A temporary "fix", the Casio Prism (fx-CG10)

[LHH]

I'm not normally an impulse buyer (especially these days) but I was visiting Staples today and saw the Casio Prism fx-CG10 on display. I played with it for a while and was able to graph a few functions on the very nice color screen. Anyway, it's much more of a "beast" than I am used to but I couldn't resist buying it. I think it will be fun although there is a learning curve or two ahead for this antiquated brain.

Of course I'm really hoping for a similar product from HP one of these days but I thought that in the meantime this might be a fun way to get a little more familiar with graphing calcs (my first). Kudos to those here who have provided all the wonderful emulators but I don't have a laptop so I can't take them with me or play with them while I'm lying in bed at night. BTW, I did see all the other "usual suspects" but something about this one appealed to me I guess.

Now that I have confessed to my indiscretion I do think I feel better about it all.

[Dave Britten]

If it's anything like the FX-9860G, then it will run Basic programs FAST.

But did they actually use serif fonts on such a low-res screen?

[Marcus von Cube, Germany]

It's not so fast, at least not the BASIC interpreter. And it's even limited at 64 KB memory. (This is from memory, I haven't had a look at my device for a year or so.)

[Mark Scheuern]

I was just in a Staples, too, and had a look at their "back to school" display. The fx-CG10 looked nice; I ended up getting an fx-115ES Plus. I'm very partial to HPs, of course, but it seems like a great little calculator for the price.

I like watches and have a bunch of Casio G-Shocks but this is my first Casio calculator. And now I feel better having admitted my purchase, too.

[hugh steers]

The prizm screen is nice. i'm expecting to see a colour screen from HP at some point, since Ti have one also.

Not everyone thinks a hires colour screen is a good idea, but personally, i think it's the way to go for making calculator displays clearer, especially when it comes to graphing and, importantly, the display of symbols.

Regarding fonts, casio have somewhat missed an opportunity to make things look really nice. As far as i can see, the fonts are rendered without any anti-aliasing, although the screen is quite capable of it. it also doesn't seem to be able to scale them either, which is another shortcoming.

Presumably this is due to the colour upgrade being predominantly a marketing move, rather than it being utilised properly to better to improve the user experience. Perhaps the software will catch up later.

I'm planning to do some experiments with font rendering on this screen to see what might be possible, eg the drawing of mathematical formulae. I'll be presenting results, along with a discussion of display technology in general, at the HPCC conference in London, Oct 27 2012, if anyone is interested.

in the meantime, here's some pictures:

-- hugh.

[LHH]

I think I agree with your assessment so far. Maybe you could contact Casio and see if they would hire you to do some work on the fonts and graphics in general? For the most part it seems pretty good though and it's fun exploring around on this thing. It is equipped with a USB port so firmware updates will be common (I'm already behind the latest right now). The display is 384x216 with >65K colors, not too shabby. The key layout is a bit quirky, especially the placement of the "exe" key which is used a lot, but maybe that's because I've mostly been using it in bed so far. I haven't gotten too far into it yet but so far it's been pretty easy to learn even without a manual handy. It is cutting into my "thought experiment" time though, don't want to get lazy!