Trying to improve x49gp

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I'm answering some comments from the NewRPL thread over here because I think they fit here better. Hope you don't mind.

(10-05-2018 06:01 AM)brickviking Wrote:  I'm guessing there's no way to "import" the USB-handling stuff from newRPL into x49gp, is there? That might just handle the one remaining issue left for x49gp's usefulness in comparison to the Connectivity Kit.

A few posts above (in this thread, not the one the question came from) Claudio has said it "would be a nightmare to get it working, as it heavily depends on timings that are next to impossible to emulate properly". He's the expert there, so I'll better stay away from that part of the code and avoid frustration. (Note that he didn't say "impossible" though - normal modern QEMU has some sort of USB passthrough for at least some of the systems it emulates, so it's technically possible; but unlike us those guys have a lot of real experts.)

(10-05-2018 06:01 AM)brickviking Wrote:  Also, I note that x49gp has a rather binary understanding of the 49g+/50G that doesn't take the newrpl UI into account. NewRPL's UI (at least in the desktop simulator) has modified several buttons, and I was wondering how easy it would be to have that implemented in some manner. Quite some time ago, there used to be a "image=..." parameter, but I note this has since been removed, citing lack of use or function. I think I just came up with a use: newRPL's UI.

Switching the image wouldn't have got you far, because the image doesn't contain the text labels. (There used to be a bug preventing the labels from showing up, which was worked around using an image with text, but that's been fixed.) And I suspect that the labels are exactly what you want to change.
I think the best way to support a NewRPL-adapted UI in x49gp would be to add variants of the existing "hp49g+" and "hp50g" models which use the same base image and the same bootcode as the existing ones, but with modified copies of the label definitions. That would actually be pretty easy: some light modifications to the existing model checks, and altered copies of the "static const x49gp_ui_key_t x49gp_ui_keys[]" and "static const x49gp_ui_key_t x50g_ui_keys[]" arrays (the difference between these is just a little bit of color - on the 49g+, the left-shift and right-shift keys have white labels, on the 50g they are black).
With a picture of the NewRPL Simulator in front of me (haven't had a reason to install it yet), I should be able to do this in a couple of minutes.

As a matter of fact, that's also a significant part of the code modifications needed for the suggested 48gII/39g+/39gs/40gs support. if somebody supplies me with text-less images and as well as bootcode dumps of these calculators (firmware would be nice too; I found firmware updates for 39gs and 40gs, but not for 39g+ and 48gII), I could probably do the rest of the work. These have different dimensions (both physical (including screen pixels) and memory-wise), but that's not a problem. For accurate emulation I'd also have to disable the SD slot for them (easy, but not sure if I'd actually want to do that, because it isolates them from the outside world due to a lack of I/O port emulation). The different sets of available I/O ports are something that would have to be taken care of if/when someone implements them.
Oh, by the way: a text-less image of a blue 50g would be nice too. Just to have the full set of models, you know.

(10-05-2018 08:55 AM)brickviking Wrote:  Except now it doesn't work for me at all. I can't get a hp50g to "see" any sdcard in the filer regardless of whether I use a card image (dd if=...) or a folder. I open up the filer, and I don't see SDCARD, just ports 0-2 and Home. Darn.

Again, Claudio is probably the person who is best equipped to fix this (I'd need to learn about these low-level SD commands first), but I suspect he inadvertently broke some of the SD commands the stock firmware uses, causing it to not detect the SD card anymore.