DM41CX

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DM41CX

Postby Duncan » Tue Sep 29, 2020 9:38 am

Hi All
Just to be controversial, do we need a new section for the new Swiss Micros DM41CX!!!!
Duncan
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Re: DM41CX

Postby Duncan » Thu Oct 01, 2020 7:04 pm

Obviously I meant DM41X!!
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Re: DM41CX

Postby Garth » Thu Oct 01, 2020 11:18 pm

It seems like an awful lot of the discussion would be overlapping, otherwise it wouldn't be the DM41X, right? But we do have a lot of hardware sections of the forum that would not apply, like about card readers, HPIL, bar code, cassette, modules, etc.. Myself, I got into the 41 for its ability, through HPIL, to control and take data from a lot of pieces of electronics test equipment on the workbench, and interface to them all at once. You cannot do that with the DM-<anything>. I have the HP82169A HPIL-to-IEEE488 interface converter, the FSI164A HPIL-to-RS232 interface converter (like, and mostly compatible with, the HP82164A, but with two RS-232 channels, and optionally up to eight, plus the option to run on battery power), and the HP82165A HPIL-to-parallel interface converter, and of course you can use them all at once, plus having a lot of pieces of equipment connected to the '169A all at once, plus printer, mass storage, whatever, on HPIL, up to 31 devices altogether at once. So although the DM41X has a lot of advantages (including being in current production), this is not one of them.
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Re: DM41CX

Postby Duncan » Fri Oct 02, 2020 7:38 pm

Hi Garth
Agree entirely! I have come from exactly the same engineering point. I too have a variety of interfaces including the GPIO and HPIB and PIL/IO interfaces this is what makes HP41/IL so fantastic. I am in the process of developing a whole range of hardware and software mechanisms that hopefully will be of interest to everyone in the forum. I have just taken delivery of a DM41X and I am slightly disappointed that no HP-IL is currently supported even though I pointed out the the very essence of HP41 is that it is a system and not just a calculator. I have so many fantastic ideas it may take a long time to realize them all but I will try to keep everyone updated through this forum. Long live HP41!!
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Re: DM41CX

Postby Garth » Fri Oct 02, 2020 7:57 pm

That sounds great! I look forward to your success. And saying that "the the very essence of HP41 is that it is a system and not just a calculator" is right on the money. I try to be accommodating of different people's interests and backgrounds, so I have to hold back when I want to say their idea of I/O (like only having it to connect to a printer or mass storage) is pretty anemic. They're mostly accustomed to home- and office-type interfacing though, where it's mostly human oriented. I was very disappointed when HPIL was discontinued. I think the idea should have been advanced and upgraded to higher speeds as technology advanced.
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Re: DM41CX

Postby Duncan » Fri Oct 02, 2020 8:11 pm

Hi Garth
My ultimate dream is to re-establish HP-IL!!! I 'joke' with my friends I am working on an 11 bit internet!! they don't believe it!! If I have to personally fund production of a new HP-IL IC I will!! (dream). Thank you to everyone that has helped create the virtual IL world that has brought IL to the 'masses'. My plan is to enhance this capability and maintain it for the future if I can.
Regards
Duncan
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Re: DM41CX

Postby Duncan » Fri Oct 02, 2020 8:20 pm

Hi Garth
Forgot to say I have also ripped out my ethernet cables in my house and replaced them with HP-IL cables, a proper network!!!!
Regards
Duncan
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Re: DM41CX

Postby Garth » Fri Oct 02, 2020 11:51 pm

Duncan wrote:My ultimate dream is to re-establish HP-IL!!! I 'joke' with my friends I am working on an 11 bit internet!! they don't believe it!! If I have to personally fund production of a new HP-IL IC I will!! (dream). Thank you to everyone that has helped create the virtual IL world that has brought IL to the 'masses'. My plan is to enhance this capability and maintain it for the future if I can.

Compatibility with existing HPIL things would be nice, but maybe not absolutely necessary if you're going to make new accessories to go with it. The ones to replace the HP82164A and HP82165A would be easiest, followed perhaps by mass storage, using SD cards in SPI mode. Optoisolators would be smaller and cheaper than HPIL transformers. More widely available connectors could be used. It would be nice if one can make up his own cables on the workbench, something you definitely cannot do with USB. In fact, Universal Serial Bus (USB) is quite a misnomer. How can they call it "universal" when there are nine kinds of connectors? And how can they call it a "bus" when normally one connector goes to only one device? It is definitely not hobbyist-friendly. The USB-2.0 spec is over 650 pages. You cannot do any troubleshooting, you cannot make up your own cables, and it has a short limit of only 5m. RS-422 can do 10Mbps at 40 feet, and RS-485 can do 35Mbps at 33 feet, and both can go at least 90kbps (still a little faster than HPIL) at 3/4 mile. They allow making your own cables, and you can use the same UARTs as RS-232 but with different line drivers and receivers. At that point you probably wouldn't even need an FPGA, just a microcontroller, with built-in UARTs. If cables were not limited to two conductors, you could forgo the UART and make it synchronous serial like SPI which would require three conductors minimum to go one direction per cable, and you might even get away with 2.5mm or 3.5mm phone plugs, small, inexpensive, widely available, and can be soldered by hand. The biggest challenge in making an HP-41 module would probably be just the mechanical shell and connector for the top ports. I don't know what it would entail for the DM41X.
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