Programming Languages on HP200lx?
william stevenson
I am trying to use my HP200lx for programming. My problem
is finding small compilers that will work on the HP. Does
anyone know of a small C++ (not c) compiler that will work?
I haven't been able to find an old copy of Turbo C++ or an
old MS C++ so I don't know if they would work. The only
c type compilers I have found is pcc and smallc. They're
ok but not too robust.
Does anyone know of a prolog for dos, or maybe perl?
Dean.
--
______________________________________________________________________
William Dean Stevenson Colorado State University
stev...@cs.colostate.edu
dave anderson
william stevenson (stev...@beethoven.cs.colostate.edu) wrote:
: I am trying to use my HP200lx for programming. My problem
: is finding small compilers that will work on the HP. Does
: anyone know of a small C++ (not c) compiler that will work?
: I haven't been able to find an old copy of Turbo C++ or an
: old MS C++ so I don't know if they would work. The only
: c type compilers I have found is pcc and smallc. They're
: ok but not too robust.
: Does anyone know of a prolog for dos, or maybe perl?
Isn't this a bit tough? The screen is quite small and the keyboardd is
even tighter. I have a custom progy I wrote for mine, but did it on the
desktop. I carry around the source for when I find those bugs, but wait
till I'm home to compile. Not to mention I'd bet a compile time take for
ever :)--
Dave
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barrym
I've tried Turbo C++ 1.0 and 2.0 to see if they would
work and they both work fine. TC++ 2.0 is a little slow
but not unmanagable. I use TC (not++) 2.0 on it to save
space. I only have a 10 meg card.
I think I got TC++ 1.0 trimmed down to about 3.5 meg,
or some such by just including the command line compiler
and tlink, etc. But that's been a while so I might remember
wrong.
I've done a lot of experimenting with languages just out of
curiosity, on the 200lx. I've tried a number of Forth's,
several Lisps, several old C compilers, Pascals, Basics
and others that I can't think of now. All that I've tried
that don't require a 386 have worked just fine.
If you want to develop on the 200lx you might want to take
a look at PAL. It's an api developed by several programmers
in HPHAND on CIS and they've done an excellent job of providing
the look and feel of the built-in applications and access to
them and their data and files in dos programs that can be run
from Sysmgr. It supports TC 2.0 and Power C and Watcom C and
Microsoft C and Quick C and a couple of others. ++ isn't
needed but I don't think it's a problem either. I think you
might find this good enough to let it influence your compiler
choice.
By the way, if you want to legally copy any of Borland's old
compilers, they'll sell you a license for (I think) $50. A
number of the guys on CIS have done this.
Another suggestion: get on CIS (compuserve) and take a look
at HPHAND. It's the gathering place for most of the developers
for the 200lx. They're pretty good people and very informative.
Barry
rob...@elastica.com
What lisp packages work on the 200LX?
--
Deborah do you recall? Your house was very small, with woodchip on the wall.
When I came round to call you didn't notice me at all. (Pulp, DISC 2000)
Jeff Reed
I was just wondering if anyone has ever opened the hood of a 200LX. If
so, can you describe how it's constructed?
Is it easy to open?
Thanks.
Phil Drummond
Jeff Reed (jeff...@ix.netcom.com) wrote:
: I was just wondering if anyone has ever opened the hood of a 200LX. If
: so, can you describe how it's constructed?
Jeff,
I open the lower part of my HP about twice a year, to clean out all the
"stuff" that gets in there. It's not hard to do, just get yourself a
number six Torx screwdriver and look under the rubber feet. If you have
a touch for the stress that plastic will take, you won't break anything,
but if you haven't ever opened anything, things like TV remotes, pagers,
or the like, then I recomend you pratice on one of them first. The case
uses, in addition to the Torx screws, plastic "tabs" that interlock to
hold it shut.
As to what you will find (in addition to a bunch of lint and dust :) is
a circuit board, all surface mount, with (2meg version) another smaller
board "piggy back" on it. Also a piezo speaker, PCMCIA connector and
ejection mech, and wires and ribbon cables. DO NOT try to open the
display! Reason: to open the display, you must remove the "frame" or
sticker that surounds the display proper. Once done, it will look like
crap. (I have seen the results, lucky for me, before I tried it :)
Last note, avoid using compressed air or whatever to clean out your HP.
The only result will be to force whatever is in there, into places where
it might cause problems.
Good luck!
P.S. Sears has an excellant #6 Torx for two dollars (US)
--
phil...@netcom.com
-------------------
JERI L FERGUS
william stevenson (stev...@beethoven.cs.colostate.edu) wrote:
: Does anyone know of a prolog for dos, or maybe perl?
: Dean.
Borland has an old product called Turbo Prolog that works fine
with the hpx00lx.
JERI L FERGUS
In article <4s8htm$2...@Starbase.NeoSoft.COM> you wrote:
: I think I got TC++ 1.0 trimmed down to about 3.5 meg,
: or some such by just including the command line compiler
: and tlink, etc. But that's been a while so I might remember
: wrong.
I currently have about 1 Mb of TC++ 1.0 installed in my palmtop
c:\TC>
tcc.exe tlink.exe
conio.h iostream.h math.h mem.h stdio.h stdarg.h string.h
float.h graphics.h dos.h stdlib.h
c0s.obj c0t.obj
maths.lib fp87.obj cs.lib emu.lib graphics.lib
cga.bgi goth.chr litt.chr sans.chr tripchr
: If you want to develop on the 200lx you might want to take
: a look at PAL. It's an api developed by several programmers
you can also take a look at Turbo Vision from Borland, which is an
excellent OOP library for DOS interfacing. Turbo Vision has been made
public domain by Borland and should be easy to find somewhere in the net.
The copy of Turbo vision that I have is for BC++ 3.1 so I don't
think it will work or fit in a hp lx ... the apps compiled under it
should work on the lx, though.
Kerry W. Podolsky
There was also a nice developement package for TV called,
appropriately enough, Turbo Vision Development Toolkit.
The product was sold by Blaise Computing Inc., 415-540-5441.
I don't know whether they still make it, but if you plan on
doing any TV work, you have to have it.
Works with TC/BC++ and TP.
Kerry
--
Kerry W. Podolsky
Mgr. System Software Group
ADEMCO/AlarmNet/SafetyNet - "We are Radio-active"
curtis cameron
If anyone is interested in doing graphics on the LX, I did a quickie program
which will take a 2-color (1-bit) PCX file, and output a text file which is
just a list of comma-separated numbers, ready to be copied into your source
file. The program runs in DOS, either on a PC or the palmtop.
So, create an image using your favorite graphics package, save it as a
2-color PCX file, then run this program with two paramters: the first is
the pcx file name, and the second is the name of the output file to
create. In your program source, create an array, and initialize it with
the values in the created file. Then call the interrupt to write an image,
and pass it the address of the array.
The program can be grabbed from the following web page:
http://users.aol.com/FREEWHL44/lxdemo.html
Example programs are available here too.
-curtis cameron
barrym
dave anderson (dav...@newshost.li.net) wrote:
: Isn't this a bit tough? The screen is quite small and the keyboardd is
: even tighter. I have a custom progy I wrote for mine, but did it on the
: desktop. I carry around the source for when I find those bugs, but wait
: till I'm home to compile. Not to mention I'd bet a compile time take for
: ever :)--
I've written many thousands of lines of assembly code on my
palmtop. I keep Turbo Assembler on board. Also Turbo C and
QuickBasic. They all work well.
Often when I was writing a standalone program for something
at work, a filter, etc I've gone out and sat in the grass
away from the ringing phone and gotten it done in half the
time it would take on my desktop pc at work.
I don't know if I'd want to use it for Cobol, though. :)
Barry
barrym
JERI L FERGUS (lo...@sfsu.edu) wrote:
: In article <4s8htm$2...@Starbase.NeoSoft.COM> you wrote:
: : I think I got TC++ 1.0 trimmed down to about 3.5 meg,
: : or some such by just including the command line compiler
: : and tlink, etc. But that's been a while so I might remember
: : wrong.
: I currently have about 1 Mb of TC++ 1.0 installed in my palmtop
: c:\TC>
: tcc.exe tlink.exe
: conio.h iostream.h math.h mem.h stdio.h stdarg.h string.h
: float.h graphics.h dos.h stdlib.h
: c0s.obj c0t.obj
: maths.lib fp87.obj cs.lib emu.lib graphics.lib
: cga.bgi goth.chr litt.chr sans.chr tripchr
I had included the environment and the help, since I'm a C
programmer and I was thinking of learning C++ with this. I
normally don't use an environment but in this case it would
beat carrying a book. But that was too big so I didn't.
However, if you got it down that small, maybe I should. I
do like the // comments. :)
Barry
: : If you want to develop on the 200lx you might want to take
Kerry W. Podolsky
> advantage of giving easy access to the special features of the
> palmtop, like the zoom and the graphic fonts, etc. It also knows
> how to access the built-in apps files and pass stuff to and from
> the App Manager's clipboard. Also, the apps look like the built
> in apps.
>
> Barry
Another programming language option is PowerBasic (formerly
Borland TurboBasic).
There older version 2.1 (current version is 3.2) requirments
are minimal: 512k, XT, DOS 2.0 or later and 2 floppy drives.
PowerBasic is releasing an updated version called PBasic for
DOS. This is a beginner-intermediate version and they are
releasing it as shareware for $25.
It will be capable of linking in OBJ files, so if someone is
willing to do a recompile of PAL with "PASCAL" directives (I've
been thinking about it), PAL could be used with PB.
barrym
rob...@elastica.com wrote:
: What lisp packages work on the 200LX?
: --
: Deborah do you recall? Your house was very small, with woodchip on the wall.
: When I came round to call you didn't notice me at all. (Pulp, DISC 2000)
I've used xlisp and ylisp and a couple of common lisp interpreters.
I think they all worked. I only used them to play with the stuff
in "The Little Lisper" since I don't really speak Lisp. Pretty
interesting stuff.
I actually tried quite a number of Lisps and all that didn't
require a 386 worked just fine. A couple wanted 286's but
that's no problem on the lx as long as it deosn't try to go
into protected mode, since the 186 has all the non-protected
mode 286 opcodes. I don't remember what they all are. If
you like, I'll find out what some of them are. I have a disk
somewhere with lisps that worked ok. Might take some serious
looking so let me know if you really need them.
Barry
barrym
Kerry W. Podolsky (Ker...@pop.ademco.com) wrote:
: Another programming language option is PowerBasic (formerly
: Borland TurboBasic).
: There older version 2.1 (current version is 3.2) requirments
: are minimal: 512k, XT, DOS 2.0 or later and 2 floppy drives.
: PowerBasic is releasing an updated version called PBasic for
: DOS. This is a beginner-intermediate version and they are
: releasing it as shareware for $25.
: It will be capable of linking in OBJ files, so if someone is
: willing to do a recompile of PAL with "PASCAL" directives (I've
: been thinking about it), PAL could be used with PB.
I've heard good things about PowerBasic. I'm happy with QuickBasic.
I just use it for working out ideas. I don't actually do any
development with it. In fact I've thought about using just
Qbasic and saving some disk space.
Barry
zn...@teleport.com
Graham Coles (gra...@scitec.demon.co.uk) wrote:
: In article <4s68g6$r...@beethoven.cs.colostate.edu>, william stevenson
: <stev...@beethoven.cs.colostate.edu> writes
: >Does anyone know of a prolog for dos, or maybe perl?
: >Dean.
I have been running 16-bit DOS Perl 4.036 for months on my
HP100LX. I forget where I got it; do a Web search for
Availability of awk and perl
and you will find it. 16-bit DOS "gawk" also runs on the
HP100LX, and is faster than Perl.
: I have managed to find a number of assorted languages that will work on
: the HP
: forth - assorted versions
Any 16-bit DOS Forth will run on the HP palmtop. One good one,
although non-standard, is "100pygmy". Look for "100pygmy.zip"
on the HP archives. If you want a free ANS standard Forth, try
hForth. This one is on the Taygeta Forth Archive at
If you have the flash disk space (3.5MBytes!!) the very
full-featured F-PC runs very well on the HP100LX. The screen
editor is very nice, although the 80-column mode will require
bright light and good glasses. I know there's a way to hack it
to do 64-column editing, but I haven't figured out how just
yet. Look for "fpc36.zip".
For the ultimate in speed, Tom Almy's ForthCMP compiles directly
from Forth to DOS executables, eliminating Forth interpretation
overhead. This one is also available on the Taygeta archive;
it's a $50 shareware package and it is very good. Look for
"4cmp23s.zip".
BTW, the Forth community is working on standardizing "C"
interfaces to Forth, which means it shouldn't be too long before
you can code in Forth and interface to PAL or the HP libraries.
--
zn...@teleport.com (M. Edward Borasky) http://www.teleport.com/~znmeb
The American people are tired of being told what the American people
are tired of.
zn...@teleport.com
barrym (bar...@starbase.neosoft.com) wrote:
I believe the Soft Warehouse muLISP will run on the HP100/200LX,
although I haven't tried it yet.
Richard S Weinstein
curtis cameron (curtis_...@hp.com) wrote:
# If anyone is interested in doing graphics on the LX, I did a quickie program
# which will take a 2-color (1-bit) PCX file, and output a text file which is
# just a list of comma-separated numbers, ready to be copied into your source
# file. The program runs in DOS, either on a PC or the palmtop.
# The program can be grabbed from the following web page:
# http://users.aol.com/FREEWHL44/lxdemo.html
# Example programs are available here too.
hmm, after that discussion of street maps and subway maps I became
interested in using my 200LX to carry around a street map, and soon
discovered that any map on the HP has a Heisenberg thing happening.
They either show good detail but cover too small an area, or they
show a good sized area with no detail. So, using the above method
to encode a bunch of pictures (or even one large one), I guess it
wouldn't be too hard to create a sort of virtual panner to better
view the whole map with. So, I guess my question is does something
like that already exist or should I go ahead and try to whip it up?
Or, basically, what did the people who were interested in the subway
map end up DOING with it? It didn't seem to do much good for me,
without a better way to view it.
Also, I noticed your discussion of Turbo C's executable size on
that web page. It was my understanding that Turbo C is not meant
to be a production compiler, so I wonder if a better compiler would
produce smaller binaries? And do Turbo C binaries have a symbol
table that can be stripped off?
-Rick
Data Trade Ltda.
dav...@newshost.li.net (dave anderson) wrote:
>william stevenson (stev...@beethoven.cs.colostate.edu) wrote:
>: I am trying to use my HP200lx for programming. My problem
>: is finding small compilers that will work on the HP. Does
>: anyone know of a small C++ (not c) compiler that will work?
>: I haven't been able to find an old copy of Turbo C++ or an
>: old MS C++ so I don't know if they would work. The only
>: c type compilers I have found is pcc and smallc. They're
>: ok but not too robust.
>: Does anyone know of a prolog for dos, or maybe perl?
>Isn't this a bit tough? The screen is quite small and the keyboardd is
>even tighter. I have a custom progy I wrote for mine, but did it on the
>desktop. I carry around the source for when I find those bugs, but wait
>till I'm home to compile. Not to mention I'd bet a compile time take for
>ever :)--
I'm developing commercial software for the HPLX and use Forth.
Although I develop usually on the desktop and then download to the
palmtop for testing I occasionally develop on the palmtop itself. For
flexibility reasons I have my complete Forth development system
(including editors, OO extensions, graphics libraries, etc.) on a 2MB
SRAM card, so I can use it on any palmtop that happens to be free. In
addition I have usually 2 complete projects on the same 2MB card,
sources, executables, data files and all. Typing is a bit hard on the
tiny keyboard, screen is not a big problem, as I keep my lines short
and so can use the zoom. Compilation times are very reasonable,
something between 1 and 8 seconds for a complete project.
And, of course, the things you can pack into a palmtop using Forth are
simply amazing. I've done some (graphical) big fonts you can read from
a 10 meter distance. Right now I am using them for a little digital
clock demo program that also shows an example of using the bitblt
coprocessor. When it's finished I'll post a message where to find it.
Not that there's demand for (yet another ?) digital clock program,
but just to demonstrate what you can do with Forth on a HP palmtop.
Klaus Blass
Mobile Information Technologies
>Dave
David Becher
curtis cameron <curtis_...@hp.com> wrote:
>http://users.aol.com/FREEWHL44/lxdemo.html
>Example programs are available here too.
>-curtis cameron
On this web page curtis writes:
Unfortunately, the integrated debugging environment (for either TP
or TC) doesn't work because Turbo doesn't comprehend the palmtop's
graphics mode, and doesn't turn it off before trying to switch
back to a code view.
This is true However if , when you are back in the code view (even
though it looks like morse code) you shell to dos (Alt - F - D) you
get text mode back....
This is a kludge but it works.
----------------------
David Becher
dav...@netmedia.net.il
----------------------
barrym
Richard S Weinstein (rsw...@pitt.edu) wrote:
: Also, I noticed your discussion of Turbo C's executable size on
: that web page. It was my understanding that Turbo C is not meant
: to be a production compiler, so I wonder if a better compiler would
: produce smaller binaries? And do Turbo C binaries have a symbol
: table that can be stripped off?
Turbo C produces fairly small executables. By default there
is no symbol table. You only get that if you compile with
debugging information. And even then you can put it in a
seperate file. Also there's a tool to strip it from the
executable.
To say it isn't a production compiler is a little misleading.
It was aimed at students but it also was pretty efficient
with respect to code size. It didn't do quite as well with
respect to speed, but it produced reasonably fast code.
Barry