NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #31

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Newsgroups: comp.sys.hp48 Path: sparky!uunet!spool.mu.edu!umn.edu!lynx!triton.unm.edu!meissner From: meissner@triton.unm.edu (John Meissner) Subject: FAQ (Part 2) Message-ID: <_5pr7wk@lynx.unm.edu> Date: Wed, 30 Dec 92 06:10:30 GMT Organization: University of New Mexico, Albuquerque Lines: 713 Saturn "Saturn" is the internal code name for the processor used in the HP 48SX, HP-28 series, and the HP-75/71B calculators. STAR This is the "Saturn Macro Assembler" (how "STAR" comes from this, I don't know), an assembler that mostly uses Alonzo Gariepy's mnemonics. It's written in C and runs on many different machines (PCs, Amigas, Unices, etc.). STAR is available via anonymous ftp from ftp.ai.mit.edu in "/pub/star-1.04.4.tar.Z". It's also available from various bulletin boards (the HP handhelds forum on CompuServe also has a copy). The latest version is "1.04.4". SWING SWING is a library program that displays a graphical tree structure of the directory hierarchy in your HP 48SX, and allows you to move from directory to directory using the arrow keys (it is supposedly based upon an old PD VMS utility). System RPL This is the name for the custom "operating system/language" used to program the CPU used in the HP 48SX calculator. System RPL is a superset of the normal user RPL commands; in addition to the normal, user-accessible RPL commands, system RPL includes many lower-level functions. System RPL is a language one step higher than assembly language. HP has released a system development toolkit (for the IBM PC) containing a system RPL compiler, assembler, and loader, complete with a couple hundred pages of documentation. This toolkit, while copyrighted, is, for the most part, freely copyable. If you can find a BBS or archive site that has it, you can download all of the system RPL files and documentation. USRLIB USRLIB is a program that takes the contents of an HP 48SX directory and turns it into a library object. It currently runs under MSDOS. Voyager Voyager is an "interactive disassembler" for IBM PC clones that disassembles HP 48SX RPL and machine code. You download a copy of the RAM *and* ROM in your HP 48SX to your PC, and run Voyager. Using Voyager, you can then view the disassembled or unthreaded code. Unfortunately (or fortunately), Voyager uses the HP mnemonics, and not Alonzo Gariepy's mnemonics. Voyager is available from the HP BBS (I think), via anonymous ftp from the HP BBS (hpcvbbs.cv.hp.com [15.255.72.16]), and from various bulletin boards (the HP handhelds forum in CompuServe also has a copy). The latest version is "1.07". 29. What information is there on the internals of the HP 48SX? The most important documents are part of the "System RPL" devlopment tools, a completely unsupported set of IBM PC tools created by HP Corvallis (the creators of the HP 48SX). The tools, which run on MSDOS machines only, contain documentation on: * System RPL (which includes information on HP 48SX display graphics, keyboard control, etc.). * Saturn assembly language ("Saturn" is the name of the CPU in the HP 48SX), including infomation on a Saturn assembler. * A system RPL compiler. * A Saturn object file linker. The completely unsupported system RPL development tools and documentation are available to customers free of charge to help them in HP 48SX application development, subject to certain legal terms, which are given with the toolssites around the Internet (sorry, but I don't know where they are). * The HP handhelds forum on CompuServe has a copy in the HP 48SX download library (DL4). I think that it's called "48rpl.exe" instead of "tools.exe" (this is what HP Corvallis calls it). 30. What are the pinouts for the HP 48SX serial connector? Looking at the pins of the HP 48SX (the following diagram is showing the pins on the HP 48SX, as you look *AT* the calculator): _________ | o o o o | \_______/ ^ ^ ^ ^ | | | \------ 4 Signal GND | | \-------- 3 RX (input to the HP 48SX) | \---------- 2 TX (output from the HP 48SX) \------------ 1 SHIELD Stated another way: HP48SX IBM 9 PIN IBM 25 PIN (From the outside edge -> inward) SHIELD------------------- SHIELD---------------- SHIELD TX (Output)<-------------2 RX (Input)------------3 RX (Input) RX (Input)-------------->3 TX (Output)---------->2 TX (Output) SGND---------------------5 GND-------------------7 GND 31. Is there any information on interfacing to the HP 48SX? HP has made available an UNSUPPORTED document called the "HP 48 I/O Technical Interfacing Guide", which contains information on the wired and serial I/O hardware. Look in the various HP 48SX archives for a copy. 32. Where can I get programs and information for the HP 48SX? One location is the HP Calculator BBS. CompuServe has a modest HP 48SX archive in the HP handhelds forum. Type "go HPSYSTEMS" to access the forum. HP 48SX-specific files can be found in DL 4. For those people who have access to the Internet, the following sites have HP 28 and HP 48SX information and software: Site Name IP address directory (& other files) ----------------- ------------ --------------------------------------- hpcvbbs.cv.hp.com 15.255.72.16 /pub seq.uncwil.edu 128.109.221.20 (most complete HP 48 archives) wuarchive.wustl.edu 128.252.135.4 /systems/hp48sx funic.funet.fi 128.214.6.100 /pub/misc/hp48sx pub/misc/hp28s faui43.informatik.uni-erlangen.de /portal/hp48 131.188.34.43 (games gnu hp28 irc iso lisp) 131.188.31.3 (There seems to have been no 131.188.44.43 maintenance since February 1991.) 131.188.1.43 gmuvax2.gmu.edu 129.174.1.8 /new/hp48sx (gmuvax2 has very few files for the HP 48SX.) 33. How do I get access to the HP Calculator BBS? You can access the HP Calculator BBS via a modem (note that this is a long distance call for most people): (503)-750-4448 2400 baud, 8N1 (503)-750-3277 9600 baud, 8N1 For those people who have access to the Internet, you can also access the BBS via telnet to hpcvbbs.cv.hp.com [15.255.72.16]. 34. What Usenet Newsgroups are there for the HP 48SX? comp.sys.hp48 -- Primary newsgroup comp.sources.hp48 -- For HP 48SX programs. (This newsgroup is moderated by Chris Spell -- send submissions to hp48@seq.uncwil.edu.) comp.sys.handhelds -- Occasionally, HP 48SX information is posted to this newsgroup. * Appendix A: ASC\-> and \->ASC functions: >From billw@hpcvra.CV.HP.COM Fri Mar 1 17:00:00 1991 From: billw@hpcvra.CV.HP.COM (William C Wickes) Date: Fri, 17 Aug 1990 22:27:42 GMT Subject: HP 48 Object Encoding Organization: Hewlett-Packard Co., Corvallis, OR, USA ASCII Encoding HP 48SX Objects Sending an HP 48SX object via electronic mail can be difficult if the object does not have an ASCII form, such as is the case for library objects. There are various encoding schemes available on different computer systems, but these require that the sender and receiver have similar computers, or at least compatible encode/decode schemes. The programs listed below perform the encoding and decoding on the HP 48SX itself, which has the advantage of being completely independent of any computer. The programs are nominally called \->ASC and ASC\->. The former takes an object from the stack and converts it to a string, in which each nibble of the object and its checksum is converted to a character 0-9 or A-F. (The object must be in RAM, otherwise a "ROM Object" error is returned.) For sake of easy inclusion in email letters, the string is broken up by linefeed characters after every 64 characters. ASC\-> is the inverse of \->ASC: it takes a string created by \->ASC and converts it back into an object. When you transmit the encoded strings, be sure not to change the string; ASC\-> uses the checksum encoded in the string to verify that the decoding is correct. An "Invalid String" error is returned if the result object does not match the original object encoded by \->ASC. When you upload a string to your computer, use HP 48 translate mode 3 so that the HP 48 will convert any CR/LF's back to LF's when the string is later downloaded. Two versions of ASC\-> are included here. The first (P1) is in HP 48 user language, using SYSEVALs to execute system objects. P2 is a string that the setup program uses P1 to decode into an executable ASC\->--then P1 is discarded. The second version is more compact than the first, and also uneditable and therefore safer (but it can't be transmitted in ASCII form, which helps to make the point of this exercise). Here are the programs, contained in a directory: (start) %%HP: T(3)A(D)F(.); DIR P1 @ ASC\-> Version 1. \<< IF DUP TYPE 2 \=/ THEN "Not A String" DOERR END RCWS \-> ws \<< 16 STWS #0 NEWOB SWAP DUP SIZE IF DUP 4 < THEN DROP SWAP DROP "Invalid String" DOERR END DUP 65 / IP - 4 - # 18CEAh SYSEVAL "" OVER # 61C1Ch SYSEVAL SWAP # 6641F8000AF02DCCh # 130480679BF8CC0h # 518Ah SYSEVAL # 19610313418D7EA4h # 518Ah SYSEVAL # 7134147114103123h # 518Ah SYSEVAL # 5F6A971131607414h # 518Ah SYSEVAL # 12EA1717EA3F130Ch # 518Ah SYSEVAL # 280826B3012808F4h # 518Ah SYSEVAL # 6B7028080BEE9091h # 518Ah SYSEVAL # BE5DC1710610C512h # 518Ah SYSEVAL # 705D00003431A078h # 518Ah SYSEVAL # 3D8FA26058961431h # 518Ah SYSEVAL # 312B0514h # 518Ah SYSEVAL # 18F23h SYSEVAL DUP BYTES DROP 4 ROLL IF == THEN SWAP DROP ELSE DROP "Invalid String" DOERR END ws STWS \>> \>> P2 @ ASC\-> Version 2. To be converted by ASC\-> version 1. "D9D20D29512BF81D0040D9D20E4A209000000007566074726636508813011920 140007FE30B9F060ED3071040CA1304EC3039916D9D2085230B9F06C2A201200 094E66716C696460235472796E676933A1B21300ED30FD5502C230C1C1632230 CCD20FA0008F14660CC8FB97608403104AE7D814313016913213014117414317 414706131179A6F5C031F3AE7171AE214F8082103B6280821909EEB0808207B6 215C0160171CD5EB870A13430000D50713416985062AF8D341508813044950B9 F06BBF06EFC36B9F0644230C2A201200094E66716C696460235472796E676933 A1B2130B21300373" P3 @\->ASC. To be converted by ASC\->. "D9D20D2951881304495032230FD5502C230A752688130ADB467FE30322306AC3 0CB916E0E30CBD30F6E30C1C1632230CCD20DC0008F14660CC8FB97608403104 AE7D8143130169174147061741431311534AC6B4415141534946908D9B026155 4A6F53131F3AE731A014C161AE215F08082103A6280821939EEC08082170A621 4C161170CD56B870A18503430000D5071351796A9F8D2D02639916D9D2085230 C2A209100025F4D402F426A6563647933A1B2130A2116B213033C0" SETUP @Automatic setup program \<< P2 P1 'ASC\->' STO P3 ASC\-> '\->ASC' STO { P1 P2 P3 SETUP } PURGE \>> END (end) Installation instructions: 1. Edit the above text between (start) and (end) into a text file named CONV (for example). Be sure that you leave the strings exactly as entered above, with no extra spaces or other invisible characters at the beginnings or ends of the lines. 2. Set the HP 48SX into ASCII transfer mode. 3. Using Kermit, download CONV text file to the 48, verify its checksum (6C8Ah). 4. Execute CONV to make it the current directory. 5. Execute SETUP. 6. The directory CONV now contains ASC\-> and \->ASC, ready to use. To archive the decoded versions of ASC\-> and \->ASC back on your computer, be sure to set the HP 48SX in binary transfer mode before uploading. Disclaimers: + Use the programs at your own risk. Any time you delve into the SYSEVAL world, there are increased dangers. Archive your 48 memory before experimenting with these programs! Also, verify the checksums of objects defined above to make sure they have been downloaded correctly, before executing ASC\->. + I will not answer questions about how the programs work. This is not because of any great secrecy, but rather because it's hard to give any answer that doesn't lead to more questions, and more, and more... + 48 hackers are welcome to mine any nuggets they can from the programs, and from the fact that \->ASC is a convenient way to decompile an object. * Appendix B: Using non-HP RAM cards in your HP 48SX: If you use RAM cards that are NOT designed for the HP 48SX, it is possible to severely damage your HP 48SX. If you want to be safe, you should only use RAM cards designed for the HP 48SX. Here is an edited discussion from comp.sys.handhelds. From steveh@hpcvra.CV.HP.COM Fri Mar 1 17:00:00 1991 From: steveh@hpcvra.CV.HP.COM (Steve Harper) Date: Thu, 10 May 1990 22:46:09 GMT Subject: RE: HP48SX Memory Card Pricing Organization: Hewlett-Packard Co., Corvallis, OR, USA There has been a substantial amount of comment regarding the memory cards for the HP48SX and their prices. My purpose in this response is not to attempt to justify any particular price, but rather to present the technical reasons why there is a substantial price difference between the memory cards and other types of expansion memory for PC's, for example, with which users are probably more familiar. Some users have correctly pointed out requires either four transistors and two resistors, or six transistors. The net result is that an equivalent amount of static RAM is much larger and therefore much more expensive than dynamic RAM. The advantage is that static RAM doesn't need to continually be running and drawing current (refresh cycles) to retain the contents of memory. In addition, the static memory used in the cards is not just any static memory, but is specially processed and/or selected for very low standby current. This allows the backup battery in the card to keep memory alive for a very long time, rather than requiring the user to replace it every few months. The special processing and/or special testing to select low current parts adds to the already higher cost of the static RAM chips. The standard molded plastic DIP package used for most integrated circuits, including memory chips, is relatively inexpensive because of its simplicity and the huge volumes. Unfortunately, these packages are too large to put into a memory card. Therefore, the card manufacturer mounts the individual silicon memory chips directly on a special thin PC board together with the memory support chips. Because multiple chips are being placed in a single hybrid package in a special process which has lower volume, yields are lower and this again causes the cost to be higher. Indeed, the yield becomes exponentially worse as the number of chips and interconnections increases in such a packaging process. In addition to the memory chips themselves, two more integrated circuits and several discrete components are required for power and logic control. A bipolar technology chip senses the external voltage and switches the power to the chips from the internal keep-alive battery as needed. A CMOS gate array chip protects the memory address and data lines from glitches/ESD when the card is not plugged in. This chip also generates the proper enabling signals when there are multiple memory chips in the card, as is presently the case with the 128 Kbyte RAM card. These chips must be designed for extremely low current, just as the memory chips are. In addition to the battery and the battery holder, the other mechanical parts are important, too. The molded plastic frame holds the PC board and provides the foundation for the metal overlays and the shutter-and-springs assembly which protects the contacts from ESD and from contaminants. The write-protect switch is also an important feature. It is quite expensive for the manufacturer to make the tools necessary to fabricate each of these parts as well as the tools to assemble and test the complete card. While the volume of memory cards is relatively low this tooling cost represents a significant part of the cost of each card. Admittedly, there are other alternatives, such as those presently used in PC's, to provide a memory expansion capability. To provide that kind of expansion would require the calculator to be much larger than it is and possibly more expensive. This is clearly very undesirable. Other features that were felt to be essential were the ability to distribute software applications and to share and archive/backup user-created programs and data. Other expansion alternatives do not provide these important benefits. The IO capabilities of the calculator provide these features only to a limited degree. One other item bears repeating here: Memory cards for use in the calculator will clearly indicate that they are for use with the HP48SX. Other memory cards exist which are mechanically compatible with the HP48S, but these cards cannot be relied upon to work electrically in the calculator. The HP48SX cards are designed for a lower supply voltage range. Use of the other cards may cause memory loss, and under certain circumstances may even damage your calculator electrically. From steveh@hpcvra.CV.HP.COM Fri Mar 1 17:00:00 1991 From: steveh@hpcvra.CV.HP.COM (Steve Harper) Date: Fri, 11 May 1990 16:52:07 GMT Subject: Re: Memory Card: Give Us *True* Facts! Organization: Hewlett-Packard Co., Corvallis, OR, USA My previous statement that under certain circumstances the calculator may even be damaged electrically is not a ploy. If the calculator's internal power supply voltage happens to be near the low end of the range, say 4.1 V, and the voltage at which the card's voltage control chip shuts it down happens to be near the high end of its range, say 4.2 V (this can and does occasionally occur for the non-HP48SX cards), then the calculator will start to drive the memory address lines and the card will still have these clamped to ground (that's what it does to protect itself when there is not sufficient system voltage to run). This unfortunate situation may simply trash your memory, or if the calculator tries to drive enough of the lines high at the same time, several hundred milliamps may flow...for awhile that is, until something gives up... On the other hand, your calculator and a particular non-HP48SX card may work just fine if those voltages happen to be at the other end of their ranges. These voltages are also slightly temperature sensitive. It may work in the classroom or office and not at the beach, or vice versa. The voltage trip point of the HP48SX cards has been set lower (a different voltage control chip) so that this cannot occur, regardless of part and temperature vtem was brought to my attention yesterday by Preston Brown that I should have included in my original posting here. While most of us recognize that comparing ram cards to a handful of dynamic ram chips to plug into your PC is apples and oranges, it may be more interesting to compare the HP48SX cards with cards for other products, like the Atari Portfolio, the Poquet, the NEC Ultralite, etc. I believe you will find that the prices on the HP48SX cards are not at all out of line. Steve "I claim all disclaimers..." the non-HP48SX cards From prestonb@hpcvra.CV.HP.COM Fri Mar 1 17:00:00 1991 From: prestonb@hpcvra.CV.HP.COM (Preston Brown) Date: Thu, 17 May 1990 17:26:53 GMT Subject: Re: Memory Card: Give Us *True* Facts! Organization: Hewlett-Packard Co., Corvallis, OR, USA When the RAM cards detect that voltage is to low to operate they clamp the address lines to ground. This clamping is done by turning on the output drivers of a custom chip included on the card. The clamping current is speced at 2mA min at the Vol output level. Since the 48 can be trying to drive the line all the way high even more current is typical. 10mA per fight is not uncommon with totals of several hundred mAs. The VDD power supply is regulated at 4.1 - 4.9 with typical parts at the low end (4.3). The power to the cards is switched thru a transistor, creating up to a 0.1V drop. Standard Epson cards have a significant chance of seeing this voltage as to low and shutting down. We have seen cards do this in the lab. When it occurs the calculator locks up with VDD pulled down to about 2.5V and 250mA being drawn from the batteries. This current drain greatly exceeds the ratings for the power supply and can damage your calc. The least that will happen is a loss of memory. Now, why didn't we regulate VDD higher? The 48 has two power supplies VDD at 4.3 and VH at 8.5. VH cannot be regulated higher without exceeding the spec for our CMOS IC process. VH is used as the + voltage for the I/O. In order to meet a +3V output level VH must be more then 3.6V above VDD. (VDD is used as I/O ground). Our power supply system increase the battery life and reduces the cost greatly for the wired I/O. Preston * Appendix C: Compact Data Storage: From Jim Donnelly (jimd@cv.hp.com): A simple length-encoding technique can be put to use for a free-format, very compact multi-field data storage system. Two tiny programs, SUBNUM and STRCON are here to help the process, and are listed near the end of this note. At the end of the note is a directory that may be downloaded into the HP 48 that contains the examples. The principle is to store starting indices in the beginning of a string that point to fields stored subsequently in the string. The indices are stored in field order, with an additional index at the end to accommodate the last field. There are several small points worth mentioning: 1) Fields may be 0-length using this technique. 2) The execution time is uniform across all fields. 3) This technique saves about 4 bytes per field after the first field, because the string prolog and length are omitted for fields 2 -> n. EXAMPLE: -------- Indices | Fields Character | 1 11111111 12222222222 Position : 1 2 3 4 |567890 12345678 90123456789 +--+--+--+--+------+--------+-----------+ String : | 5|11|19|30|Field1| Field2 | Field 3 | +--+--+--+--+------+--------+-----------+ This is a string that contains 3 fields, and therefore 4 index entries. The first field begins at character 5, the second field begins at character 11, and the third field begins at character 19. To keep the pattern consistent, notice that the index for field 4 is 30, which is one more than the length of the 29 character data string. To extract the second field, place the string on the stack, use SUBNUM on character 2 to extract the starting position, use SUBNUM on character 3 to extract the (ending position +1), subtract 1 from the (ending position+1), then do a SUB to get the field data. NOTE: The index for field 1 is stored as character code 5, NOT "5"! To place the field index for field 1 in the string, you would execute "data" 1 5 CHR REPL. PROGRAM: -------- The following program accepts an encoded data string in level 2 and a field number in level 1: DECODE "data" field# --> "field" << --> f << DUP f SUBNUM ; "data" start --> OVER f 1 + SUBNUM ; "data" start end+1 --> 1 - ; "data" start end --> SUB ; "field" --> >> >> DATA ENCODING ------------- The following program expects a series of 'n' strings on the stack and encodes them into a data string suitable for reading by the first example above. The programs SUBNUM and STRCON are used to assemble the indices. ENCODE field n ... field 1 n --> "data" << DUP 2 + DUP 1 - STRCON --> n data << 1 n FOR i data i SUBNUM OVER SIZE ; ... field index fieldsize + data SWAP ; ... field "data" index' i 1 + i + SWAP CHR REPL ; ... field "data"' SWAP + 'data' STO ; ... NEXT data ; "data" >> >> In this example, four strings are encoded: Input: 5: "String" 4: "Str" 3: "STR" 2: "STRING" 1: 4 Output: "xxxxxSTRINGSTRStrString" (23 character string) (The first five characters have codes 6, 12, 15, 18, and 24) VARIATION: ---------- The technique above has a practical limit of storing up to 254 characters of data in a string. To overcome this, just allocate two bytes for each field position. The code to extract the starting index for becomes a little more busy. In this case, the index is stored as two characters in hex. Indices | Fields Character | 11111 11111222 22222223333 Position : 12 34 56 78|901234 56789012 34567890123 +--+--+--+--+------+--------+-----------+ String : |09|0F|17|21|Field1| Field2 | Field 3 | +--+--+--+--+------+--------+-----------+ << --> f << DUP f 2 * 1 - ; "data" "data" indx1 --> SUBNUM 16 * ; "data" 16*start_left_byte --> OVER f 2 * SUBNUM + ; "data" start OVER f 2 * 1 + SUBNUM ; "data" start end_left_byte --> 16 * 3PICK f 1 + 2 * SUBNUM + 1 - ; "data" start end --> SUB ; "field" --> >> >> TWO VERY TINY HELPFUL PROGRAMS ------------------------------ SUBNUM "string" position --> code << DUP SUB NUM >> STRCON code count --> "repeated string" << --> code count << "" code CHR 'code' STO 1 count START code + NEXT >> >> A DIRECTORY YOU CAN DOWNLOAD ---------------------------- This is a directory object. Cut after the === to the end of the file and download to your HP 48 using the ASCII transfer. ======================================================================== %%HP: T(3)A(D)F(.); DIR DECODE \<< \-> f \<< DUP f SUBNUM OVER f 1 + SUBNUM 1 - SUB \>> \>> ENCODE \<< DUP 2 + DUP 1 - STRCON \-> n data \<< 1 n FOR i data i SUBNUM OVER SIZE + data SWAP i 1 + SWAP CHR REPL SWAP + 'data' STO NEXT data \>> \>> STRCON \<< \-> code count \<< "" code CHR 'code' STO 1 count START code + NEXT \>> \>> SUBNUM \<< DUP SUB NUM \>> END * Appendix D: Various useful functions (Shamelessly lifted from the HP-41C manual:) The LASTX function is useful in calculations where a number occurs more than once. By recovering a number using LASTX, you do not have to key that number into the calculator again. For example, calculate: 96.704 + 52.394706 -------------------- 52.394706 Keystrokes: Stack: ------------------ -------------------- 96.704 ENTER 96.704 52.304706 + 149.098706 LASTX 149.098706 52.304706 / 2.84568265351 @ @ This is a version of LASTX for the HP 48SX @ %%HP: T(3)A(D)F(.); \<< DEPTH \-> n \<< LASTARG DEPTH n - DUP \-> s \<< ROLLD s 1 - DROPN \>> \>> \>>