24 replies to this topic

[CrimsonCasio]

I sent this to the webmaster of what appears to be the Classpad300 site, wish me luck

Allow me to start by saying, the classpad is a wonderful product, I've owned one almost since it came out.  Second, I have visited you website and I'm confused as to if you are simply selling the classpad or are working with (or are) casio, anyway, if I have addresed this to the wrong place I apologize, and would you please inform me as to where I sould direct my inquiry.

Problem 1: Classpad Manager bug

I seem to have found a bug in the Classpad manager, you see, I write programs for all manner of Casio Calculators, from the CFX 9850Ga plus to the Algebra FX2.0, and now the classpad.  While I was making such a program I discovered that one of the commands did not work appropriately on the emulator part of the classpad manager, in the documentation proided with the classpad it states that the the "Wait" command will stop the execution of the program untill the user hits a button or taps the screen, or when given a perameter in seconds it will weight that amount of time (unless a key/tap occures), the maximum being two minutes.  This functions perfectly on the Classpad, and is very handy, however on the manager, it causes the emulator to freeze for a period of 5 minutes (I timed it) durring which no keys can be pressed and the classpad becomes utterly unresponsive.  if in a tite loop the classpad must be exited with ctrl-alt-delete.  I have consulted others who own classpads and confirmed that it is not my computer alone experiancing problems.  for refrence here are links to the program I made, the first is the original program which i wrote on the classpad and found the problems with the manager, the latter is a link to a modified program I wrote to circumvent the problem, both are still in a developemental stage, but are stable.

http://www.crimsonca...og/CasPaint.mcs

http://www.crimsonca...sspad/CasPM.mcs

here too, is a link to a description of the program: http://www.crimsonca...rog/listall.php

run CasPaint on both the Classpad and manager, you will see what happens, also run CasPM on the manager, and note how no such problem occures.

you can of course just execute the "Wait" command by its self and see the effect just as well.



Problem 2: Tech/Customer Support.

In regards to the above mentioned program I have E-mailed and called the casio tech support center for over a month, I have never seen such terrible service, I have had conversations with casio employees for over 3 weeks, each time I am told that they will either a) contact their supervisors who are currently busy, and then call me back; reaserch the problem, then call me back; or c) get in touch with another office, then get back to me.  this has been going on for at least 3 weeks, and not once have I been called back except to confirm a time to call me back, which never happend.  On this last call I was told that they were unable to figgure out what a "ClassPad" was, this after 3 weeks of conversation (with the same person).  At this point, I directed them to Casio.com and showed them the product, and apon this they again said they would call me back with an answer. I have not heard from them sense, nor do I intend to call back, so disgusted am I with them.  I havem therefor, contacted you, as a last ditch effort, afterwhich I will conclude that Casio does not care about the defect with their product.

Now, in the intrest of consolidating any future coorespondence i would like to pose an unrelated question: Is casio aware of the various online comunities centered around their products, I myself am an Adminstrator of the Universal Casio Network, a fourm and a few connected sites centered around Casio graphing clacluators, in the seeming absence of an official Casio tech support center (a competent one at least) we serve to help new users with their problems, and experianced users work together to develope advanced software both for the calculator and for the PC to use with the calculator, I myself have been programming Casio's for around six years and am considered an authority on the subject of programming in Casio Basic.

The reason I bring this up is because traditionally all atempts to work more closley with casio (like Ti works closely with ticalc.org) have been met with silence, and sometimes animosity.  We do not understand the reasons for this, but we continually hope to establish a mutually benificial relationship.  Anyway, if you are interested in taking a look around our community I personally would be happy to show you around, and show you all we have accomplished.

Sincerely, (and Hopefully)

Jake N. Finley (aka CrimsonCasio)



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Crimson Casio
http://www.crimsoncasio.co.nr

[Overlord]

are you talking about classpad.org ?

[CrimsonCasio]

are you talking about classpad.org ?

yeah, i dont know if they are the right people, but I might as well.

[huhn_m]

btw. what about someone registering casiocalc.org and pointing to our forum?
Maybe someone can do it?

[CrimsonCasio]

thats not a bad idea... but casio might have a problem with it if they decide they dont want us around. mabey after the casiocalc.org domain runs out we could switch. its a thought...

[Andrzej]

yeah, i dont know if they are the right people, but I might as well

I think they are the right people, known as " Saltire Software "
That's propably they wrote all Classpad system and software, and of course Classpad Manager.

That also explains why Casio knows so litle about one of theirs product - They created just the hardware

[CrimsonCasio]

yeah, but I'm still hoping they can help... afterall, the problem is with the software... anyway, did you guys see the games section? it looks like they are going to be releasing their own games...

[betoe]

Yes i think that casio want to offer a final product more complete with the classpad, like other companies like HP. I hope that classpad.org can help to crimson, they need to value people who use their products like the people of the UCN. We need to accuse casio by problems like AlephMobius, they must to give a better service.

[CrimsonCasio]

HALLELUIAH!!!!!
They responded!!!!!

Hi Jake,

Believe it or not, you've already helped find the bug and it has ben fixed by Casio already. I noticed your program on a forum, which also talked about the problems in the Manager. I sent this bug to Casio's Classpad Manager developer who fixed it. It will be included in the next release of the Manager.

I don't know if the next version has been released yet, or if Casio has it available for download. I'll check and let you know.

Thanks,
Brian Maguire

Hi Jake,

In regard to the problems you've had with Casio support, I understand your frustration. Saltire has a special relationship with Casio because we aid in the development of their software. If it were not for this relationship I imagine we'd have a difficult time getting support too;)

I think part of the problem is Casio's decentralization. The Casio sales division is responsible for support in each country, but too often the support staff at the local sales divisions don't have good communication with the developer's in Japan and USA. I also think it is part of the culture. Both TI and HP have actual calculator developers interested in supporting the users. I think because Casio is more of a global company the sales divisions are expected to provide this support, and we go full circle.

The Claspad is a unique situation which adds to this problem. Part of the development was done my the USA development division in Portland, OR, which we work closely with. The other part was done in Japan.

I will bring up your concerns with the president of the Portland division.

Thanks,
Brian

Hi Jake,

I was wondering which Casio support center you contacted? I would like to relay this information to Casio's USA Research and Development Center.

Thanks,
Brian

I sent them a reply, I forgot to copy it, so you will have to wait till they reply untill you can see what I wrote.

CELEBRATE EVERYONE! ITS A MIRACLE!

[rjstephens]

congrats, you actually got a meaningful reply from a casio related company.

Can't you just go look in your sent items?

[Roeoender]

Sorry I haven't got time to read your first post to Casio, I read everything else.
I will concentrate on AFX2.0:
We already know much about it but there are some things that are very difficult to "hack".
The most important stuff, which dear casio company could give us would be:
hardware port info (those lines going to keypad, LCD screen, clock generator and many more),
and non standart sotware interrupts (int 21h (DOS functions) is quite normal, so it seems to be with BIOS calls) but there seems to be some casio specific interrupts (like 47h).
Yet another thing we don't know is how to change contents of system drive (A:) - because when we change it normally it will be reinitialized after uploading.
It would be great if casio would publish those information.

This post was written quite quickly so it is a bit messy (lack of time).
Roeoender.

[Killer83Z]

Great.

[CrimsonCasio]

I told them I knew of a few programmers who would be nothing less than delighted to talk to them, Im sorry I cant get my message, I forgot to click "add message to sent folder", but every time they reply they include a copy of my message, so i'll get it then. I basically thanked them, asked them about the saltire1.exe and saltire2.exe on the AFX, asked if they make all the software or just the math/cas stuff, asked them if they were interested in having a special place on the forum to answer questions that we cant, plus a special member acount, and asked them to pass that along to casio as well. there was more, but I cant remember it all right now...

[Mohamed]

Just to add to the record, have a look at this:
http://casiocalc.org...&st=0#entry2543

Another older miracle that happened (I'm repeating it because new members don't know about it, and I we lost the thread in the old forum), suddenly (she just read a post about wishing to call CASIO in the old UCF), a woman from the CASIO USA sales department called Carla Westbrook mailed me and told me she usually logs in and read posts, and she tells the R&D team, she also added that they listen to her, then some members sent her their wish lists (I remember BradN), and that was all.

[CrimsonCasio]

this was in the old forum? I take it you dont know anthing about her now?

[betoe]

Thats Brian Maguire send me a replay of a email that i sent the last week, he is a nice guy ,I asked him if they can send me a classpad to Meixco and him answer is affirmative only with $10 USD for the shipment (final price=199 USD)

[CrimsonCasio]

thats good, and I agree he is a nice guy. out of curiosity did you tell him your with the forum?

[betoe]

nothing about the UCN, when I wrote to him i never thought that he would answer me, i only wrote: "can you ship a classpad to M?xico?"
After that, he wrote to me other e-mail to give me the shipment price.

I wrote to guys of casio M?xico and I said to them about the UCN , i made some questions but they never reply to me.

[BiTwhise]

I wrote with Brian a while back, about a few (math related) bugs and some other misc (i.e. programming prospects of the classpad) questions.

Had nice response, and much better support than I've ever recieved from Casio

Told him about the forum too (allthough I don't know if he already knew about it)

[CrimsonCasio]

here is the response to my last message, the first one is what I wrote, the second is the reply, now I'm waiting for casio to contact me.


Thank you for replying to me, you have no idea how frustrating all this has been (kind of ironic that I had indirectly already told you about it), I'm very glad to hear that someone at least close to casio is monitering the forums, the one I'm an administrator of (www.casiocalc.org/casio/forum/) is the biggest, multilingual forum on the web, and if you would ever like to have the opinions of casio users all over the world its the place to go. I've asked Casio before if they would be interested in having a place on the forum where they could answer questions that we cannot answer, but I've never recieved a response. anyway, you asked what Casio support center I contacted and the answer is I dont know, I called a number at casio.com and was redirected 3 times to this number: 1-888-204-7765, I spoke to Jarvis 3 times and Don once (the last call was handled by don, he was the one who finally told me they didn't know what a classpad was and whom I directed to casio.com).

Anyway, I'm glad someone has finally taken intrest, I dont know how frequently you look at casio forums, but I would love to know Saltire's opinion on these sites, and if you are interested I could set up a special acount for you to use, I know several programmers who would be no less than delighted to talk with people who actually design software for casio calculators. Also I would be eternally gratefull if you would pass my offer along to Casio.

On a personal note, I am curious of weather you only create the CAS type software for casio (I know on the AFX the B and C drives contain saltire1/2.exe which we have debated the purpose of several times) or do you develope all the software? Also would it be possible to get a copy of the fixed Manager from you, from what I know casio is only distributing the manager with a purchase of the classpad, and I dont intend to order another just to get an update of the program . With your permision I could also make this uppdate available to others who are having this problem.

Anyway, thank you again for all your help, I'm almost in a state of shock that I got a reply!

-----------------------------------------

Hi Jake,

I know Casio as a company is committed to developing quality products and providing quality support. I've forwarded your issue to Casio and they were concerned that you didn't get a timely response from their support center. Someone from Casio will be contacting you shortly.

It looks like your bug report was actually forwarded from the support center to the developer responsible for the Classpad Manager, who fix it. I don't know why the support center didn't then get back in touch with you. I imagine there were a few too many links in the chain and the response got delayed (or lost) in the shuffle.

On your personal note, Casio develop's their own software for their calculators. Saltire has technology in Computer Algebra and Geometry Systems which we've transferred to Casio, but it is all Casio's software.

While working with Casio on the Classpad we became so excited at the innovation of this next generation of calculators that we decided to help support the Classpad by creating "classpad.org". Classpad.org is not a Casio website, but a Saltire website designed to promote this excellent machine.

Thanks,
Brian

[betoe]

Thats good that they get in contact with the casio users, in addition there are a bad image with casio customer support in the forum and casio must change this situation.

Sorry this is a little offtopic but what is a "saltire", i have seen that word in other casio topics but i dont understand that word.

[CrimsonCasio]

its a company that works closly with casio, they developed the CAS on the afx and classpad.

[Casto Productions]

Any idea on whether or not that company could directly fix the current afx 2.0 CAS system rather than wait for Casio to put out another useless update and call it CAS 3.0?

[CrimsonCasio]

you could ask them, I dont know the specifics about that so I dont feel qualified... anyway, the website www.classpad.org has two addresses, either will reach him