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Guenter Schink · 12-23-2016, 02:18 PM

Sorry no DM42P as holidays gift 2016

SwissMicros are still refining the hardware. New prototypes, final versions hopefully, will arrive there in January.

Granted no additional delays occur, the first 50-100 developer samples will be available mid February. These are aimed towards adventurous people who like to be on the bleeding edge of progress. They will be asked to serve as beta testers willing to frequently update their calculators and help with bug reports.

Roll out of the real stuff then may happen sometime in the 2nd quarter of 2017.

The hardware experienced some redesign. Other than originally planned, there will be no SDcard support. That proved rather difficult and not really necessary due to other backup and restore capability, particularly flash memeory and USB.

There are good news however. The calculator will behave as an storage client when hooked to a USB-Host (PC/MAC/Android, IPad?, etc.) Thus you can conveniently load and store your programs and calculator state while the calculator is powered by USB.

In addition, flash is increased by 4MB, that gives a total of 9MB of which about 1.5MB are necessary for the system itself.

Günter

Dan B · 12-23-2016, 02:52 PM

Thank you for the update!

jch · 12-23-2016, 04:58 PM

Any chance to get some HPIL extensions capabilities ?
Through USB serial port emulation "à la PIL-Box" for exemple ?

Though I may not have a lot a free time, I'm feeling adventurous enough to ask for a developer sample.
How should I apply for a sample ? How much will it cost ?

Many thanks to SwissMicros for bringing back the 42 Rolleyes

.

Cheers. Jean-Christophe

Massimo Gnerucci · 12-23-2016, 06:06 PM

Thanks Günter.

Developer samples?!? Slurp! Smile

Guenter Schink · 12-23-2016, 07:20 PM

(12-23-2016 04:58 PM)jch Wrote: Any chance to get some HPIL extensions capabilities ?
Through USB serial port emulation "à la PIL-Box" for exemple ?

Though I may not have a lot a free time, I'm feeling adventurous enough to ask for a developer sample.
How should I apply for a sample ? How much will it cost ?

Many thanks to SwissMicros for bringing back the 42 .

Cheers. Jean-Christophe

Details for the developer samples aren't known yet. But will be announced when the time has come.

Günter

vido · 12-24-2016, 12:16 AM

(12-23-2016 02:18 PM)Guenter Schink Wrote: Sorry no DM42P as holidays gift 2016

That's ok, better have a reliable product even if it takes some time, than a product rushed to release to meet some arbitrary deadline.

Is there some kind of waiting list for people willing to buy the early beta version ?

**rprosperi** · 12-24-2016, 03:51 AM

(12-23-2016 02:18 PM)Guenter Schink Wrote: The hardware experienced some redesign. Other than originally planned, there will be no SDcard support. That proved rather difficult and not really necessary due to other backup and restore capability, particularly flash memeory and USB.

There are good news however. The calculator will behave as an storage client when hooked to a USB-Host (PC/MAC/Android, IPad?, etc.) Thus you can conveniently load and store your programs and calculator state while the calculator is powered by USB.

In addition, flash is increased by 4MB, that gives a total of 9MB of which about 1.5MB are necessary for the system itself.

Thanks for ther update Günter!

I agree, the SD card would be in the "nice to have" category, but far from necessary; better to spend SM's effort refining the core design and the PC and on-board storage options are more than adequate.

Was the keyboard layout issue (M assigned to the ENTER key) ever resolved? I may have missed the news if so, and though it's not among the biggest problems to solve, key layout remains a topic of interest to all.

I'd like to sign-up for the BETA group when units become available, this one should be fun to test.

Merry Christmas!

Dave Britten · 12-24-2016, 10:04 AM

Sounds pretty promising so far. I'm not bothered about SD card support; being able to mount it as an external drive via USB is more than enough. I wouldn't be planning to put multiple gigabytes of programs and data on the thing either.

Vtile · 12-24-2016, 10:14 AM

(12-24-2016 10:04 AM)Dave Britten Wrote: Sounds pretty promising so far. I'm not bothered about SD card support; being able to mount it as an external drive via USB is more than enough. I wouldn't be planning to put multiple gigabytes of programs and data on the thing either.

Well... equation library comes to my mind. Smile

Dave Britten · 12-24-2016, 10:22 AM

(12-24-2016 10:14 AM)Vtile Wrote:
(12-24-2016 10:04 AM)Dave Britten Wrote: Sounds pretty promising so far. I'm not bothered about SD card support; being able to mount it as an external drive via USB is more than enough. I wouldn't be planning to put multiple gigabytes of programs and data on the thing either.

Well... equation library comes to my mind.

Fair, but I couldn't imagine trying to navigate and use ~7 MB of equations on a device like this, let alone vastly more than that! Smile

AlexFekken · 12-28-2016, 07:45 AM

Thanks for your efforts guys. I don't think I would be a good beta tester, but I still look forward to the production model.

Alex

yoshi74ls181 · 01-27-2017, 05:27 AM

(12-24-2016 03:51 AM)rprosperi Wrote: Was the keyboard layout issue (M assigned to the ENTER key) ever resolved? I may have missed the news if so, and though it's not among the biggest problems to solve, key layout remains a topic of interest to all.

https://twitter.com/SwissMicros/status/8...4803596288

The picture in this tweet from last week shows M still assigned to the ENTER key.
I'm a bit worried...

**rprosperi** · 01-27-2017, 07:04 PM

(01-27-2017 05:27 AM)yoshi74ls181 Wrote: https://twitter.com/SwissMicros/status/8...4803596288

The picture in this tweet from last week shows M still assigned to the ENTER key.
I'm a bit worried...

I'm sure they will fix the alpha keyboard "M", they have no choice, but I was more interested in the other changes that ripple thru as a result.

On the GOOD NEWS front, they changed the shift key to an all-yellow key! A small point to be sure, but it seems it was a very consistent request among prospective customers. Michael definitely listens to his customers, which is why we keep coming back.

Massimo Gnerucci · 01-27-2017, 07:21 PM

(01-27-2017 07:04 PM)rprosperi Wrote:
(01-27-2017 05:27 AM)yoshi74ls181 Wrote: https://twitter.com/SwissMicros/status/8...4803596288

The picture in this tweet from last week shows M still assigned to the ENTER key.
I'm a bit worried...

I'm sure they will fix the alpha keyboard "M", they have no choice, but I was more interested in the other changes that ripple thru as a result.

On the GOOD NEWS front, they changed the shift key to an all-yellow key! A small point to be sure, but it seems it was a very consistent request among prospective customers. Michael definitely listens to his customers, which is why we keep coming back.

Just asked directly about the "M" issue. Waiting for a reply.

efroymson · 01-27-2017, 08:00 PM

M is not an issue I think. On my DM41L you leave alpha mode the same way you get into it, with the alpha key (blue a). On Free42 that works also, i.e. Shift-enter. I suspect that on the DM42 you will just use that also. It's not too big a change, given the switch to letter codes on the keys. Well worth it to avoid the annoying menu technique on the 42.

Of course I'm waiting like everyone to have one to try this out ...

Vtile · (This post was last modified: 01-27-2017 09:13 PM by Vtile.)

Oh, cool. I once a week go to SM site and only barely can resist of ordering DM41 small version as a super pocket silver machine. Now I have more strenght to wait DM42.
Now what are the internets HP42 program resources..?

Massimo Gnerucci · 01-29-2017, 01:07 PM

Straight from Michael's mouth^H^H^H^H^H pen^H^H^H emails Smile

Quote:(...) it makes sense not having any letter associated to the ENTER button. But where should I move it? Moving the letters M,N,O and P one to the right puts P to the <- button which is even worst.
The HP-32S also has the M on the ENTER button. Let me know if you have any suggestion how to arrange the letters.

Quote:I'm not sure why you would need the ENTER in alpha mode? Perhaps a new-line?
Using the operators would mess up everything. I'd rather put a blind ENTER on one of the operators.

other special characters and APPEND via ENTER

Quote:the printed alphas on the DM42 is meant as an addition to how the HP42 works, so all characters are accessible.
This appending feature by the ENTER key could be substituted by the +.

As I understand it direct access to alphas via keyboard is just an alternative way to enter them. The HP42 style remains.

Dave Britten · 01-29-2017, 01:51 PM

(01-29-2017 01:07 PM)Massimo Gnerucci Wrote: As I understand it direct access to alphas via keyboard is just an alternative way to enter them. The HP42 style remains.

That makes sense, given all the assorted special characters that can also be found in the alpha menu. This avoids the problem of having to figure out where to put all of those on the keyboard.

Thomas Okken · (This post was last modified: 01-29-2017 04:57 PM by Thomas Okken.)

Assigning a letter to ENTER seems like a bad idea, because ENTER is used a lot in ALPHA mode. How do you type XEQ "FOO"? [XEQ] [ENTER] FOO [ENTER].

On the HP-41C, assigning a letter to ENTER was fine, because it has a dedicated ALPHA key; the 42S does not.

I think it would make more sense to assign no letter to ENTER, so you can exit ALPHA mode, and terminate commands with ALPHA arguments, with a single keystroke; and also assign no character to EXIT for the same reason, and instead use the arithmetic keys for letters, like the 41C. You want to save keystrokes in the most common scenarios first, and completing and aborting commands is surely more common than typing ÷ × - + in an ALPHA string.

Also, the key for typing a period should be the period key. :-)

I realize that there is the complicating factor that the HP-42S fully supports upper- *and* lowercase letters, unlike the 41C, and if you want to be able to type those easily, you won't be able to use the shifted letters for the arithmetic symbols etc. There seems to be no truly elegant solution, or at least I don't see it yet.

**rprosperi** · 01-29-2017, 05:48 PM

(01-29-2017 04:19 PM)Thomas Okken Wrote: You want to save keystrokes in the most common scenarios first, and completing and aborting commands is surely more common than typing ÷ × - + in an ALPHA string.

Also, the key for typing a period should be the period key. :-)

I totally agree, moving M off the ENTER key (to let ENTER terminate Alpha-entry) and using ÷ × - + via the standard 42S method (since they are only rarely used in an Alpha string) actually gives you 3 MORE keys for more commonly used Alpha characters, such as "." and ":".

Shifting letters M+ right and adding the 4 operator keys would leave "-", "0", ".", "R/S", and "+" keys available. Also, Since M has moved, ENTER can be restored as Alpha-append at the front of Alpha entry.

One suggestion is to use them as follows:

"-" Key: "-" (Hyphen is a common Alpha char. so retain this)
"0" Key: ":"
"." Key: "."
"R/S" Key: "?"
"+" Key: " " (space with symbol now shown on radix key - as space is one of the most common characters, a corner position is convenient).

Also note that assuming one can use Shift-Letter to get the lowercase of that letter is also not always correct, as Shift-STO ("G") is used for ASTO and Shift-RCL ("H") for ARCL while in Alpha mode. One could argue Shift-Letter should be allowed for all other lowercase letters, while using the 42S-standard method when needing lowercase "g" and "h", but that could be confusing.

Just some food for thought...

Massimo - if this makes sense and I haven't broken something dumb, feel free to pass it to Michael, he did ask for layout suggestions.