HP Forum Archive 15

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What happened to OpenRPN? Message #1 Posted by Walter B on 24 July 2005, 1:42 a.m. For several days now, I cannot reach openrpn.org - seems this site is down, at least it doesn't respond :-( . Did they change their address? Google lists the old one still ...

Well... Message #2 Posted by Aston on 24 July 2005, 5:52 a.m., in response to message #1 by Walter B ... Maybe they realized that talking is fun, but producing real-world products takes a little more than 3D drawings?

Re: Well... Message #3 Posted by . on 24 July 2005, 6:40 a.m., in response to message #2 by Aston I suspect that the site is down only for the short-term. However you have a point. The project is sadly on the decline.

Re: What happened to OpenRPN? Message #4 Posted by Nelson M. Sicuro (Brazil) on 24 July 2005, 1:57 p.m., in response to message #1 by Walter B I think that the OpenRPN project starved to death... I also think that the "thing" that they are building are anything but a calculator. For a PDA I'll go to the next store and buy one. These are *my* opinions as an earlier collaborator to this project, before it was even founded. Now I'm only an eventual reader due to differences of what I expected from it. Best regards, Nelson

Re: What happened to OpenRPN? Message #5 Posted by hugh steers on 24 July 2005, 3:22 p.m., in response to message #4 by Nelson M. Sicuro (Brazil) i wrote a functioning 20 digit bcd library with trig functions. i put some of these into a windows demo of what the calculator might be like. if interested, get the windows binary here; www.voidware.com/tmp/rpndemo.zip unfortunately, no one seemed to be able to make a decision on how the buttons should be laid out. my take was that i am happy to help write the software but i don’t have time to drive the decision process. the other thing was that i didn’t really want to write the rpl system. the problem was over just how compatible it was supposed to be to the hp one. i didn’t like the idea of 100% compatibility because then you’re just reimplementing an hp. and on the other hand, i personally have never been a real big fan of rpl. i would prefer to see something like 71b basic which was really easy to work with. on the hardware side, i don’t have a strong preference as long as it works. although i did expect someone to, at least, make a prototype board with a display and maybe get it to add numbers or something. otherwise what are you doing.

Re: What happened to OpenRPN? Message #6 Posted by Hugh Evans on 24 July 2005, 8:31 p.m., in response to message #1 by Walter B The site went down sometime last week while our admin was out of town. Everything will come back to life within the next 24 hours. Contrary to other posts in this thread the project is not starving to death (as for making too much of a PDA I will be posting some updates to thoroughly dispell this belief). In addition I have worked out a tentative complete keyboard layout, and we are working on a dynamic wiki-based software development model and possibly a browser plugin. Hardware development has been going on behind the scenes. In conclusion, OpenRPN is doing great. We bypass hosting costs by using our own servers... which saves money but occassionally bites us with reliability issues. -HDE

Re: What happened to OpenRPN? Message #7 Posted by Gene on 24 July 2005, 11:24 p.m., in response to message #6 by Hugh Evans I'm beginning to really doubt that this will go far. The words are always the same, and the servers are down a lot. However, I would be very glad to eat my words. I just don't expect to have to do so. Gene

Yeah, sure... Message #8 Posted by Aston on 25 July 2005, 2:04 a.m., in response to message #6 by Hugh Evans Glad to know that you are "working" on yet another keyboard layout. Most urgent stuff, I guess. Sorry guys, I've seen this kind of amateur projects fail so often. Nothing personal against you. Look at the previous months, look was was produced? Nope. At the same time, it is possible to use a perfect simulator (V41, NonPareil, etc...) or buy real, solid, perfect vintage HP's on eBay.

Re: Yeah, sure... Message #9 Posted by Hugh Evans on 25 July 2005, 3:03 a.m., in response to message #8 by Aston No offense taken. The vast majority of this community will remain skeptical until calculators start arriving in their mailboxes :-) Many achievements involve disproving skeptics... So that's my job here. -HDE

Re: Yeah, sure... Message #10 Posted by Chan Tran on 25 July 2005, 7:39 a.m., in response to message #9 by Hugh Evans I just read the FAQ for the first time. I think the goal of $100 for an all aluminum, water tight and with molded thru keys is too ambitious.

Re: Yeah, sure... Message #11 Posted by Hugh Evans on 25 July 2005, 1:46 p.m., in response to message #10 by Chan Tran Actually those features are among the least ambitious. We probably won't be using aluminum in our first production run since we need a material that is easy to machine and cut with a laser. Plastics will be used instead. Custom molded labels are nothing special to make given that you use modern technology. The FAQ page you read is horribly out of date, please refer to this page (I will also correct the link on the OpenRPN site.): OpenRPN FAQ -HDE Edited: 25 July 2005, 1:47 p.m.

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