Short Answer: Nothing is wrong. You don’t need to do anything.
If your DataMate has a firmware version dated 1997 or earlier, there is no firmware upgrade available. Simply ignore the message. To see the firmware version, switch on the DataMate. The second line displays the firmware version (a date).
If your DataMate has a firmware version dated 2005 or later, a firmware upgrade is available. Contact Slope Indicator about that.
Long Answer: The DataMate and the DMM software on the PC exchange “version codes” when they begin to communicate. If the codes do not match, either the DataMate or the PC will complain.
We made a new version of DMM software to support the newest version of the DataMate, so the DMM version code had to be changed. The new DMM software supports both the old DataMate (firmware version 1997 and earlier) and the new DataMate (firmware version 2005 and later).
When an older DataMate receives the new version code, it displays the “firmware upgrade” message. Usually the message disappears quickly, but if the DataMate is waiting for a response from the PC, then the message will be displayed long enough for you to read it. If you are looking at your PC, you won’t see the message at all. Here are the conditions when you can see the message:
- When you retrieve data from the DataMate, the message appears, but goes away quickly. Some people will never see this one.
- When you send data to the DataMate, the message stays on the display, because the DataMate is waiting for a response from the PC.
- When you delete data from the DataMate (using DMM), the message stays on the display, until it gets a response from the PC