Re: Using the RS-232 HP/IL Interface Message #7 Posted by Michael O. Tjebben on 26 Jan 2003, 8:53 p.m., in response to message #6 by Michael Tjebben
Well, I couldn't resist putting in a public plug for Hans Brueggermann's HPILCOM program!
He was kind enough to email it to me to try, and I LIKE it very much! It has a very professional graphical interface which includes a "browser" window from which one can see programs that reside in a particular directory on the PC which are selectable for downloading to the HP41. What is especially nice, though, is that one really controls all of the transfers both to and from the HP41 from the HP41 itself. The HPILCOM program, runnning on the PC, simply facilitates the transfers to and from the HP41 and allows monitoring the progress of the transfer with a progress bar and status "LED's".
To send a program to the PC, one types in the name of the program on the HP41 into the alpha register and executes OUTP.
That's it! The HPILCOM program receives the program, monitors the progress, displays the received program, and stores it to the PC.
To get a program from the PC, one first drags the program to a particular directory on the PC which can be viewed from the HPILCOM's "browser" window and then executes a small program on the HP41 called GETFL. GETFL prompts for the name of the program that is visible in the browser window and then gets it: the HPILCOM program does the "handshaking" with the GETFL program and sends it to the HP41 as initiated by the HP41 via the GETFL program.
He also has a routine built into the HPILCOM program that allows the HP41 to initiate getting the PC's time and date and transfering it to the HP41, from which another HP41 program that he provides will set the HP41's time and date to match! The programs on the HP41 are VERY short! You must have an EXTENDED I/O module, however, though it looks like he has done some experimenting with the CCD module. I'm not so familiar with that module, so I may have misunderstood if it could be used as well.
He also has built-in "hooks" to the HP41UC.exe program, from within HPILCOM, such that one can translate from RAW to DAT mode by checking "radio" buttons withing HPILCOM. Furthermore, he has "hooks" for future enhancements, including character translations that, I believe, will be done on-the-fly during transfers.
Finally, he has radio buttons to allow auto-commenting for alpha characters, XROM numbers, and no-label tags for HP41UC compatibility.
VERY NICE!
His program makes using the HP82164A to transfer programs to and from the HP41 as seemless as possible.
THANK YOU, Hans!
-Mike
(running HPILCOM on Windows ME)
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