Wp34s v3914

[Paul Dale]

(05-28-2023 04:14 PM)Cristian Arezzini Wrote:  Paul, your comment made me curious... Is there a specific reason why the WP34s is shut down? Is it because it has reached maturity and there's nothing left to fix or add? Or because the hardware is getting harder to find? Or because the new SwissMicros calculators nicely fill the niche?

It's a combination of all of these, except perhaps the last. SwissMicros don't quite fit the niche: the 20b/30b hardware was very cheap.

1. The firmware is mature, bugs are seldom found. Something really egregious might get a fix and new release. Problems like the one with Zeta are unlikely to.
2. Memory is full: we've got 1 or 2 bits of RAM left and not much flash, so there is not really any scope for additional features.
3. Hardware is getting more difficult to find, not just donor calculators but the programming cable is virtually unobtainable for most.
4. I'm not sure we can even build firmware images anymore. Marcus did this using an old machine that's now a decade older.