Some specifics from the professor's web site:
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Columbia University
ENGI E1112
Gateway Lab for Computer Science and Computer Engineering
Fall 2011
Overview
In this project, you will write new firmware for an HP 20b calculator. This is an example of embedded programming: coding software for something that does not, and should not, appear to be a computer in the traditional sense, yet is one at its core. The plummeting cost of integrated circuits has made such embedded systems ubiquitous, and this trend promises to continue. The challenges of designing such systems run the gamut from traditional electrical issues such as sensor noise and power consumption all the way to high-level computer science problems such as efficient algorithm design to human factors engineering. You will experience all of these, and learn some standard solutions, while performing this project.
1: Getting Started: Hello World
2: Listening to the Keyboard
3: Entering and displaying numbers
4: An RPN Calculator
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Seven teams of students completed written reports and presentations. Links to those 14 items, to the professor's instructions for parts 1, 2, and 3, and to other pertinent stuff are all at the URL below.
All this might hold interest for the WP34 crowd here.
The URL:
http://www.cs.columbia.edu/~sedwards/classes/2011/gateway-fall/index.html