HP-71B: trying to get pyILPER fully working on my Mac

[Dave Frederickson]

(05-27-2017 09:50 PM)smp Wrote:  

(05-27-2017 09:41 PM)Dave Frederickson Wrote:  Not knowing how long your 71's been in storage, does your PIL-Box have firmware version 1.6 or later?

Hi Dave, and thanks again for your latest idea. I unscrewed my PIL-Box cover (marked P129-2013) and I see the chip is labeled: PILBOX 1.4. I purchased this all assembled and tested from J-F. How much trouble am I in?

Not much at all. Contact J-F about a PIC upgrade. From his website:

November 2015: Firmware update 1.6
This firmware update provides a better support for managing HP-IL Service Request. This will be needed for future virtual HP-IL devices such as a remote HP-IL keyboard or a close emulation of the HP82162 HP-IL printer. Contact me if you need this update.

February 2016: PIL-Box and PIL-IO firmware versions 2.0
The PIL-Box and PIL-IO are now using a new microcontroller and the firmware has been updated accordingly. There is no functional change, the PIL-Box and PIL-IO firmware versions 2.0 have the same functionalities than the PIL-Box firmware 1.6 and PIL-IO firmware 1.2 respectively.

April 2016: PIL-Box firmware update 2.1
This firmware update for the PIL-Box provides a support for a faster communication speed at 230 kbps, for use with ILPer 2.2 or higher. The 9600 baud speed is no more supported by the PIL-Box.
Users of PIL-Box with firmware 1.x can upgrade to 2.1 by changing the microcontroller, no modification of the board is needed.
The performance gain at 230 kbps vs firmware 1.5 is about 40% using the HP-71B. There is no gain with the HP-41C since this machine is really very slow. Contact me if you are interested by an upgrade.


Dave