Connect the Prime with Macs

[kickniko]

I there any software for connecting the calculator with Macs? If not, which seems to me to be the current situation, is there any information available about comms protocoll etc.?

If both is not available then chances are that the calc is already a dead product for me as a Mac user. (No PCs in this house and no additional money for buying yet another machine, sorry HP...)

[Thomas_Sch]

Yes,
maybe this: http://www.hpmuseum.org/forum/thread-52.html
"libhpcalcs: portable (Windows / MacOS X / Linux) connectivity kit library"

[kickniko]

(10-04-2014 10:47 AM)Thomas_Sch Wrote:  Yes,
maybe this: http://www.hpmuseum.org/forum/thread-52.html
"libhpcalcs: portable (Windows / MacOS X / Linux) connectivity kit library"

Thanks once more, Thomas!

I knew already about libhpcalcs but for me it is no option at all. (Better things to do than installing, de-installing, re-installing, checking, trying, testing and adventuring around just to connect two machines.)

Perhaps I am going to develop some connection tool for the Mac, if I have the time.

Ciao and thanks,

Nick

[Adriweb]

Just for info, it took just a few minutes from downloading the install script to get the program running, on my mac
Basically you just have to run it and wait, you don't have to do much yourself.

[debrouxl]

libhpcalcs' main problem is indeed the lack of a GUI... As Adriweb wrote, it's not that hard to build, though

Everyone is welcome to develop UIs on top of libhpcalcs. Thanks to an API derived from the original libti* for TI graphing calculators, it aims at reusability; C is the most interoperable language, and it's also very portable.
If I were to develop an UI myself (in fact, I had started making an autotools skeleton), it would be based on Qt, because that's the one choice for portability and interoperability.

[ColinJDenman]

Any progress on being able to do firmware updating with this software?

[debrouxl]

Nope. No progress on that front since my initial work analyzing the protocol in August 2013 from USB dumps obtained for critor, described at http://tiplanet.org/hpwiki/index.php?tit...g_Protocol .

Besides the blocking aspect of insufficient protocol analysis, in order to support the firmware reflashing process, the cables part of libhpcalcs needs to be refactored, so that it enumerates through libusb, then hands over to hidapi for HID operation, or keeps using libusb for firmware reflashing mode.
libticables uses libusb, so there will be more copy-paste-modify to libhpcalcs.

[Tim Wessman]

(10-07-2014 06:18 AM)ColinJDenman Wrote:  Any progress on being able to do firmware updating with this software?

When it has re-enumerated for updating, it is actually in bulk mode and used direct SCSI write to the flash.

[ColinJDenman]

(10-07-2014 01:49 PM)Tim Wessman Wrote:  When it has re-enumerated for updating, it is actually in bulk mode and used direct SCSI write to the flash.

Would it really not have been simpler to implement a basic storage device USB connection to the Prime -- countless cameras, memory sticks and other things operate through such an approach without the need for a bespoke host system driver and it would have been essentially OS agnostic.

[Tim Wessman]

We didn't implement it...

And yes. The basic issue is they need the files placed at an exact memory location and the OS doesn't support a way to place things that exactly.

[eried]

(10-08-2014 03:53 PM)Tim Wessman Wrote:  We didn't implement it...

And yes. The basic issue is they need the files placed at an exact memory location and the OS doesn't support a way to place things that exactly.

Maybe it can work like the virtual directories in Windows Phone