Omnimaga
Calculator Community => Other Calc-Related Projects and Ideas => Topic started by: code241 on May 09, 2010, 11:53:25 am
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I was wondering about this for a while, but putting wifi and internet on graphing calculators would be very difficult. I know that Brandon Wilson is currently working on one, but can anyone help?
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How would you connect it? To a computer serial port maybe? One thing that can be done is to have a program on the computer do most of the work for you and only send to the calc a compressed web page instead of html, that would make it significantly faster. You still navigate the web on the calc, but the data you send back and forth is easier, and less of it.
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It would require a lot of memory and power from a calculator, but I think it could be done.
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It's impossible without an external power source. The USB port can only handle 100mA, the serial port even less iirc.
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It would be awesome but impractical. Using a computer makes it less portable, but at least it's a calculator-that-can-indirectly-access-the-internet. WiFi requires a lot of power, and you need to build/buy something. You'd have to have separate batteries. Definitely cool, but not that workable, not to mention the small screen size of a calc. Of course any browser would be text-only, because anything else would be even more impractical.
I will just repeat my opinion: awesome, but impractical.
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Using the OTG, couldn't you rewire the power to use, say, a 9v battery? That way, you could use a wifi adapter
you'd probably be stuck with a text based browser, though. Not even the nspire has enough ram for many pictures, even if its ram was empty.
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There is official Nspire Wi-Fi hardware, but its ridiculously expensive and only comes in class sets.
Graphical browsing is definitely possible in 32 MB; I've seen various old Linux machines do it.
I hope we eventually get a Linux port for the Nspire. Do Nspires have an MMU?
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On a shopping site, I think there were multiple versions of it, some that supported a dozen of calcs and others more or less. Some were like $400 IIRC, but I saw some in the $3000s x.x
it was ridiculous.
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I've been looking for projects like this, maybe you can use a USB wifi adapter and map to a battery with better capacity. Might work, but will be tough.
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My guess was either a Nintendo DS/Wii USB wi-fi adapter or maybe one from an internet company. I wonder if it would require some jailbreaking or special coding, though...
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Internet (HTML pages) on z80 line and even 68k is to forget because of their low resolution, lack of memory and cpu power it would quite useless and too much effort. But maybe tcp or udp protocol would be cool. Hey, lets link the calculators by the Internet. ;D
For the Nspire HTML pages is doable and would be amazing. PDF is also other thing to do.
About wireless connection, for z80 there is bluetooth by Brandon Wilson (unfinished, though) and there is Infrared communication. This is very possible and would be quite a useful one for classes or exams. :P
Wireless communication between calculators would be very cool, especially if there was a fun multi player game.
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Internet and WiFi could be possible, but it would be a major undertaking, but one day I think it will be a reality. I wonder how long it will be before MMORPGs are on calcs everywhere...
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N-spire has a wi-fi cradle. And I think that that would be able to handle a web browser better cause it has 32MB of RAM a web page would be really hard to render in even the largest of memories among other calculators (256kb if Wikipedia is to be believed.)
The real power is the development of an Tcp/ip library then development of everything begins. I have images of people playing wow in math class.
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There is official Nspire Wi-Fi hardware, but its ridiculously expensive and only comes in class sets.
Graphical browsing is definitely possible in 32 MB; I've seen various old Linux machines do it.
I hope we eventually get a Linux port for the Nspire. Do Nspires have an MMU?
Yes, they do have an MMU.
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N-spire has a wi-fi cradle. And I think that that would be able to handle a web browser better cause it has 32MB of RAM a web page would be really hard to render in even the largest of memories among other calculators (256kb if Wikipedia is to be believed.)
The real power is the development of an Tcp/ip library then development of everything begins. I have images of people playing wow in math class.
I would def. play wow during class, though might be hard on a tiny calculator :/ but still wifi on a 84+se is still far away :(
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Internet and WiFi could be possible, but it would be a major undertaking, but one day I think it will be a reality. I wonder how long it will be before MMORPGs are on calcs everywhere...
I hope MMORPGs on calc won't get too big, tho, same for online games x.x
A lot of people code between classes or when done with homework. This time would now be wasted playing online games instead, meaning a major drop in calc dev, like when WoW came out. D:
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ha, like wow would even run on it anyway
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ha, like wow would even run on it anyway
I can wish, untill then ill just keep bringing my laptop to class... hence why my homework is never done :(
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If WoW was open source we could write an extremely low-power client that had ascii graphics...LOL
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a 2D RPG in the style of Secret Of Mana could do as well
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Using the OTG, couldn't you rewire the power to use, say, a 9v battery? That way, you could use a wifi adapter
you'd probably be stuck with a text based browser, though. Not even the nspire has enough ram for many pictures, even if its ram was empty.
Yes, you can wire up a 9V battery to the port and supply power to devices that way instead. http://brandonw.net/calculators/ has instructions on how to build such a cable.
The Bluetooth driver still has a long way to go, but there's enough to initiate communication between two calculators and transfer raw data back and forth.
The wifi driver is much further behind and requires specific devices -- the one I'd like to support most is the Nintendo DS Wi-Fi USB connector, as it supports functioning as an access point and has open-source Linux drivers we can study.
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Oh yeah I thought about that before (DS Wi-Fi USB connector), I thought it might be a nice device to jailbreak or something for calc usage. It's common everywhere in stores.
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Oh yeah I thought about that before (DS Wi-Fi USB connector), I thought it might be a nice device to jailbreak or something for calc usage. It's common everywhere in stores.
I hope this'll work, as when finished it's going to be awesome. I can't wait to have a calc with Wi-Fi! ;D