WP34S for the DM42

[Nigel (UK)]

I was initially going to post this in the "Software Library" forum, but the polite request there for program listings made me think that this might be a better place!

This is a port of the WP-34s calculator to the DM42. I have tried hard to adapt it to the DM42 keyboard layout (thanks to Jaco and his WP43C project for inspiration) whilst preserving the original "look and feel". I haven't tried to advance on the WP-34s capabilities in any way, except for the inclusion of a few extra file commands.



Here are a couple of screenshots. Menus allow all functions present on the original keyboard to be accessed without going into catalogues.



The port is a vanilla WP-34s. There is no WP34C version yet; I'd like to get this one debugged first.

Here is the gitlab page for the project. As explained in the README.md file, if you want to try this out you'll need to download the build/wp34s.pgm file and the help/wp34s_help.html file from this site. The pgm file goes into the DM42 root directory; the help file goes into the HELP folder. You then load the wp34s.pgm file from the DMCP menu (option 3).

Note that this project uses the latest DMCP version (3.20 at this time). If your version is much older than this, it may not work! Upgrade first.

Please let me know if you find any bugs or have any problem with these instructions.

Have fun!

Nigel (UK)

[Walter]

Sounds great! But now I'd need an extra DM42 for this WP34S ...

[akaTB]

Sounds great! But now I'd need an extra DM42 for this WP34S ...

Just checked: they are available!

[Walter]

Sounds great! But now I'd need an extra DM42 for this WP34S ...

Just checked: they are available!

Certainly. But they cost more than twice the price of an original WP34S. I doubt that the capability to bang in a nail using your calculator is worth the extra money.

[akaTB]

Sounds great! But now I'd need an extra DM42 for this WP34S ...

Just checked: they are available!

Certainly. But they cost more than twice the price of an original WP34S. I doubt that the capability to bang in a nail using your calculator is worth the extra money.

One nail more in TI's coffin!

[H2X]

... This is a port of the WP-34s calculator to the DM42...

Have fun!

Nigel (UK)

Cool, Nigel! I have an extra DM42 as well as a hammer, so I think I might just have a go..

[Nigel (UK)]

Great! Let me know how you get on.

[Just to be clear, for others reading: you don't actually need a spare DM42 (or a hammer!) to try this out. So long as you save your DM42 state before loading the wp34s.pgm file, you can exit the wp34s program and return your DM42 to its previous state without any ill effects at all.]

Nigel (UK)

[EM41]

Sounds great! But now I'd need an extra DM42 for this WP34S ...

You can buy mine as soon as the WP43 hardware is out

[Walter]

Sounds great! But now I'd need an extra DM42 for this WP34S ...

You can buy mine as soon as the WP43 hardware is out

Nice idea Though, if I find them all again then I've got enough WP34S for my needs (even excavated my WP31S recently). And there are also emulators for them. Just my DM42 is a bit disguised ...

[dlachieze]

Amazing ! This is really cool to have the WP34S SW running on the DM42 HW. No more worn overlays and a clean keyboard.

Here are my first observations:

It's faster than a WP34S on battery: I ran the N-Queen benchmark and I got ~4.3s for the 34S on my DM42, vs. ~7.5s on my WP-34S v3.3 3815.

It was quite easy to enter the program manually, I really like the way you have implemented the menus to get quick access to the functions on the keyboard of the WP 34S. I just had some trouble finding ABS, but then I remember reading in the help there was a misc. menu for everything else, and bingo ABS was there on Shift-hold-down_arrow. The WP-34S for DM42 integrated help file is really useful.

There is one function that I don't find on the DM42 keyboard mapping: SHOW (g EXIT on the WP34S).
In alpha the extended catalogs on f --> and f CPX are not mapped to the --> and CPX keys but to LN and XEQ.
Also in Alpha mode the h prefix (three press on Shift) is implemented but is not giving access to all characters on the alpha keyboard h-plane: ! (h ^), ? (h v), \ (h /) or space (h PSE) for example are missing.

The WP 34S display renders beautifully on the DM42 screen, I have just two small comments: it seems to me that the Alpha section of the display is a bit too close to the edge of the screen. I would prefer it to be a bit to the right as on the WP 34S display. And the pixels on the WP 34S (HP 30b) Alpha display are not square but rather rectangular and from what I've measured on a close-up picture I took from the display, they seem to be about 10% higher than larger giving taller characters than what we have on the DM42 version.