Re: Bug in all 85 and 86

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Re: Bug in all 85 and 86

On Wed, 03 Sep 1997 10:41:45 -0700, Kevin Connolly
>The usual reasons against a replacable ROM are, (1) extra cost and
>(2) reduced reliability. I know the extra cost is small but in designing
>a product you have many such trade-offs that can add up to a significant
>cost. As regards reliability, every extra connection adds to the fail
>rate and sockets are worse than solder.

Exactly. School calcs is heavy competition. TI, HP, and Casio are all
in the race. Price is a major factor. While 'replacable ROM!' on the
box might be catchy, and another toy the Casio and HP don't have, it
will also add some 10 bucks to the price (if they want to keep updated
roms free. ie: Either you send your calc back to TI for an update,
which would be a high cost/update, or you can somehow change it at
home by either popping something in or opening the case and replacing
something. that would mean they need to make it accessible (ever
opened your TI-85? probably not. To me it looks rather hard to make a
compartment in there that is accessible to  non-techies. After all,
many people use those without having a clue about how to really use
their calc.

Finally, think before you come up with an idea. The first big release
of the TI-85 came as ROM v2.0. Now we have ROM v10.0 Yes, certainly,
loads of updates in between. Significant? no. None. It's VERY HARD to
find any difference between a rom2 and a rom10. TI probably has
thought about it when designing the 86. seeing as the 85 never needed
eeprom or rom on a replaceable cart, the 86 most likely won't either.

The 92 does, and that is because the 92 is really a palmtop. The
software is MUCH more extensive, and as such it's logical to put in
replacable rom. for something running WinCE, it's even more logical to
put in a replacable ROM, and most WCE systems do.

We would probably buy it. Not the least of reasons would be to try and
interface ZShell as part of the ROM, and burn it on. But aside from
that? none. And since they dont even acknowledge ZShell, this is
really a lost path.

Don't get me wrong, I'd love a ti with burnable rom! It's just that
from a business point of view, it's not going to happen.
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