newRPL: Alpha demo 0.9 released [UPDATED 2017-10-25]

[compsystems]

Includes RS232 serial port commands? { RECV SEND CLOSEIO XSEND XRECV ... }

[Claudio L.]

(11-22-2017 01:59 AM)compsystems Wrote:  Includes RS232 serial port commands? { RECV SEND CLOSEIO XSEND XRECV ... }

For now it's USB HID protocol. Serial is a different story, but I don't discard having UART drivers soon as well (no promises yet, until USB works the way I like I won't get into that).

[pier4r]

(11-21-2017 11:38 PM)Claudio L. Wrote:  Your fears are unfounded. My calculator is from 2006, I had it since short after the official launch of the 50g. I used the SD card slot extensively, still in perfect shape. The slot doesn't break, but the SD card contacts may wear off and you'll need a new card. Happened to me with one card. I had to use sand paper to "revive" the scratched contact, transferrred my data out and got a new card.
But the slot still works.

Good to know. I read some other topics where the SD card slot stopped to let the card be writable, so I was a bit suspicious.

[brickviking]

I struck something a little awkward with newRPL-Desktop. Trying to find the mythological ! operator (previously found in the MATH->PROB menu under stock firmware) is proving frustrating, as there's no PROB menu under MATH any more. On a related topic, is there a complete list of keys and commands for newRPL, and how to get to each of those? I'm thinking of a list like Appendix G in the AUR.

Also, is there a later revision of Desktop than 20170922? I haven't found one yet, though I've been checking back at SourceForge.

(Post 141)

[pier4r]

(12-04-2017 03:17 AM)brickviking Wrote:  I struck something a little awkward with newRPL-Desktop. Trying to find the mythological ! operator (previously found in the MATH->PROB menu under stock firmware) is proving frustrating, as there's no PROB menu under MATH any more. On a related topic, is there a complete list of keys and commands for newRPL, and how to get to each of those? I'm thinking of a list like Appendix G in the AUR.

That is a good question. I am interested too!

[Claudio L.]

(12-04-2017 09:46 AM)pier4r Wrote:  

(12-04-2017 03:17 AM)brickviking Wrote:  I struck something a little awkward with newRPL-Desktop. Trying to find the mythological ! operator (previously found in the MATH->PROB menu under stock firmware) is proving frustrating, as there's no PROB menu under MATH any more. On a related topic, is there a complete list of keys and commands for newRPL, and how to get to each of those? I'm thinking of a list like Appendix G in the AUR.

That is a good question. I am interested too!

The menu system needs to be optimized, more shortcuts are needed, and these need to be based more on community feedback than just me figuring out where to put each command. I could create a list of all the keyboard assignments, but since it isn't stable it would be hard to maintain such a list. Unless I can figure out a method to extract the assignments automatically from the C code, it would be a nightmare until newRPL is more polished and symbols don't move around in the keyboard.
Also keep in mind each hardware port will have its keys in different places, so we'd have to have one list (on the wiki) for each hardware platform.

Regarding the factorial (as most other symbols), it's exactly where it was in the stock firmware:
Alpha mode, Right Shift, 2.
EDIT: in the simulator, this is Tab, Ctrl, 2

[brickviking]

That might explain it then, I wasn't aware of the shortcut. Also, having a key that's only reachable from Alpha-Right-2 could be awkward. Thanks for the help though.

(Post 142)

[Gilles59]

Hi, I am very impressed by the power of NewRPL! The future of the RPL is here. It's very fast on the HP50g and incredibly fast on a PC. Great job really !

However I am not convinced by the new menu system and I really have trouble getting in there. I would have preferred that the NewRPL keep the old menu system.

Im' also impressed by the the fact that for an "alpha" version, it's very stable. I was skeptical about the way newRpl works with interger and approx real numbers but it's a good approach.

[Claudio L.]

(12-05-2017 01:21 PM)Gilles59 Wrote:  Hi, I am very impressed by the power of NewRPL! The future of the RPL is here. It's very fast on the HP50g and incredibly fast on a PC. Great job really !

However I am not convinced by the new menu system and I really have trouble getting in there. I would have preferred that the NewRPL keep the old menu system.

Im' also impressed by the the fact that for an "alpha" version, it's very stable. I was skeptical about the way newRpl works with interger and approx real numbers but it's a good approach.

Glad you like it. When you mention the menu system you don't like, do you mean having 2 menus on screen? or the organization of the main menu?
If it's the first, just be patient with yourself and it will grow on you. It takes some brain reprogramming to get used to, but once you do it's OK. Or if you give up, just long press VAR to go to a classic single menu system.
If it's the second thing, I need some help organizing the menus. Right now they are organized by library, which means roughly by topics. But this is just a quick attempt to expose the many available commands, they should be better organized, and input from the community is crucial.
As a matter of fact, the entire menu system (and the help too) is written in plain RPL, so it can be modified by anyone who knows how to create a menu in newRPL.
I encourage you (and invite everybody else to join) to create your own custom menus "to your taste" and share them here, so they can be reviewed by everybody and eventually pulled into the ROM. Also work on your custom key assignments and share them as well. newRPL is extremely flexible, even more than the stock firmware, so the key is to configure it to your liking. Then share your configuration here for open discussion, everything that makes sense can be incorporated as a default (be it new menus, menus assigned to certain shortcut keys, etc).

Finally, regarding the "alpha" tag: After 4 years I'm considering moving to Beta, even though it isn't feature complete by far. The fact the Alpha tag scares people thinking it's an unusable proof of concept makes me think Beta is more appropriate. However, usually Beta software is feature complete, in the final phase of debugging and cleanup. newRPL is far from being there yet.

PS: Teaser... I finally got USB comms working like a charm! Most of the issues were on the PC side, working around dumb permissions and differences between OSes. I just need to put in place a protocol to send large files (currently limited to roughly 2 or 3 kbytes max. object size to be transferred), and finish implementing USBARCHIVE and USBRESTORE, which are much needed for reliable backups on the 39/40gs hardware.
I hope I can get all that done and release before the holidays for people to play with it.

[Claudio L.]

(12-04-2017 11:50 PM)brickviking Wrote:  Also, having a key that's only reachable from Alpha-Right-2 could be awkward.

It isn't only reachable from the shortcut, the factorial is in the main menu, but buried in the integer submenu (press P,A,A,B and it's right there). The menu system became too deep, should be a little flatter for my taste, but then what you save in not going through submenus you waste pressing NXT because there's so many items on the same menu. That's why I need help organizing this better, is not so trivial.

[compsystems]

> Finally, regarding the "alpha" tag: After 4 years I'm considering moving to Beta, even though it isn't feature complete by far. The fact the Alpha tag scares people thinking it's an unusable proof of concept makes me think Beta is more appropriate. However, usually Beta software is feature complete, in the final phase of debugging and cleanup. newRPL is far from being there yet.

>> Congratulations for reaching the beta version at the end of the year 2017.
By the end of 2018 we will have the first official release version =)