fed up with prime

[fablab48]

NOW, after new update, i cant scroll inside a programm.
yesterday, work's fine inside the same .!.!.!.!.!.!
when i attempt to sroll down with the down arrow, or with the toutch screen,
i see the waiting icon then after a long time, i change only one line.

the BUG concern big programm, the small one seems working.

seriously SOFTWARE MAN !! return to school.

i speak about the very last update,
new BUG
now when i try tu put my finger on the EDIT menu no software open !! the change from the actual position in the catalog to the first line
why !!!
another mysterious BUG.

please go urgently to the nursing home and ask help from the HP48 team, you are not at level (hardware and software)

[DrD]

Clearly this product is evolving. The calculator group is doing a great job anticipating the needs, providing solutions, and implementing change as resources permit.

Can I suggest that accommodating the evolution with patience and positive feedback to the hp Prime development team will result in the most productive value added to your purchase of the hp prime? If you find the product and the process too much to deal with, perhaps this device is not the right device for you.

I appreciate the talents of a team that has developed this product to the level it has. I understand what it took to get to this point. I understand the hp legacy, and the constraints of the corporate wind that limits what each individual can do, as a practical matter.

As far as the development team-competency is concerned, imagine, if it fell on your shoulders to implement, where would this product evolution be at this point?

I remain supportive, understanding, and willing to contribute back where possible, and whenever asked. I find this activity fun, productive, and worthwhile. The few bucks I spent on this particular device has returned value in lots of ways, so I remain a satisfied customer. Hopefully, the team can remain intact on into the future!

I imagine there are days, when the team may wonder ... but thanks, guys! You are a great and innovative group. I have had years and years of enjoyment growing alongside you, with hp calc products.

-Dale-

[jebem]

(05-30-2014 11:42 AM)fablab48 Wrote:  NOW, after new update, i cant scroll inside a programm.
yesterday, work's fine inside the same .!.!.!.!.!.!
when i attempt to sroll down with the down arrow, or with the toutch screen,
i see the waiting icon then after a long time, i change only one line.

the BUG concern big programm, the small one seems working.

seriously SOFTWARE MAN !! return to school.

i speak about the very last update,
new BUG
now when i try tu put my finger on the EDIT menu no software open !! the change from the actual position in the catalog to the first line
why !!!
another mysterious BUG.

please go urgently to the nursing home and ask help from the HP48 team, you are not at level (hardware and software)

There was a issue with the firmware released on 27 of May, so it was replaced by another one on 29 of May.
If not sure which one you have installed, pls follow this link:
http://www.hpmuseum.org/forum/thread-1463.html

[norlesh]

While direct insults towards the development team are inappropriate no matter how much the user experience may make it feel warranted. One would hope that the programmers working on this project are professionals and not some work experience kids that need there ego artificially stroked.

Definitely props and cudos when there due, but at presant they are Not Due in my personal opinion (who knows they may be due with this new firmware release - but since my calculator keeps failing when I attempt the update I don't know!)

[Tugdual]

Agree that being rude is not the way to go but also agree that there is an issue.
I just opened the Sokoban source code and indeed, the whole editor was frozen.

[fablab48]

NO,
1 year after the arriving of the prime :
2 updates ?
product not finished but sold ?
a mysterious hardware revision ?
function locked because of something wrong in the revision ?
impossible to connect prime, cable not in the box ?

i can't be OK with this
so: CLEARLY DID YOU ACCEPT TO BUY A NOT FINISHED CAR ?
me NO, clearly NO.

instead of add function, HP will must began by finishing something working

I'M SO RUDE, YES
but why ???
because i use since a long years my HP48GX, and as a conclusion i can say that :

with less hardware, older technology, the older do BETTER.

HP-PRIME is a BUGGY TOY, nothing else.
Every day i use my 48GX at my job, to calculate and the great serial port.
i don't see BUG
i see a correct communication line not greyed !!!!
i see it working a long time with LR3 battery !!
i don't see battery bug
i don't see a keyboard that not respond.
i see a working RPN

i compare, i look, i conclude!
you CAN desagree my conclusion but you can't avoid what i see !!!

seriously if there is here MATHEMATICAL TEATCHER : did you tell to your student to buy one ?
if yes, the fist thing to learn is the "the pencil in the back side reset hole".

[Tim Wessman]

Actually, I think I may understand the slowness you are seeing. As you click around now, the kinetic scrolling will end up drawing multiple times which is a very costly operation with very, very large programs. The only remedy at the moment is to make your programs smaller unfortunately. Since the editor is actually a full equation writer and not just a plain text system, there is more going on in a redraw besides just find X.Y and display a fixed width/size character.

As to why your menu button doesn't work, I have no idea since nobody has ever seen that before.

Everyone else, I believe he/she has valid complaints and doesn't need to be criticized. I understand this is mostly directed at the tone of the response, but please let people vent when they have a rightful complaint.

[Tim Wessman]

(05-30-2014 01:56 PM)Tugdual Wrote:  I just opened the Sokoban source code and indeed, the whole editor was frozen.

I load it up and don't see any freezing. I see it slower as you move around, but not frozen like you describe. Completely frozen?

[Tugdual]

(05-30-2014 03:00 PM)Tim Wessman Wrote:  

(05-30-2014 01:56 PM)Tugdual Wrote:  I just opened the Sokoban source code and indeed, the whole editor was frozen.

I load it up and don't see any freezing. I see it slower as you move around, but not frozen like you describe. Completely frozen?

Used to be and I On-Symbed it. But reading your question, I just tried again and now I see the hourglass on top right corner and it is just slow (like about 1sec to scroll) but no longer stopped.

[Tim Wessman]

(05-30-2014 11:42 AM)fablab48 Wrote:  please go urgently to the nursing home and ask help from the HP48 team, you are not at level (hardware and software)

Hello,

There are quite a few factors at play here that I think might be relevant.

Modern hardware/software is quite different then that from 15 years ago - let alone 30. It used to be such as in the time of the 28/48 creation that it was possible for a single user to understand the entire system from end to end. Unfortunately, that just isn't possible anymore.

For example, most chips come with a built in flashing mechanism of some kind. How exactly does that work? What are potential bugs or difficulty in there? There is no way to know that out or discover that because the chip manufacturer doesn't give that information out. If a problem is found, who exactly can you talk to?

Then you have the LCD/touchscreen, which has its own firmware that is created by the LCD manufacturer. There will be 0 visibility there and it is expected to work as a black box to deliver data back... except when it doesn't work as expected.

Then you have the OS for the chip. Usually, this will be a choice or one or possibly two supported OS implementations. If you move outside of that, all support is no longer given as they just won't support anything not on the approved list.

Then you often ( but not always ) have some firmware inside the charging circuitry. That is usually quite reliable, yet not always. How many major phone/electronics manufacturers have pulled or had to release updated software to address "power/charging issues" just within the last year or two? The complain of "my battery life is draining quickly" sure seems to be heard quite a bit in my opinion every time there is a new phone revision out...

We haven't even gotten to the calculator part of things yet, but there are already 4-5 different components that have to be working perfectly else unexpected things will happen. Sublte, tiny differences in behavior can be triggered that were completely unknown by completely innocuous changes.

Compare that with the 48. You have a custom designed chip for a specific purpose. The chip was designed to work exactly with 1 specific memory chip. The LCD was purely an on/off per pixel mapped directly to a memory location by the chip. In order to do anything, they worked directly with the designers of the chip to do things exactly as was intended with no in-between layers.

This whole stack was comprehensible to a single individual. Modern systems simply aren't. One person cannot possibly understand *exactly* what is going on in a windows program, android program, etc. You can have a rough idea, but the details are often what catches you.

I say this now not in an attempt to shift blame, or to argue that your concerns are invalid - they aren't. However, the complexity of modern systems is to the point now where you have to depends on many different pieces provided by many different sources. The complexity is at least an order of magnitude higher then it was before. Stupid bugs are just much easier to miss when there is more around them.

I spent a long time talking with Jim Donnelly last year. He was extremely impressed with Prime, and said that we were doing things they had only dreamed about doing back when the 48 was in development.

Is it perfect? Nope. Is it getting there? I think so. (well... maybe never perfect )

[Michael]

Does anyone know what happened to Dr. William Wickes?

[Helge Gabert]

I don't know what happened to him, but I do know that I loved his two treatises about HP-48 insights, and HP48 applications. Well written, and informative!

Regarding the Prime, all I can say is that I'm glad I bought one last year, warts and all - - my first one actually died running the very buggy rev 5106 - - but it provided me with much intellectual stimulation. With the latest release, new features have been added (e.g., statistical inference capabilities, which will be very useful). Of course, some new bugs will always be introduced because of the modern complexities (chipset, touchscreen interfaces, etc.) mentioned above, but I'm confident future firmware upgrades will make this a fantastic handheld calculator. I'm still using my 50G, but it is not nearly as much fun!

[Guenter Schink]

(05-30-2014 11:42 AM)fablab48 Wrote:  please go urgently to the nursing home and ask help from the HP48 team, you are not at level (hardware and software)

You could read the HP-48 FAQ on hpcalc.org and see how many bugs the HP-48 had from the beginning, causing all kind of complete memory losses. The developers went through a number of firmware upgrades to eliminate (all?) of these serious memory destroying bugs.

The difference is, there was no chance for a firmware update. Those developers around Dr. Wickes weren't perfect either.

Günter

[Maro]

… and keep in mind the fundamental law of software engineering: "Everything that works is out of date!"

[Jake Schwartz]

(05-30-2014 03:53 PM)Michael Wrote:  Does anyone know what happened to Dr. William Wickes?

Bill is retired and still living in Corvallis...at least as of 2008.

[Jsather]

I also have been working on a longer program and am frustrated with the slow page up/down characteristics new firmware release in the actual calculator. I second fablab48's degree of frustration. This was much faster with the old firmware and is now nearly unworkable.

On a related subject, it sure would be nice editing programs on the calculator to have a search-for-text function such as in the Casio Prism program editor. My program is 60 calculator pages or so. Just wishing there was a good way to get to the middle of it.

So as not only to complain. Hooray! I can now use debug on my long program. It used to just crash the HP' into a power down, power up cycle.

[debrouxl]

It's true that various gripes with the Prime remain justified, but such disrespectful posts as yours are openly rude, fablab48. Be smarter, more balanced when criticizing HP's work.

[Joe Horn]

(05-30-2014 11:42 AM)fablab48 Wrote:  please go urgently to the nursing home and ask help from the HP48 team, you are not at level (hardware and software)

Wait a sec... How many years did it take HP to get the 48 to the "level" that you admire? How many ROM versions did it take? (Those are not rhetorical questions; the answers are important). The Prime has been out less than a year, and there have been 3 firmware versions. If you want Prime's development team to follow the 48's path to perfection, then allow them the same number of years, and the same number of revisions.

[Dougggg]

I dont know if this will help lead to solution, but i was playing with large programs and found the breakout game would freeze the calculator after one scroll. I did it a few times, and did a reset to get it to come back to life, but now when I press shift-program it resets the calculator and when it reboots its on the Program Catalog, but pressing the edit button does nothing. Im glad I made a backup ?

[Kevin Ouellet]

(05-31-2014 04:07 AM)Joe Horn Wrote:  

(05-30-2014 11:42 AM)fablab48 Wrote:  please go urgently to the nursing home and ask help from the HP48 team, you are not at level (hardware and software)

Wait a sec... How many years did it take HP to get the 48 to the "level" that you admire? How many ROM versions did it take? (Those are not rhetorical questions; the answers are important). The Prime has been out less than a year, and there have been 3 firmware versions. If you want Prime's development team to follow the 48's path to perfection, then allow them the same number of years, and the same number of revisions.

Technically, the HP Prime has been around for two years, as the HP 39gII. THe Prime is entirely based on the 39gII except the hardware, but yeah it has still not been around for that long.

If the HP Prime team really needs to go back to school, then I can't imagine what the Texas Instruments Nspire team needs to do.