Can I presume the DM42 is no longer supported?

Discussion around the SwissMicros DM42 calculator
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zeno333
Posts: 83
Joined: Fri Dec 29, 2017 1:34 am

Can I presume the DM42 is no longer supported?

Post by zeno333 »

The updates were changed to every 3 months...The last update was the end of August 2021, and it has been almost 4 months since then. So does that mean it is no longer supported?
rprosperi
Posts: 1703
Joined: Mon Apr 24, 2017 7:48 pm
Location: New York

Re: Can I presume the DM42 is no longer supported?

Post by rprosperi »

zeno333 wrote:
Sun Dec 26, 2021 4:05 am
The updates were changed to every 3 months...The last update was the end of August 2021, and it has been almost 4 months since then. So does that mean it is no longer supported?
No, that's not correct, the DM42 is still supported. It is worth noting that to SM, "supported" means more than new versions are issued periodically following Free42 updates. If no new Free42 updates came out for 6-8 months, would you ask the same thing? At most, the update you seem to be implying is so badly needed is less than 1 month late. Even if released today, it would still meet the "approximately every 90 days" guideline announced.

That having been said, there is no update coming immediately for 2 main reasons. Free42 has at least one more update coming out which will include a change coming from the Plus42 development and testing efforts, and it is hoped the next DM42 release will come some time after that Free42 release, and development effort is currently focused on other projects.

The contributions you (and all others) can make to help DM42 to be updated is to use the new Free42 features and report your results, both to validate that users truly are using and want these enhancements in the DM42, and to verify their implementations seem to be stable and trouble-free.

8 of your last 10 posts have been complaints about Free42 updates coming later than you would like. Although virtually no one else makes these complaints, with such repetition, it leaves the community with the impression that there is a recurring problem. If you can't patiently wait for the releases to come in their own time, please consider being more constructive in your approach, asking instead questions such as "what can I, or the user community do, to encourage more frequent DM42 updates?"

Finally, please consider changing the title of this thread (edit your original message) to "Good news, the DM42 is still supported" thus leaving a headline that all DM42 Forum readers will see with a positive tone, rather than the negative tone it currently provides".
--bob p

DM42: β00071 & 00282, DM41X: β00071 & 00656, DM10L: 071/100
svarre69
Posts: 15
Joined: Tue Oct 01, 2019 2:09 pm

Re: Can I presume the DM42 is no longer supported?

Post by svarre69 »

"If it ain't broken, don't try to fix it."

Why update just to update? You should only update if there is an correctable error, enhanced functions or something like that.

Kind regards
Peter
Nissen
Posts: 18
Joined: Wed Jun 02, 2021 6:01 pm
Location: Copenhagen

Re: Can I presume the DM42 is no longer supported?

Post by Nissen »

Patience is a virtue.
Haste makes waste.
More haste, less speed.
All good things come to those, who have patience to wait.
;)
zeno333
Posts: 83
Joined: Fri Dec 29, 2017 1:34 am

Re: Can I presume the DM42 is no longer supported?

Post by zeno333 »

The DM42 current uses Free42 3.05...That version came out July 1st, 2021. Since then, there have been numerous error corrections and enhancements etc...The DM42 was promised to be updated every 3 months...The version of Free42 in the DM42 is almost 6 and a half months old!...The DM42 clearly is not being updated in a proper and timely manner.
zeno333
Posts: 83
Joined: Fri Dec 29, 2017 1:34 am

Re: Can I presume the DM42 is no longer supported?

Post by zeno333 »

Peter, you must be joking...Any time Free42 is updated, it is because of "correctable error, enhanced functions or something like that.", as you stated. Look at the Free42 update history since version 3.05 came out. Every update after 3.05 is error corrections, more accurate functions and enhancements etc like you mentioned. That is why Free42 is updated at all, exactly for the reasons you state.
Florian
Posts: 23
Joined: Mon Apr 26, 2021 1:19 pm
Location: Japan

Re: Can I presume the DM42 is no longer supported?

Post by Florian »

zeno333 wrote:
Thu Jan 13, 2022 6:06 am
The DM42 current uses Free42 3.05...That version came out July 1st, 2021. Since then, there have been numerous error corrections and enhancements etc...The DM42 was promised to be updated every 3 months...The version of Free42 in the DM42 is almost 6 and a half months old!...The DM42 clearly is not being updated in a proper and timely manner.
I would just like to point out that at no point we were "promised" updates every three months. As written in viewtopic.php?f=16&t=2972:
This said, patching stock Free42 to incorporate the changes needed for it to run on the DMCP platform is not trivial, so we're going to start reining back updates from now on, dialling down the frequency to quarterly updates at most.
This sounds more like three months as best case to me. Generally, I believe that in the end it is coming down to manpower and best return of invest. It seems that currently it just makes not sense economically to SwissMicros to put more efforts into the DM42 firmware. Well, survival of the company comes first I guess.

Anyway, me personally, I purchased the DM42 as a HP42S clone and not as a hardware manifestation of the free42 software. As such I welcome any changes and updates that are incorporated into the DM42 but I don't see that we are in a position to "demand" such updates from SM. Such a service was never part of the DM42 purchase contract. As for bug fixes, they should, of course, be addressed. However, I think the core functions of the original HP42S are probably quite bug free, so its probably again more in the nice-to-have realm.
Thomas_ER
Posts: 192
Joined: Mon Jul 24, 2017 3:19 pm
Location: Germany

Re: Can I presume the DM42 is no longer supported?

Post by Thomas_ER »

So many posts, a simple question, but unfortunately no resilient, clear answers.

It is impressive to see the energy with which assumptions are made here about the future behavior of Swissmicros.
A few words from Swissmicros, e.g. Michael, could end the discussion and incidentally increase customer satisfaction.

yust my 2 cents.
[ HP48/49/50/42S/WP34/HP Prime/ DM42 (#00185+00318) ]
ljubo
Posts: 70
Joined: Sat Jun 20, 2020 1:46 pm
Location: Austria

Re: Can I presume the DM42 is no longer supported?

Post by ljubo »

zeno333 wrote:
Thu Jan 13, 2022 6:19 am
Every update after 3.05 is error corrections, more accurate functions and enhancements etc like you mentioned. That is why Free42 is updated at all, exactly for the reasons you state.
What are most pressing fixes and features that are available in free42 but not yet in DM42?

I’m only aware of
  • More accurate TAN and TANH
  • Fixed RND for large numbers
but those things look to me more like “nice to have” than really issues causing problems to somebody. Is there something really so urgent that someone is blocked or in a very inconvenient position?
HP-15C, DM15L, HP-35S, DM42
BruceH
Posts: 82
Joined: Sat May 06, 2017 2:39 am

Re: Can I presume the DM42 is no longer supported?

Post by BruceH »

Thomas_ER wrote:
Thu Jan 13, 2022 5:09 pm
So many posts, a simple question, but unfortunately no resilient, clear answers.
The first response says "No, that's not correct, the DM42 is still supported." Seems like a clear answer to me.
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