DM42 vs DM41x vs DM43

[Thomas Okken]

(01-16-2020 09:13 AM)Marco Polo Wrote:  So we will not enjoy the DM42 screen on Free42. I was hoping for a "convergence" between DM42 and Free42.

If porting Free42 to Qt works out well, adding big-screen support isn't completely out of the question, but even if so (and it is a big if!), it wouldn't be exactly like on the DM42.

As for some of the other features that have been requested for Free42 over the years but never implemented: the big ones are equations and units, and both of those would require huge changes to the Free42 core. In a nutshell, that core was designed specifically to support the HP-42S environment, and the type system and interactive I/O logic are very much geared towards that requirement, and would basically have to be rewritten.

I was able to fit a few useful extensions into the existing design, i.e. Step Over / Step Out, LSTO, the big RTN stack, and the BASE enhancements, but anything beyond that quickly gets into the territory where the current programming model becomes too limiting and you'll need something like RPL. And that is something that others have already done, or are already doing, quite well.