Hello,
I'm doing B.E. electronics and communication, as the final year project we plan to build a scientific calculator using 8051. I need advice on the suitability of it as a final year engineering project, is it worthwhile? is it too simple?I know that the MCS-51 family is not particularly suited for math operations. These are the objectives that I hope to achieve.

1) Implementation on a simple 8-bit microcontroller like 8051 or pic 16x to bring down cost.
2) Minimal code size and acceptable speed(order of ms as the user is not too fast) despite being run on the above.
3) Compact design. Basically utilizing the microcontroller to its fullest. eg. I plan to make the uc do the keyscanning rather than using a seperate keyboard controller.
4) Portable and energy efficient. Implemented by reducing active components.
5) It's mostly based on the Casio fx-991ms/es. With additional functions and modes that I felt lacking.
6) Most importantly, a calculator that's cheaper, faster and more powerful than the 'role-model' fx-991

I could use an ARM uc, with its FPU and powerful math instructions. But, the main goal of this project according to me is to implement a better calculator rather than to just implement one. I'm more comfortable coding in assembly rather than in an HLL like C or BASIC when it comes to embedded processors. So, people.. I'm confident that I can achieve the above but IS IT GOOD ENOUGH AS A FINAL YEAR PROJECT???

Best regards
Amit