in a PC the processor consumes the least. We could better take off the real killer, the screen. Just remove the backlight and add in the juice. I know a calc isn't a pC but just saying proccesor consume little to no power.

The argument that it costs more is also 'debunked' price difference is ~$5

So please vote for 50mhz! It adds greatly to resale value!

It depends of the country. Last time I checked, rechargeable batteries costs around $13 for 2 batteries here. The charger costs $23 and that's if you get the crappiest one. Now if you are a programmer, you need at least 8 batteries (assuming the calc uses 4 at once and you use both sets every day). That makes it $75 total. If for $1.68 you can get 12 cheap disposable batteries and each set of 4 lasts two weeks, after 5 years you spent $50.80 on batteries while with rechargeable ones, you would have spent $75. I gave 5 years as example because rechargeable batteries lasts around 5 years with heavy usage and almost everyone stop using their calcs after 5 years.

So for some people, that $5 would be more like $25. Note that I include taxes in my prices, though. I also live in Canada (Quebec)

Regardless, if the calc can be set to support two CPU speeds, it would be fine, I think. If somebody programs a game, for example, he should probably set it to run in 20 MHz mode for menus and if it's not a very intensive game, I don't think 50 MHz is necessary at all. For math operations, 20 is enough for almost everything except graphing .

Also I changed my vote to 50 MHz.

Batteries are that expensive? I know you have prices in canadian dollars, but still, I can get a pack of 4 AAAs here for 10 bucks.