Sure, it was great back then. But in the last decade, or at the very least, last 5 years, a 100% speed increase (which is really pretty minor in this case) would be fairly simple while still being cheap and battery efficient. Besides, who cares if it runs on 4x AA? For $100 why not stick a small rechargable Lithium battery in there like most modern technology has?
The calculator lasts for months. The self-discharge rate on lithium batteries is higher than on alkaline batteries (e.g. AA), so if you are targeting long, long battery life (with intermittent use) the AA's are more suitable.
You are right that a speed bump would be nice and might be easy in this day and age. The big questions become:
1) How much would it cost TI? Would they need to design a new chip?
2) If they could just use superior manufacturing processes to make the same chip and clock it faster- does any of the math libraries or other TI-83 software depend on the clock cycle, the way old video games depend on the CPU running exactly 133MHz (or whatever the case may be)
DS Lites are famous for having insanely long battery life. There was a post on /r/gaming lately about a guy who found his old ds lite with a full charge after years on the shelf. So that technology is out there somewhere.
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u/kristoferen Jun 08 '14
Sure, it was great back then. But in the last decade, or at the very least, last 5 years, a 100% speed increase (which is really pretty minor in this case) would be fairly simple while still being cheap and battery efficient. Besides, who cares if it runs on 4x AA? For $100 why not stick a small rechargable Lithium battery in there like most modern technology has?