HP 41CL: Flash Database Wiki, Manuals

[Michael Fehlhammer]

Now, thanks to Sylvain and Monte, 41CL users can update the flash rom of their CLs relatively easy.
During the last year there has been a lot of new and updated images, and many images have been declared obsolete and were removed. You can find all these changes to the flash database listed chronologically on the 41CL home page. Each entry provides a .zip file containing the rom image only, no additional information, no link to a manual.
In September 2016 Monte set up a HP 41 Wiki page "flash contents documentation".
There for each rom image you can find a link to the corresponding manual ( if available). Now the list is outdated, of course, see above. Unfortunately no one added a single piece of information to this database since it was created by Monte.
Since creation date of the Wiki we had about one hundred (!!) changes ( updates, new images) to the flash database. No joke. I just have counted them. Who really has been able to keep track of that?
If I should update my 41CLs today, I might feel being up to date afterwards and might have got rid of a few bugs, but on the other hand I will face several new images I don't even have an idea what they are all about. I am not going to plug all of them in and try to figure out from which obsolete image they might have been derived. ( One reason for that is that my focus not only is on the HP41, but on several other calculators and computers as well.)
In my opinion even the poorest well documented rom module is worth much more than the best one without any documentation.

Fortunately Monte is so kind and will update the Wiki before the end of the year.
Please regard this thread as an urgent request to assist him, he might not invest time on the Wiki again if there remains such a lack of interest.

Unless something will change, one day we will be proud of having 700+ rom images at our disposal on a V5 board, but many of them being more or less useless, at least for the casual CL user.
I hope Angel is reading here, as many or most of the changes and new images ( sometimes new compilations of known functions, according to Monte) are his contribution.

[PeterP]

Maybe if we make it crowdsourced like Wikipedia we can spread the burden amongst many of us, contributing, updating, adding, as things happen.

So maybe we can just make it a normal Wikipedia page and use their infrastructure? Or is there a different one which we could use to crowdsource this table?

Cheers

PeterP

[Michael Fehlhammer]

Hi Peter,
that's exactly what Monte wants us to do; everybody can and should contribute here:

CL Flash Database Wiki

[Monte Dalrymple]

Updated today.

[hth]

After looking at various documents I concluded that the highest image on a pre-V5 board is 1FF, so any ROM above that does not fit.

What is the best way to use ROMs that are assigned numbers starting with 2 on a V4 board?

Håkan

[rprosperi]

(11-18-2017 11:13 PM)hth Wrote:  After looking at various documents I concluded that the highest image on a pre-V5 board is 1FF, so any ROM above that does not fit.

What is the best way to use ROMs that are assigned numbers starting with 2 on a V4 board?

Håkan

Monte can provide a definitive answer, but I think the short answer is you can't. The V4 boards are full, which is one of the key reasons the V5 board was created, to allow the CL ROM library to grow.

Of course you can manually load any images at any address, but you would have to keep track of that yourself and the Auto-Update procedures with Monte's new UPDATE ROM and Sylvain's server could not be used.

This is an appropriate situation to quote Bill Wickes - 'Life is short and ROM is full'

[Michael Fehlhammer]

(11-18-2017 10:16 PM)Monte Dalrymple Wrote:  Updated today.

Thank you very much, Monte!

[Monte Dalrymple]

(11-18-2017 11:13 PM)hth Wrote:  After looking at various documents I concluded that the highest image on a pre-V5 board is 1FF, so any ROM above that does not fit.

What is the best way to use ROMs that are assigned numbers starting with 2 on a V4 board?

Håkan

You are free to organize the Flash memory any way you like, but like Bob said, doing
so will make it harder (but not impossible) to use the auto-update process. If you
want to use the IMDB (with the PLUG functions), that will need to be modified to
match your map. And the FLDB will need a similar modification if you also want to
try auto-updates (but that probably won't be necessary once you freeze your
custom layout.)

I have left two pages at the top of Flash (addresses 0x1FE and 0x1FF) open, at
least for now, if there's something that just has to be in Flash on your V3/V4
machine. I originally intended to leave more, but pages just got used up.

I can post the source files and merge program if there is interest. There are two
source files and a program to merge the resulting .rom files because of the 16-bit
nature of the IMDB.

Monte

[hth]

I am interested in the source for making my own IMDB.

Håkan

[pier4r]

(11-17-2017 11:30 PM)Michael Fehlhammer Wrote:  Hi Peter,
that's exactly what Monte wants us to do; everybody can and should contribute here:

CL Flash Database Wiki

Little note. Wiki4hp.com is (finally! After years) growing and it is open to every serious contributor. Just register! And thanks Bruce Bergman for it.

[PeterP]

Ah, thank you, sorry Bruce for not figuring this out right away!

Tried to register/recover my password but hit an email error, not sure if others had seen something similar when they tried to register? Excited for this to be set up and the chance to contribute!

Cheers

PeterP

[pier4r]

You may contact Bruce directly http://www.wiki4hp.com/doku.php?id=20b:team-bergman .

[RobertM]

Just curious ... if some of these are available only by purchasing a a CD or flash drive (from this site and others), do you want that information posted and if so, how should it be listed?

[Michael Fehlhammer]

Good point.
But are you sure that there are any manuals on CD or stick for purchase, which are not available online for free as well? IIRC manuals collected at TOS are all available online since a while.

[RobertM]

Pretty sure there are some... e.g. "JARR: K. Jarrett XF book" I don't think is available from TOS (or anywhere else that I've seen online), but is available from this site's Flash drive.

I haven't gone through the entire list yet, but I'm confident that there would be others. That flash drive and the DVD from another site contain a lot of information.

[Michael Fehlhammer]

Well, then I propose that as a reference you give the name of the book or document and a link to the page where the CD or flash drive can be ordered.

[Dave Frederickson]

(11-21-2017 01:12 AM)RobertM Wrote:  Pretty sure there are some... e.g. "JARR: K. Jarrett XF book" I don't think is available from TOS (or anywhere else that I've seen online), but is available from this site's Flash drive.

I haven't gone through the entire list yet, but I'm confident that there would be others. That flash drive and the DVD from another site contain a lot of information.

Keith Jarett's HP-41 Extended Functions Made Easy is available from the HP-41 website torrent download.

[RobertM]

(11-21-2017 01:21 AM)Dave Frederickson Wrote:  Keith Jarett's HP-41 Extended Functions Made Easy is available from the HP-41 website torrent download.

Good point ... but do you see it online (i.e. a clickable link ... ItemID for a LibView command)? I couldn't find it.

[PeterP]

Interestingly enough, the german version is on the TOS with a link: "TOS"/LibView.cfm?Command=View&ItemID=1220

In a pinch, a link to the HP-41 torrent could be a solution as well.

Cheers

PeterP

[Ángel Martin]

(11-19-2017 04:11 PM)PeterP Wrote:  Tried to register/recover my password but hit an email error, not sure if others had seen something similar when they tried to register? Excited for this to be set up and the chance to contribute!

Been trying to register for a few days, can't get it pass the New User screen - always registration errors... I give up.