DATAMATH CALCULATOR MUSEUM
|
DATAMATH CALCULATOR MUSEUM |
Texas Instruments TI-Nspire CAS+ (Prototype Version 1.1)
| Date of introduction: | (December 2006) | Display technology: | LCD dot matrix 16-level greyscale |
| New price: | Display size: | 240 * 320 pixels | |
| Size: | 7.8" x 3.9" x 0.85" | ||
| Weight: | 9.9 ounces | Serial No: | PVT1.1 02768 |
| Batteries: | 4*AAA | Date of manufacture: | mth 10 year 2006 |
| AC-Adapter: | Origin of manufacture: | China (S) | |
| Precision: | 14 | Integrated circuits: | TI-OMAP NP31AZZG, HYB18L256160, SST 39WF400A, ST NAND256W3A2BZA6 |
| Memories: | |||
| Program steps: | 22M Bytes, 512k Bytes Flash-ROM | Courtesy of: | Joerg Woerner |
We
noticed rumors in the graphing calculator community about an upcoming product
from Texas Instruments around June 2006 and it was obvious that they not refer
to the PET project. It took about 6 month and the
first images of the TI-Nspire CAS+ appeared in different forums on the Internet.
These prototypes of the later TI-Nspire CAS were
used in different field tests all over the world and some of them found their
way to eBay auctions.
We
acquired the featured TI-Nspire "PVT 1.1, serial number 02768" on an
eBay auction stating:
"TI-NSPIRE CAS+ Calculator. These are BRAND NEW, never turned on. Still
have factory sticker on the front of the screen !!"
A great find for the Datamath Calculator Museum, probably disappointing for
the regular customer!
At first glance looks this TI-Nspire CAS+ very similiar to the final device, but we observe some differences with the TI-Nspire CAS introduced in July 2007:
 | The cursor control makes use of inner and outer keys |
| Some function keys have different positions |
We know (as of November 10, 2007) four different versions of the TI-Nspire CAS:
| Name | Milestone | Serial No | Date of manufacture |
| TI-Nspire CAS | Evaluation | P1-EVT2-0135 | April 2006 |
| TI-nspire CAS+ | 'New Zealand' | May 2006 (?) | |
| TI-Nspire CAS+ | Prototype | PVT1.1 02768 | October 2006 |
| TI-Nspire CAS | Final Product | 2016002483 | April 2007 |
If you compare the TI-Nspire CAS manufactured in April 2006 with the featured protoype you'll notice some differences, too:
| The color scheme is completely different |
| Some function keys have different positions |
We assume that Texas Instruments manufactured more than 1000 samples of the TI-Nspire CAS resp. CAS+ for evaluation purposes. Field tests were reported from Germany, Switzerland and New Zealand. As a result of these extensive tests we learned 2 major changes in the design and concept of the calculator till its official introduction in July 2007 (Europe) and September 2007 (USA):
| The TI-Nspire with its snap-in TI-84 Plus Keypad was added to the TI-Nspire CAS |
| The internal architecture was optimized with respect to
manufacturing costs and power consumption |
Architecture: 
Dismantling this
late TI-Nspire
CAS+ prototype reveals an internal design somewhere between the
PLT-SHH1 prototype based on the sophisticated POMAP1509E and the ZEVIO architecture
of the final TI-Nspire CAS.
Processor:
The OMAP™ processor of the TI-Nspire CAS+ prototype is
labelled TI-OMAP NP31AZZG. We assume that this tiny chip is actually a System-on-Chip based on the
OMAP
architecture from Texas Instruments hosting a 90 MHz ARM9 32-bit RISC
processor.
Memory:
The TI-Nspire CAS+ prototype makes use of three different memory chips:
| NOR Flash-ROM |
| NAND Flash-ROM |
| SDRAM |
The disassembled TI-Nspire CAS+ prototype (Manufactured October 2006) features one SST 39WF400A NOR Flash-ROM, manufactured by Silicon Storage Technology, Inc. with a 256k*16 organization and one ST NAND256W3A2BZA66 NAND Flash-ROM with 32M Bytes size.
The program and data memory of the disassembled TI-Nspire CAS+ consists of one Qimonda HYB18L256160 SDRAM with 16M*16 size.
Please notice that all three memory chips are identical with the parts located in the released TI-Nspire CAS with the April 2007 manufacturing date.
Display: The TI-Nspire
CAS+ uses a high-contrast display with a
resolution of 240 * 320 pixels, a huge improvement over the TI-89 Titanium with
100 * 160 pixels or the Voyage 200 with 128 * 240 pixels. The large 16-level
greyscale display includes a novel split screen capability with up to 4 views.
The driver circuit of the LC-Display is compromised of 2 column driver and one
row driver manufactured by Novatek, Taiwan. We located a NT7702 row-driver as
bare chip mounted on a flexible piece of circuit board attached between the
display and a PCB.
ROM-Versions:
| TI-Nspire CAS+ (late prototype PVT1.1 02768) |
