Archiving HP-42S Programs
Revolvr
I have an HP-42S I used for many years at NASA, and on it still are
several programs I wrote, some quite large.
I still use the calculator but I don't have much need to program it
any more. I would like to archive off the programs - at least as
listings, to a PC. I have read something about using the IR to
transfer to an HP-48GX/G+, which I don't have. I do some PIC
programming, so if the IR protocol were known I suppose it would be
possible to build a PC-IR interface, or has someone done that?
Also I have the thermal printer still which I think would still work.
A brute force method might be to print the listings and try to scan
them with OCR.
Any other ideas?
Thanks,
-- Dan
Raymond Del Tondo
I think the fastest, easiest and therefore most efficient method
to backup your HP-42S programs would be to buy a cheap HP-48G,
download the HP-48 program INPRT from www.hpcalc.org ,
then print the programs from the HP-42S to the HP-48,
then upload the resulting text strings to a PC.
This method will cost you about $20-$40 for the HP-48G
with serial cable, and the time to print and upload the files.
There also exist some IR receivers for the pioneer and clamshell series
calcs,
but these are not very common.
Christoph Giesselink also showed at the Allschwill2004 and 2006 meetings
how to use the IR connector on a HP-28S for wired serial I/O .
The 28S has a very similar IR hardware as the HP-42S.
So there's more than one way to output your HP-42S programs to a PC,
but I'd recommend the one mentionned at the top of my posting,
using an HP-48 as adapter.
HTH
Raymond
"Revolvr" <Rev...@cox.net> schrieb im Newsbeitrag
news:1172873604.6...@z35g2000cwz.googlegroups.com...
Eric Smith
> I do some PIC
> programming, so if the IR protocol were known I suppose it would be
> possible to build a PC-IR interface, or has someone done that?
The IR protocol was documented in the October 1987 HP Journal article
"An Infrared Link for Low-Cost Calculators and Printers", and also
in the HP 82240B Technical Interfacing Guide:
http://www.hpcalc.org/hp48/docs/programming/82240bte.zip
Mark Adler wrote a program called HPREAD that runs under MS-DOS
with an infrared receiver connected to a parallel port pin, or a
handshake line of the serial port. The C source code is included.
http://www.hpcalc.org/hp28/apps/hpread.zip
There was an article in Circuit Cellar Ink by someone who reverse-
engineered the protocol, not realizing that HP had documented it.
Unfortunately he got one detail wrong, such that an implmentation
of his version of the protocol would interoperate with HP's protocol,
but have less effective error control.
Revolvr
"Eric Smith" <er...@brouhaha.com> wrote in message
news:qhbqja9...@ruckus.brouhaha.com...
> "Revolvr" <Rev...@cox.net> writes:
>> I do some PIC
>> programming, so if the IR protocol were known I suppose it would be
>> possible to build a PC-IR interface, or has someone done that?
>
> The IR protocol was documented in the October 1987 HP Journal article
> "An Infrared Link for Low-Cost Calculators and Printers", and also
> in the HP 82240B Technical Interfacing Guide:
>
> http://www.hpcalc.org/hp48/docs/programming/82240bte.zip
>
> Mark Adler wrote a program called HPREAD that runs under MS-DOS
> with an infrared receiver connected to a parallel port pin, or a
> handshake line of the serial port. The C source code is included.
>
> http://www.hpcalc.org/hp28/apps/hpread.zip
>
Thanks both. I think I'll try to get HPREAD working first - if it works in
winXP the rest should be easy.
Otherwise the best route seems to be an HP-48G. Buying the calculator,
serial cable and manuals for only $20-$40 would be quite a challenge. Any
recommendations on where to buy?
-- Dan
mad...@alumni.caltech.edu
> I think I'll try to get HPREAD working first - if it works in
> winXP the rest should be easy.
I'd be interested to know if it does. HPREAD was written in an era
when you could write real-time software on a PC -- HPREAD could and
did commandeer the 80286 processor it was written on. As long has
HPREAD gets the processor frequently enough to catch the bits on the
port, it might work on a modern machine.
You can still get an IR receiver at Radio Shack, though the price has
gone up a whole 20 cents from $3.49 to $3.69 in the last 17 years!
http://www.radioshack.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2049727&cp
> Otherwise the best route seems to be an HP-48G. Buying the calculator,
> serial cable and manuals for only $20-$40 would be quite a challenge. Any
> recommendations on where to buy?
It looks like HP-48G's are going for about $40 to $50 on ebay. You
should see if there's someone you can borrow one from. An HP-48S or
HP-48SX would do as well. There is an updated INPRT library here:
http://www.hpcalc.org/search.php?query=inprt
Mark Adler
Bruce Horrocks
> Otherwise the best route seems to be an HP-48G. Buying the calculator,
> serial cable and manuals for only $20-$40 would be quite a challenge. Any
> recommendations on where to buy?
Failing that, come to the next HHCC conference and one of us will bring
an IR printer. You can print the listings and then scan them into a PC!
Regards,
--
Bruce Horrocks
Surrey
England
(bruce at scorecrow dot com)
John H Meyers
what I did for mine was to read them in the display,
and type them into a plaintext file or email message,
although usually it went the other way -- develop
first on PC, then type into calc!
I have a small "awk" script which
[re]numbers lines of multiple programs in one list on a PC,
enabling me to create and/or edit programs on a computer.
Of course, these eventually had to be typed into the calc --
well, into several calcs, actually, because I have
three of them, and since data can be sent only one way
(calc to "printer"), each calc had to have a personal
secretary-typist (me) as an assistant :)
[r->] [OFF]
John H Meyers
> I have the thermal printer still which I think would still work.
Fire it up, then -- why wait, get "hardcopy" ASAP!
If your printer doesn't perform, hurry up and bid on this:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=300086350765
"HP 82240B thermal printer for use with HP calculators.
Printer is used but in excellent condition."
[no power supply shown, but runs on AA batteries anyway]
Bidding is all the way up to US $8.00 (plus $6.50 shipping) already.
End time: Mar-07-07 09:19:22 PST
(sign up with an "auction sniper" company
if you'll be busy at auction close time]
[r->] [OFF]
Revolvr
"John H Meyers" <jhme...@nomail.invalid> wrote in message
news:op.tomvn...@w2kjhm.ia.mum.edu...
[r->] [OFF]
OK you got me motivated! I figure I haven't used the printer in 13 years.
It's the "A" version. I loaded batteries, did a test print, then printed all
of my programs. Printer worked great. I used about 16 feet of paper for 32
programs. I cut them up and taped the listings to letter size paper and
scanned them into my PC. At least now I have the listings archived.
I also found 4 unused rolls of thermal paper.
Most of these are rocket science stuff - Hohman transfer, deorbit burns,
ascent, quaternion algebra, some amateur astronomy stuff and a few plotting
routines. Back in those days we still did a lot of development on
mainframes, so it was easier to prototype equations to verify the
derivations on the calculator.
I'm still tempted to transfer these electronically so I can use them on a PC
with something like Free42.
Cheers,
-- Dan
Christoph Giesselink
> [..]
>
> I'm still tempted to transfer these electronically so I can use them on a
PC
> with something like Free42.
>
When you have the knowledge in PIC programming I definitely recommed to make
a Redeye receiver with the document Eric pointed to.
I done all my Romdumps of my Highend Pioneers and HP28 calculators with such
an interface connected over the RS232C port in the last years. In the early
90'ties I saved/printed all my data from a HP28S by this way to a PC before
I sold the calculator. So I was able to quickly restore my data to the HP28S
emulator I wrote years ago.
Another big advantage, you can make a HP42S romdump and use the Emu42
emulator to get the exact behavior of the original calculator.
Some words to a HP48G as REDEYE receiver with the INPRT program. I recently
updated my Clamshell ROM upload utility allowing the HP28 ROM upload in
parts. Therefore I tried a HP48G from my collection as receiver. I wasn't
able to get it working without errors. I changed back to one of my HP48GX
and everything worked fine. So my personal experience of this test is, that
not all of the HP48's are equal.
Cheers
Christoph