Hi all,
My spare time has been increased substantialy during the last months... I'm *happily* retired since Dec. 28th ;-)
Several pending issues regarding my projects have finally got the required attention and here there are some news and updates I'm glad to share with the community.
On the Software side:
The three last remaining known bugs in the NoV's family has been fixed, these include:
- Excessive power drain while Power OFF.
- Auto OFF freezing of NoV's with HEPAX emulation in HP-41CX's
- Improper HEPAX code relocation at page #8 after running clock (SHIFT+ON) (Thanks to Geir for reporting)
A new release of ClonixLP.EXE and ClonixLP.ASM has also been build including four Bank Bankswitching scheme. (Thanks to Raymond for suggesting it)
These mods are currently being tested in field by some users and will be published in my web page as they report them operational.
On the hardware side:
I've found a reasonably priced USB PIC programmer, and I've been testing it both with the previous developments (Clonix41, NoVRAM, NoV-32), and with the new ones (Clonix41D, and NoV-64).
The new USB programmer will fulfill a long time awaited solution for those users with laptops or desktops without serial port. Further more it also runs in Windows Vista!.
Clonix41D is a double sized Clonix holding 12 pages in two blocks of 6 pages each. You swap from one block to the other by selecting the port you plug the module in. Odd ports use Block-1 while even ports use Block-2. This module is already working in my proto-board and will be released as soon as the testing with USB programer were finished and I can verify there is a good supply of such programmers.
NoV-64 is also 12 pages ROM and adds 4 RAM blocks of 4 pages each. It will still take a while to have it finished, but the long waiting time has not been completelly improductive, as it will take advantage of the latest fixed bugs as it will inherit its "clean code" from the previous NoV's modules, so its code will be far more debugged.
If everything goes as expected, Clonix41D will be available by end April or early May, while NoV-64 will be released by summer.
As a "side" issue promoted by the interest of a user (thanks Bernt), I've also extracted the code from the ET-11968 (printer test module). It will soon be available at TOS in .MOD format. If you want the .ROM file for your collection or the .HEX file to play with it in your Clonix (remember it uses page #4 and runs continuously once connected to your HP-41), just drop me a line... (oh! yes, of course!... It's free!! :-))
Many thanks for your interest and my best wishes for you and yours from the Canary Islands.
Diego