New to me HP50G: where to find <= 2GB SD cards?

Steve Davies

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Oct 20, 2020, 3:07:32 AM10/20/20

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Hi,

I see that the HP50G only supports original SD cards up to 2GB?

What are the requirements? Original plain SD, ie not SDHC etc?

I'm not sure where to find one - can I use MicroSD? Is that just a packaging difference?

Thanks,
Steve Davies

olaf

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Oct 20, 2020, 7:00:04 AM10/20/20

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Steve Davies <st...@telviva.co.za> wrote:

>I see that the HP50G only supports original SD cards up to 2GB?

Oh..I did not know this.

>What are the requirements? Original plain SD, ie not SDHC etc?

The difference between SD and SDHC is the way the card is counting
it sector. So if HP said you only can use SD it means they did not implement
the new way.

>I'm not sure where to find one - can I use MicroSD? Is that just a packaging difference?

Yes. In this case a 2GB MicroSD with adapter should work.

Olaf

nobody in particular

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Oct 21, 2020, 3:28:22 PM10/21/20

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Hi,

SDHC cards are available only in larger sizes AFAIK. In the past I had
no difficulty finding 2G cards on ebay.

MicroSD is the wrong size. Adapters can change the performance so it is
best to use a real SD card.

Bruce Horrocks

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Oct 21, 2020, 6:48:01 PM10/21/20

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On 20/10/2020 08:07, Steve Davies wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I see that the HP50G only supports original SD cards up to 2GB?
>
> What are the requirements? Original plain SD, ie not SDHC etc?

Plain SD only - the others are not backwards compatible.

> I'm not sure where to find one - can I use MicroSD? Is that just a packaging difference?

Yes you can use a MicroSD card - they're electrically identical.
Transfer speed doesn't really matter but card startup time has a
noticeable impact because the 50G powers down the card after every
operation, to save battery.

When the 50G powers up with an SD card inserted, it works out how much
free space there is by counting clusters. The more clusters there are
the longer the boot delay. So format as FAT16 as that is limited to
65536 clusters. If the card is large then it may help to partition the
card into two volumes: a FAT16, 128MB first volume and FAT32 for the
remainder as a second volume. The second volume won't show on the calc
but you can see and use it in Windows.

Regards,
--
Bruce Horrocks
Surrey
England
(bruce at scorecrow dot com)

Carlos Marangon

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Oct 22, 2020, 8:29:04 PM10/22/20

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-----------------------
It seems that it is limited due of the numbers of digits to say what is the maxumum memory.
This is, it formats only to 1GB

In 2005 whan HP50 was made it was less than today.

Miny SD can be used with an adapter.

Mario Lohajner

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Oct 23, 2020, 1:42:52 PM10/23/20

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I use a super-old 16 MB SD card from one even older camera :-)

Formatted as FAT16 works very well, everything I need fits on it.

Just using the opportunity to say hi: "Hi!" :-)
glad to see the group stil exists...

I guess we just ran out of subjects for the time being :-)

Regards,
manjo

Bruce Horrocks

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Oct 23, 2020, 6:16:45 PM10/23/20

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Hi. We'd have more to discuss if HP would release a new version of the
50G up-to-date hardware. :-)

Mario Lohajner

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Oct 24, 2020, 3:26:03 PM10/24/20

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On 24. 10. 2020. 00:16, Bruce Horrocks wrote:
> On 23/10/2020 18:42, Mario Lohajner wrote:
>> I use a super-old 16 MB SD card from one even older camera :-)
>>
>> Formatted as FAT16 works very well, everything I need fits on it.
>>
>> Just using the opportunity to say hi: "Hi!" :-)
>> glad to see the group stil exists...
>>
>> I guess we just ran out of subjects for the time being :-)
>
> Hi. We'd have more to discuss if HP would release a new version of the
> 50G up-to-date hardware. :-)
>

When you say 50G up-to-date hardware I'm guessing you assume:
HP Prime *IS NOT* 50G (Saturn)

What we all are waiting for, as it seams, is...
50G (Saturn emulator) on HP Prime
-which will not happen any time soon :-)

In my opinion HP calculators (ARM based lineup) should have been where
RaspberryPI is.
Linux OS, Saturn emulation, and "the new Prime stuff" included,
PLUS expandability (storage) as well as Raspberry PI GPIO.

Even though there is still time (better late than never), but
as it seams -no real interest, so...

Basically you take RPI4, and pack it in 50G case, make underside metal
(heatsink for CPU) and make ports and GPIO pins available.
What you get is "THE LAST SCIENTIFIC CALCULATOR YOU'L EVER NEED".

In my imagination it should bare the name of 42 as a tribute to original
42 model and Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (ofcourse).
Printed manual (however rare nowdays) words "Don't panic" should be
printed in legible font on the cover.

And so on...

Best regards,
manjo

Scott Chapin

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Oct 25, 2020, 3:25:13 PM10/25/20

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I bought two 50g calculators when they went out of production. I use list processing a whole lot and the Prime cannot handle it.

I’m not holding my breath for a new 50g, but it sure would be nice.