newRPL: [UPDATED April 27-2017] Firmware for testing available for download

[Claudio L.]

(06-24-2016 04:35 PM)Guenter Schink Wrote:  A very interesting list of SD-commands

Code:

SDNEXTFILE
SDOPENDIR
SDEOF
SDFILESIZE
SDTELL
SDSEEKCUR
SDSEEKEND
SDSEEKSTA
SDREADLINE
SDWRITETEXT
SDREADTEXT
SDCLOSE
SDOPENMOD
SDOPENAPP
SDOPENWR
SDOPENEND
SDPGDIR
SDMKDIR
SDCHDIR
SDRCL
SDSTO
SDSETPART
SDRESET

Look at this glitch
"This is some text" 'test' SDSTO
'test' will be turned into 'TEST' on the sdcard, which is o.k. as FAT doesn't distinguish between capital and lower characters.
BUT the command 'test' SDRCL will result in an error message "File not found". 'TEST' SDRCL works of course.

Next step: "another text" 'test' SDSTO will create a file "test;" which then is not accessible from the calculator. Now I change that name on the sdcard to 'test1' and SDRCL will work correctly

Günter

Not exactly a glitch, though it doesn't sound like it's working properly, I must have some misconfiguration of the file system.
What you see is a method I devised years ago to have case-sensitive files on a FAT filesystem. It's supposed to work like this:

';' is not allowed in FAT short names, but it is on long names.
'test' SDSTO is supposed to create a file 'test;' on the SD card.
'test' SDRCL is supposed to open that file 'test;'
'TEST' SDSTO is supposed to create a file 'TEST', which will coexist with 'test;' without a problem.
While you can see the semicolons when you put the SD card on a PC, the calculator should present all names without the semicolons.

More than one semicolon are appended to make case-equivalent files different. For example:
'Test' SDSTO and 'test' SDSTO will create 2 files:
'Test;' and 'test;;'
The second semicolon makes it coexist with the other file, otherwise they will be identical names (FAT is case-insensitive).

I'll investigate and make it work properly if it isn't.

[JoJo1973]

Too bad, my experiments with a multimeter shall have to wait my return home... Even if the first tests prove inconclusive I'll repeat them: at least to increase sample size!

(06-24-2016 01:54 PM)Claudio L. Wrote:  First test:

Turn calculator on and measure current consumption (A)

Run this program, then measure current (B).

<< #05600014h 0 POKE >>

Now run this other program, then measure current (C).

<< #05600014h 4 POKE >>

Explanation: This is the speaker port. Normally it's being driven low (A), and the first program forces it to low state (B), so in theory B=A.
The second program drives it high (C). It's expected that (C) > (B), so newRPL leaves the speaker driven low when at sleep, this test will confirm that this is the correct configuration for the 49G+ too.

This is a fun port to play with:

<< 1 1000 START #05600014H DUP PEEK 4 BXOR POKE NEXT >>

Let me know the current values.

[Claudio L.]

July ROM update!

This update brings multiple bug fixes to the SD Card module and 2 new commands PEVAL and PCOEF (in addition to GCD, LCM, MULTMOD, ADDTMOD, SUBTMOD that came in the previous update but I forgot to mention).

As usual... test and report!

[Guenter Schink]

(07-14-2016 09:29 PM)Claudio L. Wrote:  July ROM update!

This update brings multiple bug fixes to the SD Card module and 2 new commands PEVAL and PCOEF (in addition to GCD, LCM, MULTMOD, ADDTMOD, SUBTMOD that came in the previous update but I forgot to mention).

As usual... test and report!

Is there a description of the SD commands, function/syntax, anywhere?

Günter

[Claudio L.]

(07-14-2016 09:51 PM)Guenter Schink Wrote:  Is there a description of the SD commands, function/syntax, anywhere?

Günter

Not yet, but here's a quick briefing:
File names can be an IDENT or a string or a list with a path { HOME 'MYDIR' 'NAME' }. Strings can also have paths: "/MYDIR/NAME" is the same as the list before.
The SD Card can have a partition table (MBR) with up to 4 partitions. The syntax accepted is any of DOS syntax "C:/FILENAME", or HP50g syntax ":3:/FILENAME". Other partitions would be letter "D", "E" and "F", or :4:, :5: and :6:.
Files and directory names are case-sensitive (despite being a FAT filesystem), so you can store 'MyVar', 'MYVAR' as 2 separate files.
Commands:
SDSTO/SDRCL ... same as STO/RCL, except the variable name can be an ident, string, or list as explained above.
SDSETPART ... Select the active partition, takes an integer 0-3.
SDCHDIR ... Change to directory name in level 1.
SDMKDIR ... Create new directory
SDPGDIR ... Delete an empty directory
SDPURGE ... Delete a file (I just realized I forgot this command, so it's not there yet!)
SDOPENxxx ... Open a file, leave a file handle (an integer in hex base) on the stack. The variants are xxx=RD (read only), WR (write), MOD (modify any byte within the file without truncating the existing data), APP (append at the end).
SDCLOSE ... Take a handle and close the file
SDREADTEXT ... nchars handle -> String with the text read from the file. nchars is the number of Unicode characters to read. handle is the handle returned by SDOPENxxx.
SDWRITETEXT ... string handle -> Write the string to the file.
SDREADLINE ... handle -> Read a line of text and return it as a string (includes the terminating newline).
SDSEEKxxx ... Move the current offset within a file (takes the offset and handle as arguments) to the given position. The position is relative to xxx=STA -> start of the file, xxx=END -> end of file, xxx=CUR -> current position.
SDTELL ... Take a handle and return the current offset from the start of file
SDFILESIZE ... Take a handle and return the file size.
SDEOF ... Take a handle and return TRUE (1) if the last operation reached the end of file.
SDOPENDIR ... Takes a directory name and opens the directory for scanning with SDNEXTFILE. Returns a handle to use with SDCLOSE.
SDNEXTFILE ... Take the handle of a directory and return the next directory entry. Each entry returns 5 values to the stack: name, attributes, file size, last modified date DD.MMYYYY and last modified time in HH.MMSS

There's a few commands still missing (like SDPURGE) and any others that might come up later.

[Claudio L.]

(07-15-2016 02:40 AM)Claudio L. Wrote:  [quote='Guenter Schink' pid='58548' dateline='1468533108']
Is there a description of the SD commands, function/syntax, anywhere?

Günter

A few quick examples:

Code:


<< "/MYDIR" SDMKDIR
 "/MYDIR" SDCHDIR
"HelloWorld.txt" SDOPENWR
DUP "Hello World!" SWAP SDWRITETEXT
SDCLOSE
"Hello World!" 'HWORLD' SDSTO
>>

This example creates a directory, changes to it, opens "HelloWorld.txt" for writing in the current directory, writes the text "Hello World!" inside it and closes the file (notice the DUP and SWAP are there to keep the handle number on the stack, you'd normally want to LSTO this number to a 'handle' variable).
Finally, it stores the string "Hello World!" again into a file named 'HWORLD', but in this case not as plain text but as a newRPL string object that can be RCL'd.

[Guenter Schink]

(07-15-2016 02:40 AM)Claudio L. Wrote:  

(07-14-2016 09:51 PM)Guenter Schink Wrote:  Is there a description of the SD commands, function/syntax, anywhere?

Günter

... lots of SD-commands ...

Thanks Claudio,

seems I need 2 hours more for the presentation

Günter

[JDW]

I only found this thread today, and I must admit I only read the first 3 pages. Please be merciful to me for asking this most basic of all questions but here it goes...

What is wrong with the old RPL such that a newRPL is needed?

In other words, what are the easily noticeable benefits to newRPL for the average HP 50g calculator user? Is it just an expansion of RPL for programmers? Or does it provide UI enhancements that benefit non-programmers? Is there a video overview of newRPL that explains the highlights so no flashing-and-fiddling is required?

[Claudio L.]

(07-23-2016 02:52 AM)JDW Wrote:  I only found this thread today, and I must admit I only read the first 3 pages. Please be merciful to me for asking this most basic of all questions but here it goes...

What is wrong with the old RPL such that a newRPL is needed?

In other words, what are the easily noticeable benefits to newRPL for the average HP 50g calculator user? Is it just an expansion of RPL for programmers? Or does it provide UI enhancements that benefit non-programmers? Is there a video overview of newRPL that explains the highlights so no flashing-and-fiddling is required?

Nothing wrong with the old RPL, that's the whole point of newRPL: to preserve RPL in the 21st century, otherwise it is destined to fade into oblivion soon.
Let me explain: HP designed the RPL environment to run on a 4-bit CPU called Saturn. They stopped manufacturing it in the late nineties if I'm not mistaken. So the 49G+, 48GII, and 50g had an ARM processor running a Saturn emulator. And even the 50g is now retiring, so RPL will simply vanish unless somebody makes a version of RPL that is portable and runs on any modern platform. That's what newRPL is: a "remake of a classic" for modern hardware.

Of course, if you make a Start Trek remake in 2016 you won't copy the same special effects from the 60's, it has to look and feel more modern, hence newRPL comes with a few improvements.
It's a complete calculator environment (well, when it gets completed, right now it's in alpha stage), it basically turns your RPL calculator into an RPL calculator, just a different implementation of it.
A normal user will notice the speed right away. By eliminating the emulation layer, newRPL is much faster. The second thing you'll notice is that the screen uses the 16-greys mode rather than plain black and white, there's 2 soft menus instead of only one (empty menus for now, we are working on adding all the menus), and many other small changes that make it efficient to use, faster to type on, etc.

Because it's still a work in progress, many things are missing, so if you are expecting to find all 700 commands from the 50g you are out of luck. We are getting close to the 200 mark, but there's still a lot of work to do.

At almost every step, things were changed a little (improved, at least from my perspective). For example, a few changes from the 50g:
* Difference between integers and reals based on the decimal dot was eliminated.
* Variable precision decimal math up to 2000 digits.
* More flexible custom menus
* Faster access to variables
* You can declare local variables anywhere in the code with LSTO
* Any program can be sandboxed to keep your directories clean.
* Persistent comments stay in the compiled code to make it more readable.
* Faster list processing, also swapped + and ADD for lists.
* Unicode text support all over.
* 8-level Undo/Redo on stack operations
* Many keyboard shortcuts that make using it very practical
* The editor is quite powerful:
+ Full clipboard support can copy/cut/paste objects or text in the editor and the stack, and turn objects from the stack into text for the editor, or paste text into the stack.
+ Paste the contents of any variable directly into the editor as text by using the soft menu.
+ Autocompletion of command names
* SD card support much faster than 50g
* It will accept SDHC cards as well as SD cards (just fixing a few bugs, it will be released very soon).
And a few other things I can't recall right now.

One last thing: you can test it from the simulator in the project page at SouceForge, so there's no need for you to flash it on real hardware to test it. But the real hardware does it more justice as you'll immediately feel the speed.
I'm planning to update the simulator it in a few days, so it will be on par with the firmware (it usually falls behind, as I update the firmware on this thread quite often, the simulator not so often).

[JDW]

Claudio, thank you for that detailed explanation. I hope others will find it as informative and helpful as I did.

A few more questions (with the full understanding that newRPL is not yet complete):

1. Is newRPL intended for the 50g hardware alone or any HP calc running ARM (including the Prime)?

2. Is the 50g screen capable of displaying grays?

3. When newRPL is flashed to a 50g, newRPL completely replaces the stock OS such that the entire UI, commands, etc. are generated by newRPL? Is that how it works? In other words, newRPL is basically an OS replacement for the 50g (and Prime)?

Thank you for your time.

[RMollov]

(07-24-2016 06:39 AM)JDW Wrote:  Claudio, thank you for that detailed explanation. I hope others will find it as informative and helpful as I did.

A few more questions (with the full understanding that newRPL is not yet complete):

1. Is newRPL intended for the 50g hardware alone or any HP calc running ARM (including the Prime)?

2. Is the 50g screen capable of displaying grays?

3. When newRPL is flashed to a 50g, newRPL completely replaces the stock OS such that the entire UI, commands, etc. are generated by newRPL? Is that how it works? In other words, newRPL is basically an OS replacement for the 50g (and Prime)?

Thank you for your time.

Did you actually read Claudio's answer?

[Helix]

(07-24-2016 03:11 AM)Claudio L. Wrote:  Nothing wrong with the old RPL, that's the whole point of newRPL: to preserve RPL in the 21st century, otherwise it is destined to fade into oblivion soon.
Let me explain: HP designed the RPL environment to run on a 4-bit CPU called Saturn. They stopped manufacturing it in the late nineties if I'm not mistaken. So the 49G+, 48GII, and 50g had an ARM processor running a Saturn emulator. And even the 50g is now retiring, so RPL will simply vanish unless somebody makes a version of RPL that is portable and runs on any modern platform. That's what newRPL is: a "remake of a classic" for modern hardware.

Of course, if you make a Start Trek remake in 2016 you won't copy the same special effects from the 60's, it has to look and feel more modern, hence newRPL comes with a few improvements.
It's a complete calculator environment (well, when it gets completed, right now it's in alpha stage), it basically turns your RPL calculator into an RPL calculator, just a different implementation of it.
A normal user will notice the speed right away. By eliminating the emulation layer, newRPL is much faster. The second thing you'll notice is that the screen uses the 16-greys mode rather than plain black and white, there's 2 soft menus instead of only one (empty menus for now, we are working on adding all the menus), and many other small changes that make it efficient to use, faster to type on, etc.

Because it's still a work in progress, many things are missing, so if you are expecting to find all 700 commands from the 50g you are out of luck. We are getting close to the 200 mark, but there's still a lot of work to do.

At almost every step, things were changed a little (improved, at least from my perspective). For example, a few changes from the 50g:
* Difference between integers and reals based on the decimal dot was eliminated.
* Variable precision decimal math up to 2000 digits.
* More flexible custom menus
* Faster access to variables
* You can declare local variables anywhere in the code with LSTO
* Any program can be sandboxed to keep your directories clean.
* Persistent comments stay in the compiled code to make it more readable.
* Faster list processing, also swapped + and ADD for lists.
* Unicode text support all over.
* 8-level Undo/Redo on stack operations
* Many keyboard shortcuts that make using it very practical
* The editor is quite powerful:
+ Full clipboard support can copy/cut/paste objects or text in the editor and the stack, and turn objects from the stack into text for the editor, or paste text into the stack.
+ Paste the contents of any variable directly into the editor as text by using the soft menu.
+ Autocompletion of command names
* SD card support much faster than 50g
* It will accept SDHC cards as well as SD cards (just fixing a few bugs, it will be released very soon).
And a few other things I can't recall right now.

One last thing: you can test it from the simulator in the project page at SouceForge, so there's no need for you to flash it on real hardware to test it. But the real hardware does it more justice as you'll immediately feel the speed.
I'm planning to update the simulator it in a few days, so it will be on par with the firmware (it usually falls behind, as I update the firmware on this thread quite often, the simulator not so often).

Claudio, I think you should add this text to the first post of this thread (and also the upcoming answers to the latest questions asked by JDW, because they are very legitimate for the non-specialists). There is nowhere a clear explanation of what newRPL is.

[JDW]

(07-24-2016 08:55 AM)RMollov Wrote:  Did you actually read Claudio's answer?

The answer to your question is quite an obvious YES. Logic dictates that my additional questions were asked to clarify certain points. (Take note that Jean-Charles agrees to the legitimacy of my follow-up questions.) But since you appear to be enlightened on these issues, why not answer my questions?

I look forward to your answers.

Thank you.

[Sylvain Cote]

(07-24-2016 06:39 AM)JDW Wrote:  1. Is newRPL intended for the 50g hardware alone or any HP calc running ARM (including the Prime)?

From newRPL Home Page

Quote:The project aims to create a new RPL calculator environment to run in real calculator hardware.
Initially, the target will be the HP50g hardware, consisting on the following:
ARM 920T processor running at up to 200 MHz / 512 KBytes of RAM / 2 MBytes of NOR flash memory. / 16-grays screen, 131x80 pixels

If you read the thread, you will see that newRPL is also tested on the 49G+ by some users.
To my knowledge, Prime is not supported by Claudio.

(07-24-2016 06:39 AM)JDW Wrote:  2. Is the 50g screen capable of displaying grays?

(07-24-2016 03:11 AM)Claudio L. Wrote:  The second thing you'll notice is that the screen uses the 16-greys mode rather than plain black and white, ...

(07-24-2016 06:39 AM)JDW Wrote:  3. When newRPL is flashed to a 50g, newRPL completely replaces the stock OS such that the entire UI, commands, etc. are generated by newRPL? Is that how it works? In other words, newRPL is basically an OS replacement for the 50g (and Prime)?

Yes, yes and yes.

Sylvain

[RMollov]

(07-24-2016 12:07 PM)JDW Wrote:  

(07-24-2016 08:55 AM)RMollov Wrote:  Did you actually read Claudio's answer?

The answer to your question is quite an obvious YES. Logic dictates that my additional questions were asked to clarify certain points. (Take note that Jean-Charles agrees to the legitimacy of my follow-up questions.) But since you appear to be enlightened on these issues, why not answer my questions?

I look forward to your answers.

Thank you.

Quote:And even the 50g is now retiring, so RPL will simply vanish unless somebody makes a version of RPL that is portable and runs on any modern platform. That's what newRPL is: a "remake of a classic" for modern hardware.
... the screen uses the 16-greys mode rather than plain black and white,

The answers of your questions 1 & 2 are highlighted above. I see no point of question 3 unless there is ambiguity in the term "re-flashing". But that's how I read it...

[Claudio L.]

(07-24-2016 08:55 AM)RMollov Wrote:  Did you actually read Claudio's answer?

He's a new user, my answers are perhaps not so clear for a newcomer as they are for old timers. I feel his questions are valid and pertinent.

(07-24-2016 10:16 AM)Helix Wrote:  Claudio, I think you should add this text to the first post of this thread (and also the upcoming answers to the latest questions asked by JDW, because they are very legitimate for the non-specialists). There is nowhere a clear explanation of what newRPL is.

Yes, the first post is so old I should probably rewrite it from scratch... or should we start a new thread?

(07-24-2016 01:11 PM)Sylvain Cote Wrote:  Yes, yes and yes.

Sylvain

Now that's how you answer questions, thank you.

Just to clarify, HP Prime hardware is not supported, but porting effort is not discarded in the future if/when:
a) Somebody else puts some effort into basic drivers and libraries for an alternative firmware on the Prime, saving us tons of work. Only a small effort on alternative firmware for the Prime puffed and died out on the same day around 2014 (if my memory served me well).
b) The hp50g hardware becomes a rarity and price goes up to make it more expensive than the Prime.

[JDW]

Sylvain, Rmollov and Claudio,

I greatly appreciate your time in clarifying. It's crystal clear now. No further questions.

Many thanks,

James

[Helix]

(07-24-2016 02:04 PM)Claudio L. Wrote:  

(07-24-2016 10:16 AM)Helix Wrote:  Claudio, I think you should add this text to the first post of this thread (and also the upcoming answers to the latest questions asked by JDW, because they are very legitimate for the non-specialists). There is nowhere a clear explanation of what newRPL is.

Yes, the first post is so old I should probably rewrite it from scratch... or should we start a new thread?

... or just update the home page of your newRPL site, and add a link to it in the first post?

[matthiaspaul]

(06-17-2016 03:02 PM)Vtile Wrote:  

(06-09-2016 08:09 PM)Claudio L. Wrote:  I like this a lot! Something along the lines of using On-+/- to change the contrast, no need to get into a special form to change settings. Of course, newRPL supports a very complex way to display numbers, as there are 3 different number formats (for large, medium, small numbers), and the user has to select the limits between those classes of numbers too.
But we could have simple defaults that can be controlled from the keyboard directly.
Here's a simple proposal:
On + [space] can cycle between STD/SCI/FIX/ENG predefined defaults.
On + [number] can select display digits (On+9 = 9 digits, etc.).
On + [dot] can cycle between using dot, dot+thousand separator, comma, comma+thousand separator
On + [div] can increase the display digits by 1
On + [mult] can decrease the display digits by 1

In newRPL there's no such thing as moving the ENG exponent by 3 places. I need to study how to add that feature (should we call it exponent bias?), though I don't anticipate it being too difficult.

I'm actually not sure what you are truely meaning with exponent bias, maybe something you later posts refer as preferred magnitude or similar.

For my propose of using [EEX] as a special shift key (while you hold it down, just like [ON] key or [RShift]+[TOOL] to change R<>C) I see it more convenient way to manipulate the exponent and or other "display rounding properties ie. FIX n". More so than the ON+"keys".

Now one week after my half thought proposal I'm not sure anymore if the actual and real magnitude changing (actual shortcut for multiplying with 1000 or 0.001) I proposed for [EEX]+[UP]/[DOWN] would be the best option and truely usefull. Much more usefull option would be to change the shown decimals on fly as you propose for [On]+[mult]/[Div]. The [EEX]+[RIGHT]/[LEFT] would still be truely handy for those moments your head decides to turn pool of jelly and you struggle to comprehend some value like 800.0e-3 . With ie. [EEX]+[LEFT] (the working direction logic must be decided at somepoint to fit other parts of the system) you change shown exponent format (temporarily?) by one step at time. Maybe there would be better options?

For [EEX]+[up]/[down] it would change the decimals shown in all number formats. (This would be extremely handy ie. in standard and FIX modes) My argument over [ON] is that with [EEX] or [LShift]+[EEX] you kind of do similar task while entering the numbers.

Being a proponent of this Casio exponent shift mode as well, I once started to implement it for the WP 34s, however, it's still unfinished due to my lack of time - so nothing to show yet. I also thought about how to integrate it into other calculator user interfaces (but it really depends much on the calculator) and tried to combine it with another feature I'd like to see in modern calculators: "binary prefixes".

In interactive number entry:

- [EEX] starts a normal power-of-10 exponent entry (that is *10^). The calculator displays this using the standard E notation.
- [EEX] [EEX] would start a power-of-2 exponent entry (that is *2^). The calculator would detect this double-press and change the pending E to an B to use B notation. (On calculators where the uppercase B would look too much like 8, the somewhat similar P notation could be (ab)used instead.)
- (Pressing [EEX] a third time in a row should switch back to E notation, etc.)

The exponent following would (by default) be given as decimal number even if we were in binary etc. number entry mode. (This is the most useful mode in practise except for in a few special cases (out of scope here). Calculators such as the WP 34s provide only 3 digits for the exponent and therefore don't have the display capabilities to display reasonably long base-2 exponents, anyway. Also, the P notation makes decimal exponents mandantory, and even in B notation decimal exponents are common, even if the significand was given in another base.)

The idea is to make entry and display of numbers with binary prefixes easier and to easily switch between the two exponent modes:

1_Ki = 1024 = 1.024E3 = 1.0B10
1.5_Ki = 1536 = 1.536E3 = 1.5B10
1_k = 1000 = 1.0E3 = 0.9765625B10
1.5_k = 1500 = 1.5E3 = 1.46484375B10

Since pressing [EEX] in display mode is an established shortcut to enter
"1 [EEX]", it cannot be used as a toggle to switch the display between E and B notation, so we have to find other hotkeys for three display operations, for example:

- [Shift+Alpha]+[EEX]: Toggle display of number between E and B notation
- [Shift-Left]+[EEX]: Decrease exponent by x for displayed number (x is 1 in SCI mode, whereas in ENG mode it is 1..3 in E notation and 1..10 in B notation)
- [Shift-Right]+[EEX]: Increase exponent by x for displayed number (x is 1 in SCI mode, whereas in ENG mode it is 1..3 in E notation and 1..10 in B notation)

The first press of the hotkey in ENG mode would shift the exponent only by the amount necessary to lock on the next prefix (raster of 3 in E notation, raster of 10 in B notation), subsequent invocations of the hotkey would shift the exponent by the full amount of 3 or 10 in order to reach the next prefix.

Greetings,

Matthias

[Claudio L.]

(07-24-2016 04:17 PM)Helix Wrote:  

(07-24-2016 02:04 PM)Claudio L. Wrote:  Yes, the first post is so old I should probably rewrite it from scratch... or should we start a new thread?

... or just update the home page of your newRPL site, and add a link to it in the first post?

Good idea, that's definitely the best way. I'll do that within a few days.