Doom became the Hello World of the 21st century. If it has a little space and a video output, chances are someone will port the game to run on it. Texas Instruments calculators are the public's favorites for installing Doom and other hacks, but today we're going to see some action on the Casio fx-9750GII, which, thanks to the work of developer Tobias Mädel has just received… Internet That's right: Internet on a Casio calculator, with an IRC client, and a web server we can visit.
Whenever we have doubts about the meaning or practical value of these projects, we always say the same thing: We carry computers in our pockets, why not experiment with them? Imagine what the DIY space would be like with smartphones a bit more open at the hardware level. Both the Arduino ecosystem and the Raspberry Pi (which, by the way, isn't so "open") give us an idea of that potential, but there's a tool we must not forget: the calculator.
Although most projects focus on Texas Instruments units with their Z80 chips, there's also the Casio fx-9750GII, with SuperH SH3 or SH4a processors (depending on the generation) and 61 kilobytes of RAM. That brings us to the threshold of the fxIP development, by Tobias Mädel. What does it do exactly? It places a bit of Internet on a Casio calculator, through a TCP/IP stack.
fxIP: Internet on a Casio Calculator
From a technical point of view, fxIP is a port of the uIP project, adapted to Casio fx-9750 and fx-9860 calculators. Its code requires a SuperH SH4a processor, very similar to the one used by the Sega Dreamcast (apparently, it lacks a floating point unit), and connects to the Internet via SLIP encapsulation, using the 2.5-millimeter UART 'port'. If you look closely at the video, you'll notice resources like email and an IRC chat, which goes directly to irc.libera.chat (without using SSL).
However, the most notable thing is the web server. Tobias prepared a small page that anyone can visit, but we must highlight that the images have been stored elsewhere. Finally, I want to mention fxTerm, a terminal that Tobias used to dial up a modem. I swear I'm not making this up:
Do you happen to have one of these calculators and would like to give it a try? All the relevant code is available on the GitHub profile. Link below!
Official fxIP GitHub profile: Click here
