HPex is dead, long live Alum!

[Liam Hays]

Hello everybody,

A while ago, I announced a piece of software I had written called HPex. It was a GUI RPL calculator transfer tool.

Unfortunately, it also sucked. HPex was written in Python and wxPython, meaning it required hundreds of megabytes of shared libraries, ran only on Linux, and had limited file transfer capabilities. I decided to make something better.

Introducing Alum. Alum is a command-line transfer tool that supports bidirectional XModem and one-way Kermit transfers, runs on Windows and Linux, and is a standalone executable. It is designed to be useful, not fancy. I used it as a gateway to learn the Rust programming language (which is super cool, check it out!). Alum contains homegrown implementations of the Kermit and XModem protocols, so it requires no external dependencies, and it can determine the checksum of any HP 48 object and automatically detect USB serial ports.

Please, try out Alum on your own setup. If you find a problem or want a feature, open an issue on GitHub or here on the Forum. I have only tested Alum with an HP 48GX, and it's very possible that newer models have different behavior. Finally, I have documented the XModem Server protocol in detail, using both the Conn4x source code on hpcalc.org and Wireshark to monitor serial traffic.

[cdmackay]

thanks very much for your efforts, Liam. I'll give it a try when I have a moment.

[TomC]

Ok; sorry for the interruption.

I think I've got things figured out - I did NOT have the XMODEM server installed on the calculator. Please ignore my note below the +++++++++++++++++...

I'll keep working with alum - so far, so good.

TomC

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Hello Liam:

Thank you for your efforts.

I am getting timeout errors when trying to transfer a dir from the hp48.

I have a USB-Serial convertor that visually shows me that the computer and calc are communicating over the proper port.

I have selected xmodem in the IO screen of the HP48, set baud 9600 and wire transfer.

Would you detail what setting in the calculator I might be missing?


Thank you,
TomC

-------------------------------------------------------------------
C:\Users\tchra\Downloads>alum -p com9 -b 9600 xget util
[== ] Receiving util as util.1 on com9...
Error: failed to read from serial port: Custom { kind: TimedOut, error: "Operation timed out" }
-------------------------------------------------------------------

[Liam Hays]

Version v0.2 is out! Thanks to TomC here on the forums for spotting a bug, and I fixed it right away. It was big enough that I felt a new release was needed.

https://github.com/liamhays/alum/releases/tag/v0.2

[TomC]

Liam:

Thank you very much!!! (and you're/we're welcome)...

...the testing will continue...

TomC

(09-19-2022 01:53 PM)Liam Hays Wrote:  Version v0.2 is out! Thanks to TomC here on the forums for spotting a bug, and I fixed it right away. It was big enough that I felt a new release was needed.

https://github.com/liamhays/alum/releases/tag/v0.2

[Liam Hays]

Another week, another release, I guess. Version 0.3 is out, with a requested feature: Kermit receive. It's documented in the README on the project homepage.

Implementing Kermit receive didn't take nearly as much work as I had anticipated. I have tested it on Linux and Windows and it worked well on both platforms.