•
Once again, HASH is followed by ERASING and then WRITING. In the end you should see the
message “Loading OK; Press a key to start”.
•
Press a key!
•
Press the EXIT key when asked to do so. The Free42 stack
display should appear, just as it was when you left it (assuming
that you backed up the calculator state).
•
(Note that at the time of writing there is no way to back up the
WP43C state.)
If the DM42 .pgm file isn’t on your calculator’s flash drive, don’t despair. Press EXIT to return to
the DMCP menu. From here you can either select option 2 (to restart the WP43C) or option 6
(Activate USB Disk). Once the disk is active you can connect the calculator to your computer,
download the latest DM42.pgm file from the SwissMicros website, and copy it across to the
calculator. Then you can try the above procedure again and this time it will work.
But is this fair?
There’s one final point to make. You might wonder whether getting the WP43C calculator “free”
like this is legal. Don’t worry; it is. The WP43S firmware is open source. Forking it is explicitly
allowed, and the DM42 explicitly allows other firmware to be loaded.
You might still feel that doing this is unfair to SwissMicros. Perhaps fewer people will buy the
physical WP43S if they can run the WP43C firmware on the DM42 which they already have? But
then quite possibly the ability to do this will lead to increased sales of the DM42! In any event, it is
quite likely that people who intend to use the WP43S will want a calculator entirely devoted to it
whilst at the same time keeping their DM42 to run the Free42 firmware. If you want those
operators on the left, nothing else will satisfy you. You’ll probably get a DM41X as well while you’re
at it!
In any case there is surely a real benefit to the WP43S project in having as many people as
possible using the calculator even at this early stage. Bugs will be found more quickly and there
will be more suggestions and feedback on design decisions. None of this requires the ability to
code. You should be involved!
Article 2020-03 by
