From: Revolvr on
Hi all,

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

From: Raymond Del Tondo on
Hi,

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" <Revolvr(a)cox.net> schrieb im Newsbeitrag
news:1172873604.633711.286430(a)z35g2000cwz.googlegroups.com...
> Hi all,
>
> 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
>


From: Richard Garner on
Have you looked into downloading Free42 and just typing the program into the
simulator. The program file can then be saved as a RAW file format and
loaded into any 42S simulator or converted into text with no problems.

"Revolvr" <Revolvr(a)cox.net> wrote in message
news:1172873604.633711.286430(a)z35g2000cwz.googlegroups.com...
> Hi all,
>
> 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
>


From: Eric Smith on
"Revolvr" <Revolvr(a)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

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.
From: Revolvr on

"Eric Smith" <eric(a)brouhaha.com> wrote in message
news:qhbqja99zk.fsf(a)ruckus.brouhaha.com...
> "Revolvr" <Revolvr(a)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