1997 Fools: Press Release: Announcing the hp58
Subject: Press Release: Announcing the hp58
From: makoto@cs.ubc.ca (Makoto Tony Kobayashi)
Date: 1997/04/01
Message-Id: <5hs4gq$57n@cascade.cs.ubc.ca>
Newsgroups: comp.sys.hp48
For immediate release:
Hewlett Packard announced today the release of the newest member in
its popular handheld calculator series, the hp58. Improvements have
been made in graphics, memory, and computing speed while comfortingly
retaining the familiar physical dimensions of the cherished hp48.
The announcement caught many members of the handheld calculator
community by surprise. When questioned why Hewlett Packard did not
make earlier announcements, spokesperson Aho Shigatsu replied, "We
really wanted to catch the handheld calculator community by surprise."
Most prominent among the improvements are a higher resolution
(1024x768), 24-bit true color, more memory, and a faster internal
processor. Shigatsu commented, "We initially tried to go for an
active LCD matrix for the display, but unfortunately at that
resolution and screen size, LCD wasn't good enough. So we developed
our own display technology -- a trichromatic pulsed laser display. Of
course, since we've gotten rid of the need for the traditional
electron gun, we can replace the phosphor screen with a simple
diffusion gradient. The colors are just brilliant! Brighter reds,
deeper blues, and warmer greens than you'll see anywhere else.
Unfortunately, it does have a tendency to burn out your eyes..."
The hp48GX's built in 128k RAM has been replaced by 16M RAM and 128k
of cached RAM. The processor's clock speed is 5GHz (gigahertz) and
with a full pipeline, some benchmarks will attain 2.4 BIPS (billion
instructions per second). Shigatsu qualified, "But to be honest, you
won't see 2.4 BIPS most of the time. For most applications, you'd
expect an average 1.1 BIPS or so." The secret to their high
performance? Shigatsu hinted, "Two words -- `quantum lightgates'."
The computing power was necessary to support the new proprietary
multitasking operating system modelled after the popular "HP View"
system used on Hewlett Packard's higher end workstations. For the
pointing device, a mouse was considered, but deemed too inconvenient
for handheld use. So how did they do it? "Heh, heh, heh... we've got
a little camera mounted inside the logo on the upper right hand side
of the hp58. It scans your face and tracks the position of your
eyeballs. Of course, the screen is also touch sensitive if you prefer
a more old fashioned method."
To power the hp58, each one comes equipped with a miniature
thermonuclear fusion reactor. "Hey, don't worry, they're safe!
Really! We've tested them out and everything. We tried to go with
batteries, but found that even with D cells, the hp58 would only run
for 7.9 seconds. We think it's the cellular modem that's ... oh,
did I mention the cellular modem?"
That's right, to meet the demands of today's ever growing
communications driven society, the hp58 includes a cellular modem.
Also, each hp58 will come with its own internet IP address. "We
thought about adding a GPS (global positioning system). But we didn't
want to go overboard. After all, it's just a calculator."
Mach
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