HP Forum Archive 21

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[WP34S] Beginner's positive thoughts - 1 week in. Message #1 Posted by Chris Tvergard on 13 May 2012, 12:33 p.m. The almost daily rate at which the WP34S is improved upon, which is a huge positive, has made me conclude that I need to be flash capable and thus do my own version number updates and emulator swaps. This was also hinted at by some of you early on. My experience so far in this forum has been extremely satisfying and beneficial, but the dynamics leave a "static" beginner helpless. The forum member advice does frequently not fully apply to my version number or is different than that of my manual. This WP34S project grows on you and it makes me even more interested. All I wanted was a new calculator; but now I start making holes in my HP30b with its attractively colored precision overlay, solder-in an LED, flash stuff inside the old XP virtual shell with a serial RS232, and I need to get a which specifications cable connector from where? When great people like you get together great things happen, but when I first got my HP-25 with its Quick Reference Guide (both in my hand as I write this) life somehow seemed simpler. Chris

Re: [WP34S] Beginner's positive thoughts - 1 week in. Message #2 Posted by Marcus von Cube, Germany on 13 May 2012, 4:13 p.m., in response to message #1 by Chris Tvergard Chris, Gene Wright, a forum regular, can provide a cable. A USB modification is in the works and will eventually replace the original cable. One of my units has a 3 pin stereo jack (harvested from a TI cable) connected to the serial pins. An FTDI USB-RS232-TTL-3V3 cable works perfectly with this device for programming or data transfer. Edited: 13 May 2012, 4:15 p.m.

Re: [WP34S] Beginner's positive thoughts - 1 week in. Message #3 Posted by Chris Tvergard on 13 May 2012, 6:39 p.m., in response to message #2 by Marcus von Cube, Germany Marcus, Thanks for the info. I needed that. I haven't yet read up on the cable idea - tomorrow was my plan. A week ago I did not even have a WP34S so everything is happening almost too fast. But I am energized by this forum and the WP34S project although I regret to be unable to contribute much, if anything, myself due to my complete lack of knowledge. The one great thing, absolutely, which I achieve from this forum is that the discussions mature my own ideas with lightning speed. 24 hours ago I was not even dreaming of doing neural networks on a handheld calculator. So the WP34S team's energy and visions encourage me. Chris

Re: [WP34S] Beginner's positive thoughts - 1 week in. Message #4 Posted by Marcus von Cube, Germany on 14 May 2012, 2:28 a.m., in response to message #3 by Chris Tvergard Contribute you programs here and you will add to the project. It's a joint effort after all.

Re: [WP34S] Beginner's positive thoughts - 1 week in. Message #5 Posted by Chris Tvergard on 14 May 2012, 10:06 a.m., in response to message #4 by Marcus von Cube, Germany Marcus, Contributing my own future programs - that's a great idea, thanks. Where are they typically stored? HP Museum? SourceForge? I could learn a lot by looking there myself, of course. Marcus, I often wonder how the team decides what goes into a final new version and who does the manual.pdf; sometimes I think the manual could be more specific for beginners but then again who are the target audiences? There must be disagreements so how do you resolve that across continents among volunteers? And is the team a static group? As you may gather I am always interested in the human psychology aspect. Just how did you all get together originally, like at an HHC gathering? Is there an "HP Garage" moment in there somewhere? Thanks. Chris

Re: [WP34S] Beginner's positive thoughts - 1 week in. Message #6 Posted by Walter B on 14 May 2012, 11:16 a.m., in response to message #5 by Chris Tvergard Chris, you can read a bit about the history on pp. 6 and 131f. Pauli and I started the project in 2008 - we didn't meet but just knew each other from the forum for some years. Marcus joined early in 2011. The inner team now has these three members, so majorities are easily found ;-) Communication and voting is by e-mail, which works really well :-) Pauli and Marcus are focussed on SW & HW, I'm on layout design & documentation. So the manual is my job. Please read the lower part of p. 7 about the target of it. That's all very much boiled down - feel free to continue asking when you've read that. Oooh, and the contributed programs will be put in the library folder on SourceForge. I hate to tell, however, many were 'promised' but little delivered so far - so what you find there is mainly Pauli's work IIRC. Edited: 14 May 2012, 11:20 a.m.

Re: [WP34S] Beginner's positive thoughts - 1 week in. Message #7 Posted by Marcus von Cube, Germany on 14 May 2012, 2:02 p.m., in response to message #6 by Walter B Walter, Franz has contributed some very useful code.

Re: [WP34S] Beginner's positive thoughts - 1 week in. Message #8 Posted by Walter B on 14 May 2012, 3:35 p.m., in response to message #7 by Marcus von Cube, Germany Marcus, I know that and appreciate it. Nevertheless, AFAIK my statement above is still true.

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