Prev: SLOW/FAST EDIT.
Next: Flash card program
From: Satchmo on 11 May 2010 19:04
Hi all!

Is there any tool (Windows) to convert an ASCII file to HP48G+ file?
Many symbols and characters are incorrectly displayed on the calculator.

Also, it would be cool if there was a program that does the process
backwards.

Is there web link that shows the translation table or code-page that the
calculator uses?

Thanks!

--
~Satchmo~
Programmers: "Anything that can go wrong will go wrong." (Murphy's Law)
From: Daniel Oliva on 11 May 2010 22:09
You can use a group of useful programs (for HP48/49/50 and emulators)
by John H Meyers.

BTW thank you John, I've been using these programs.

Go here:

http://groups.google.com/group/comp.sys.hp48/browse_thread/thread/968645544093c696/4e7ed90b3cf11c42?#4e7ed90b3cf11c42

http://groups.google.com/group/comp.sys.hp48/msg/52e9cc3ee2b369b8
From: John H Meyers on 12 May 2010 04:36
On 5/11/2010 6:04 PM:

> Is there any tool (Windows) to convert an ASCII file to HP48G+ file?
> Many symbols and characters are incorrectly displayed on the calculator.

> It would also be cool if there was a program that does the process backwards.

This would depend on what sort of "ascii file" you have,
and what sort of "incorrectly displayed" you mean.

Files specifically designed
for programming HP48/49/50 series graphing calculators in UserRPL,
using only universal 7-bit ascii characters,
can be handled by programs (references already kindly posted by Daniel Oliva)
which use the same built-in "ascii translation" functions
that these calculators employ when using Kermit protocol
to transfer files "in ascii mode" to or from computers,
in which 8-bit characters are represented as \xx or \nnn in the computers,
thus eliminating the confusion of many different common standard "code pages"
for many 8-bit character sets,
none of which exactly duplicates all the internal HP character graphics anyway.

Files intended for reading as 8-bit text in computers, however,
are not likely to display satisfactorily in HP graphing calculators,
unless perhaps they are supposed to conform to ISO/IEC 8859-1 (Latin-1) or 8859-15,
without too many of the most uncommon (and different) characters.

Is anyone working on a UTF-8 text reader for HP calculators
(no, I didn't think so :)

> Is there web link that shows the translation table or code-page
> that the calculator uses?

The CHARS application in the calculators themselves
provides the only exact and complete table,
although most of ISO/IEC 8859-1 (Latin-1)
corresponds, where defined at all.

Here is Joe Horn's own visual "Rosetta Stone"
for all the "backslash" combinations:
http://holyjoe.net/hp/tiotable.htm

Is there a Windows font for 8-bit calculator text files?

[r->] [OFF]
From: Satchmo on 12 May 2010 11:05
John H Meyers wrote:
> On 5/11/2010 6:04 PM:
>
>> Is there any tool (Windows) to convert an ASCII file to HP48G+ file?
>> Many symbols and characters are incorrectly displayed on the calculator.
>
>> It would also be cool if there was a program that does the process
>> backwards.
>
> This would depend on what sort of "ascii file" you have,
> and what sort of "incorrectly displayed" you mean.

Thanks for your assistance John! I ment the character-set translation,
because I already set my editor (Notepad++) to convert what I'm typing
in Windows as Unix text format (LF-LineFeed as End-of-Line separator).
I'm just very troubled by the fact that special symbols/characters will
display incorrectly when moving the file to the calculator (I'm just
doing text files).

> Files intended for reading as 8-bit text in computers, however,
> are not likely to display satisfactorily in HP graphing calculators,
> unless perhaps they are supposed to conform to ISO/IEC 8859-1 (Latin-1)
> or 8859-15,
> without too many of the most uncommon (and different) characters.

I could try to change the page code to 8859-1 (Latin-1), I also have
UltraEdit (another powerful text editor). I'll try that to see if the
text finally displays correctly.

>> Is there web link that shows the translation table or code-page
>> that the calculator uses?
>
> The CHARS application in the calculators themselves
> provides the only exact and complete table,
> although most of ISO/IEC 8859-1 (Latin-1)
> corresponds, where defined at all.
>
> Here is Joe Horn's own visual "Rosetta Stone"
> for all the "backslash" combinations:

Not really sure what you mean by "backslash" combination. I'm not a
calculator advanced user. I'm mostly a programmer on the PC side.

--
~Satchmo~
Programmers: "Anything that can go wrong will go wrong." (Murphy's Law)
From: John H Meyers on 12 May 2010 13:20
On 5/12/2010 10:05 AM:

> I meant the character-set translation,
> because I already set my editor (Notepad++) to convert what I'm typing
> in Windows as Unix text format (LF-LineFeed as End-of-Line separator).
> I'm just very troubled by the fact that special symbols/characters will
> display incorrectly when moving the file to the calculator (I'm just
> doing text files).

> I could try to change the page code to 8859-1 (Latin-1), I also have
> UltraEdit (another powerful text editor). I'll try that to see if the
> text finally displays correctly.

Advanced editors may well have functions to convert character sets,
as does EditPad (which I use), which has "text encoding" functions
to try different character sets to interpret and display unreadable files,
or to actually translate readable files from one character set to another,
in which case some "loss" may occur if untranslatable characters are present.

> Not really sure what you mean by "backslash" combination. I'm not a
> calculator advanced user. I'm mostly a programmer on the PC side.

"Backslash" sequences are used for programming HP calculators in "UserRPL," e.g.:

\<< the delimiters surrounding this program are special 8-bit characters,
here represented in 7-bit ascii via 3-character substitutes \>>

Those particular "program delimiter" characters
are at positions 00AB and 00BB
(decimal 171 and 187) in this chart:

ISO-8859-1 (Latin 1) (Windows 28591)
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/goglobal/cc305167.aspx
(hover mouse pointer over chart to see character descriptions)

Note that the undefined ISO-8859 rows 008X and 009X (decimal values 128-159)
are used in the calculator for other math and programming symbols,
as shown in Joe Horn's chart: http://holyjoe.net/hp/tiotable.htm

Note also that a few rather rarely used ISO-8859 symbols
show different (but consistent) graphics in all HP48/49/50 calculators,
and that "NBSP" (00A0, 160 decimal)
is displayed as the "Euro" symbol in the HP49/50 series only.

[r->] [OFF]
 | 
Pages: 1
Prev: SLOW/FAST EDIT.
Next: Flash card program