THE TIMELESS HP-41 SYSTEM
Message #36 Posted by Werner on 14 Nov 2003, 2:02 a.m.,
in response to message #34 by HrastProgrammer
Dear “HP”(=HrastProgrammer),
yes, of course the HP-48GX is really an admirable machine!
Nevertheless, I personally prefer the HP-41 as the No.1. Although it is an older machine based on more ancient technology, I do not think that it is less powerful than a HP-48GX.
So my question:
Is a HP-48GX still really more powerful than a tuned halfnut HP-41CX (using synth. programming and mcode – I know, also a HP48 can utilize such expanded ways of programming), if the following plug-in RAM’s/ROM’s/extensions are also completely or partly connected (or their ROM images have been loaded into an MLDL-RAM) ? :
Double-X-Memory-Module, bank-switched 16k-ZEPROM's, a RAMBOX/MLDL (e.g. W&W or Eramco or HP-41CY, etc. with 32k or 64k or 128k, e.g. with full soft-bank-switching access), HEPAX-Module, CCD-ROM, PPC-ROM, ZENROM, Sandbox-ROM, DAVID Assembler, Forth ROM, Advantage ROM, Wand, Card Reader, IL with periphery and advanced I/O processing like by the IL2000 solution from Christoph Klug.
In the near future the HP-41 System will hopefully be further extended by Meindert Kuiper’s MLDL2000 including very large RAM space for ML+UL+Data+ROM-Images and USB PC interconnection. Internal use of 4-times bank-switching would lead to a huge address space especially if you take into account the high RAM efficiency of HP-41 program language.
With ML/MCode you can fully exploit the internal 13-digit accuracy and can define very fast macros, e.g. for fast large scale vector and matrix transforms or for a fast and convenient HP42S-like complex arithmetic implementation.
Further, the HP-41 System has to be seen in an environment of flanking great and fast emulators like EMU41, Warren Furlow’s V*41, your HP-41E, which can run on a modern 3GHz notebook. In combination with Jean-Francois Garnier’s extremely fast HP-IL emulator EMU41, real and virtual (emulated) IL/41 worlds are perfectly merged into one single domain with all available periphery and ROM resources.
It further supports the HP-41 with a sort of ultra-fast “HP-41 Workstation/Docking-Station” that utilizes the same HP-41 language for software development (also perhaps with a nice assembler surface on a PC) and for high-complex or long-term calculations.
Such a mixed calc-emu-environment is right according to the motto “hardware – software – it’s all the same” …
The benefit of such a calculator-workstation combination can be illustrated by the following example:
E.g. use a real HP-41CX to key in the routines, further use it for data collecting and for full mobile use. And, e.g., use it for a coarse 10 parameter evaluation in, e.g., one minute runtime, then when you have found the parameter space of further interest use your fast emulator/”HP41 workstation” on your notebook-PC and do the same calculation with 20,000 detailed parameters also in one minute only (indeed, an EMU41 or a HP41E on a 3GHz machine is about 2000 times faster than a normal HP-41 !). The nice RPN program code can exactly be reused on the HP41 calculator and on the “HP41-workstation”.
To conclude:
If you add all these great technical and highly efficiently designed supplements from a decade (1979-1990) of extremely dedicated enthusiasm from user groups like PPC and CCD and from professional third-party companies like VM Electronics, Zengrange, W&W, Eramco, CMT, and if you add great today’s developments - like MLDL2000, IL2000, ROM hardware emulators, HP41 software emulators, the virtual IL loop from EMU41 - to the “Good-Old-HP-41”, then I think that the HP-41 with its “clean”, easy and flexible user interface and internal architecture is THE unbeatable system in the world of HP calculators.
I think that it cannot be beaten neither by a HP-48GX nor by a HP-49G/G+ although especially the HP-48GX with SysRPL and a lot more is really an admirable handheld computing device.
In my personal opinion, the HP-48GX is ranking directly after the HP-41-System as the No.2. HP-48GX has to share its place with the also great HP-71B-System being a superb IL controller and having also wonderful extensions (like Math, Forth, Assembler, etc.).
All other non-open calculators like HP-42S, HP-32*, HP-15C, HP-34C cannot be compared to the classes of open machines and full systems like HP-48, HP-49, HP-71, HP-75, and HP-41. This group is a class-of-its-own, the handheld computing class. It is separated from the class of pure calculators as is the HP-42S. The HP-42S for instance is of course a marvellous and complex machine, but it is “only” a calculator.
Best regards from Germany,
Werner
P.S.: BTW, please further support your HP-41E, not only your nice HP-41X, because the "E" is a great emulator, too. It is extremely fast on a modern notebook, you can do multi-run calculations with highest complexity in near zero time. Please implement a virtual IL loop as already done in EMU41. I think you already did some emulation of IL but as far as I know you have not yet implemented it in your HP-41E ?
Edited: 15 Nov 2003, 3:39 a.m. after one or more responses were posted
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