www.hp42s.com -
April News 2005
Saturday the 30th of April
As most visitors might have noticed I have updated the HP-42S homepage with lower frequency than usual lately. I'm currently on a paternal leave (yes, believe it or not but here in Sweden there exists such a programme for both parents, albeit not at the same time...) looking after my 15 months old son. This mostly means standing with both feet on the ground (literally!) and more seldomly delving into calculator stuff.
However, I thought it would be a good idea, nonetheless, to summarise what I haven't had the time to put up as news items yet:
Emu42
Even though Emu42 has been a stable package ever since the full release last autumn, things are still happening on the Emu42 front. Following on last month's release of the new version for
Pocket PC with VGA support this month has seen an update to the Windows version which now comes in a complete installer package. This contains all default KML scripts, tools and source code in one single file - and can be downloaded
here.
Of course, you still have to supply your own ROM image!
HP-42X
HP-42X for HP-49G+ has for some time now been upgraded to also support the internal beeper. This means that it now has the same functionality as the HP-48 version. I don't want to enter the debate regarding the HP-49G+ keyboard quality but can only say that if you are happy with your HP-49G+ then HP-42X is a recommended companion for it.
I still regard using a calculator with a real keyboard the preferred way to program an emulated HP-42S. For example,
Okie Dokie for the HP-42S was written using HP-42X on a HP-49G+.
Free42
I have silently followed the progress of
Free42 and now hold my thumbs crossed as Thomas Okken has started the work to implement BCD maths. This will ultimately lead to true compatibility with the real HP-42S. This is very promising as the reverse engineering approach is a way around the HP copyright and my personal hope is that the Free42 project would one day see the marriage to the
OpenRPN project, so that Free42 could be run on hardware in a calculator format.
Program library
The program library has seen the addition of a
root/min/max finder by Namir Shammas (thanks Shamir!). Please keep new contributions coming!
Erik Ehrling (Sweden)
www.hp42s.com