Building a claculator with existing parts...

[sllik]

Hi everyone!

I want to start by saying that I am new to this hobby but I have always been interested in the idea of creating my own little devices... My background is mostly in computer science and not much of electronics... The reason I decided to get into this field is to design and build a device that I had in mind for some time now... but it's way too complicate for me at this stage so I decided to start with building a calculator.

My calculator will consist of:
a number pad
a display
and a small thermal printer... (to print the results or whatever)

I got all of those parts from different places... (old electronics)

The reason I decided to build a calculator is because by doing this I will learn a lot of relevant material to building my device.

Now my guess is that this calculator will have to have some kind of a CPU to control all of those components and some kind of memory (to store numbers). I am not looking to design and create everything from scratch.... so I would not be making the CPU and the memory, I just want to properly implement those components.

That is as far as I get... I need some advice on what kind of CPU/memory would be best... and a pointer to some tutorials or reading material that will help me with this project. Also any tips or advice is appreciated.

Thanks!