Comment by hi-v-rocknroll

I had one of those in middle school c. 1990. It had function and program support. The problem with modifying one of those would be it's physically small and lacks I/O.

Upgraded to an HP 48GX sophomore year of high school. It worked well for math and physics coursework, AP Calculus BC, and the SAT-I math section. The IR serial port's LED was so powerful, there was a learning TV remote app that could control TVs from ~60-100' (20-30m) away. The ability to beam software to other calculators was just shy of the invention of the app store.