Hi,

Having posed our customers to PV750 over the past 12 months, we now have PV(750) hardware in the field with either a Ver 2.0 configuration or Ver 2.1 configuration. So far we have managed to limit a customer's job to single version of the configuration. I need some advice on the following:
** We have a ver 2.0 configuration, dual display installation in the field. Customer has damaged the screen (cracked) and requires replacement. We only have Ver2.1 PV750 displays on the shelf now.

(i) Is it possible to make a Ver 2.1 display (firmware/hardware) accept a ver 2.0 configuration? or
(ii) are we expected to only stock the "latest" revision of hardware and revise a customer configuration to match. or
(iii) do should we stock multiple versions of hardware? (ie. we had a Ver 2.1 unique screen configuration created by FWM for one customer. They had been purchasing PV750 hardware ver 2.0, and I belive the screen was doing a complete firmware update during download.) If we supply our current stock (hardware ver2.1) this will still be fine. How should we handle say this customer once later hardware versions are available?

I have found that when I import a Ver2.0 config into Ver 2.1, it requires modification to rem multiple warnings and will not compile without revision. I'm not sure if this is the way we had created the ver 2.0 config, or if it's due to an (direct import) incompatibility issue. Is there any way aruond this?

Your advice is greatly appreaciated
Thanks
Sid

Sid,

Our current shipping version is now 2.2. With 2.1 and now 2.2 we have the ability to upgrade configurations. Typically when you upgrade from 2.0 to 2.1 there are warnings. These warnings are typically valid and point to unused or duplicate information that was not detected by the 2.0 tool. Normally it is best to upgrade your configurations and resolve the warnings. In general, it is best to take a configuration and upgrade it to the latest version when FW Murphy upgrades the version of the firmware, resolving any warnings if there are any.

To answer your questions directly:

(i) A 2.1 display can’t take a 2.0 configuration. But you can update a 2.0 unit to 2.1 and a 2.1 unit to 2.2.

(ii) The hardware is actually the same, just the firmware has changed. You shouldn’t need to worry about stocking particular units with particular revisions of firmware. When you order a unit from FW Murphy you will get the latest version (currently version 2.2).

(iii) You can, if necessary, order a specific version of firmware with a PV750. However, the best approach would be to upgrade the configuration to the latest version. The warnings you when you upgrade are not caused by an incompatibility issue, they highlight duplicate, unused and invalid information that was not caught by earlier versions. If the configuration was built by FW Murphy, you can send me a private message with details of the configuration and we will look into what it would take to upgrade the configuration to the latest version. We do not automatically upgrade configurations we created from one version to the next.


Brian McRae
Software Test Lead
FW Murphy