Hello!
This is unsupported by Agilent but works quite well:
To update the firmware on your U1272A multimeter (or similar) you have to use the IR-USB cable.
If you happen to own already a U1177A bluetooth IR adapter, you can use it to update the firmware.
We expect the bluetooth adapter to be installed properly in windows and have a COM port assigned.
You can pair the device with your Mac, too and then map the serial port into a virtual machine (this is how I did)
First of all you have to setup your multimeter to use 19200 baud on the IR interface.
Then switch the U1177A to setup mode, open a serial terminal program (teraterm, putty or hyperterminal work fine) and enter "ATL2"+Enter (without quotes)
This command will set the adapter to use 19200 baud on the IR interface.
See
http://cp.literature.agilent.com/litweb/pdf/U1177-90002.pdf for more details.
Last step: Download the agilent firmware update for your multimeter, install the software and let it search your meter.
When you click on start, the software will switch the meter to FW update mode ("Pro" will be shown in the display) and download the software.
Wait and do not power off
Then the meter will reboot and you will have the newest version installed.
Doing so I upgraded my meter to the latest 2.04 firmware.
Attention: No warranty, don't blame me for having bricked your meter
Sidenote: A pitfall is not to set the bluetooth adapter to 19200 baud. I did so and was stuck in "pro" mode
The meter will communicate fine with 9600 baud but when switching to the bootloader, it will use 19200 baud!
I had to investigate a bit but finally found the solution by altering the speed on the bluetooth adapter and restarting the agilent sw update software.
It detected that the meter was in "uploading" mode and I could finish the process successfully.
Hope this helps
Best regards,
Bernhard