As
discussed on the forums, a new HP 39gII firmware has come out in the last few days. It is Version 2013 11 10, Rev:19148. As this calculator and its connectivity kit had even more bugs than the HP Prime and that the last firmware update was in November 2013, it was hoped by the TI community that this update would finally fix them, particularly the stability issues.
However, it looks like it isn't the case for the most part. The only improvements that have been found so far are the following:-It is now possible to have both HP 39gII and HP Prime Connectivity Kit softwares installed on the same computer.
-The calculator itself appears to freeze less often when attempting to connect it to the computer, but that has yet to be confirmed.
This update pretty much keeps all the connectivity problems that the predecessor had and is actually even buggier on that point than the older update ever was:-The connectivity kit still has problems detecting the calculator, requiring you to unplug/plug it back and restart the software multiple times until it's finally detected
-Saving programs in the connectivity kit no longer works (nothing happens)
-The emulator can no longer successfully send any program to the calculator at all, which used to at lease work in some rare occasions
-The connectivity software still freezes from time to time when unplugging the calculator or closing the emulator
-The connectivity software cannot detect both the emulator and the calculator simultaneously. If it manages to find your calculator, then the emulator will not appear.
-The Tunnel game from Omnimaga still freezes on a real calculator, a sign that some files are still corrupted when sent to the calculator
-The Cave game that uses DIMGROB and BLIT still reboots the calculator and those commands still haven't been fixed
-The matrix bug, still present on the HP Prime as well, hasn't been fixed.
-Same for the sequences bugs (
http://tiplanet.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=13482&p=153154#p153154)
As a result, don't get your hopes up when installing this firmware and the new HP39gII CC software. It pretty much barely solves anything. In order to get most of the bug fixes and a better connectivity kit, you still pretty much have to switch over to the HP Prime model, and even then, there are still stability issues to a much lower extent.
On the plus side, this is a sign that HP has not yet abandonned the HP 39gII. We just hope that they get their act together, fix the remaining issues then make both the HP 39gII and HP Prime models available in brick and mortar stores world (rather than just online for most countries) before Back-to-school shopping starts in August 2014.
Source: ftp.hp.com/pub/calculators/39gII/,
Tim Wessman and
HP Museum forums (search for HP 39gII on there)
