Re: HP 71 - LEX files Message #6 Posted by Valentin Albillo on 5 May 2005, 9:48 a.m., in response to message #5 by Forrest
Hi again, Forrest:
I think that your Harvey book and mine are one and the same, probably titled "The Basic HP-71 - Get Up and Running in BASIC and Machine Code" or something like that, I don't have said book at hand right now.
Anyway, if you're planning to delve into assembler programming to create LEX (and BIN) files for the HP-71B, I strongly advise you to refrain from making any development at all on the physical HP-71B proper, and use instead this awesome free emulator by Jean-Fraçois Garnier: Emu71
There's a number of important reasons why you'd do well to act thus, among them:
- You said you don't have the Forth/Assembler ROM. The emulator includes it, as well as the wonderful Math ROM, the HP-IL ROM, and others, so you could start to develop and assemble LEX files from source code immediately.
- The emulator provides full HP-IL emulation as well as a number of HP-IL peripherals such as a video display emulation which will allow you to edit and see your files at 50 lines output (instead of the 1-line LCD display). This alone makes all the difference in the world.
- The emulator also includes an emulated disk drive, where you can store your source code files and your resulting LEX files. Also, as testing LEX files will wipe out RAM and crash the machine a number of times, the emulated disk drive will allow you to backup and restore your files for quick and graceful recovery.
- The emulated disk drive will also allow you to access a vast number of LIF files available on-line containing tons of assembler source code and compiled LEX files, thus saving you incredible amounts of typing time, not to mention typing errors.
- The emulator runs 30-70x faster that a real HP-71B, and as the Forth/Assembler ROM is so slow when assembling files, this is a real must, allowing you to test changes quickly.
- The emulator provides any amount of emulated RAM, so you're not limited to 16-32 Kb but can use instead 128 Kb or more. As the Forth/Assembler ROM needs to have both source code and compiled code at a time, this is yet another must.
- Also, the emulator can share files with the underlying PC operating system, so you will be able to create your source code files with your preferred PC editor (Notepad, say) and print the listings in your PC printer.
- And last but not least, it's much faster typing at a regular, full-size PC keyboard than doing the same at the real HP-71B's keyboard. When entering and editing your source code, this is most important as well.
And it's free. Trust me and absolutely avoid like the plague any sort of assembler development on your physical HP-71B. Use Emu71 instead, create your LEX files at leisure, port them to your physical 71B when they're all polished and shiny, and you'll never, ever look back.
Best regards from V.
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