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HP Forum Archive 15

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Little memory in my hp 48gII
Message #1 Posted by jose goncalves on 1 Oct 2005, 8:36 a.m.

Is it possible that the memory of my HP 48gII is much smaller than what the manual says ? Whem I try to see the memory structure with FILES, all I get is 0: IRAM 80 KB Home 80 KB -CASDIR

I cannot see 1: ERAM nor 2: FLASH and the amount of memory available is nothing close to the fugures I see on page 26-1 of the Userīs Guide. Where is it hiding memory ?

The serial number is CNA 4360....

Thanks for helping me to recover memory.

Jose

      
Re: Little memory in my hp 48gII
Message #2 Posted by . on 1 Oct 2005, 8:49 a.m.,
in response to message #1 by jose goncalves

You have a HP48gii, NOT a HP49g+. The 48gii does not have this extra memory.

.

      
Re: Little memory in my hp 48gII
Message #3 Posted by Gene on 1 Oct 2005, 10:28 a.m.,
in response to message #1 by jose goncalves

Jose, the HP48gII only has about 80K of available memory for the user. The other memory you refer to is in the 49g+. Sorry!

            
Re: Little memory in my hp 48gII
Message #4 Posted by jose goncalves on 1 Oct 2005, 11:10 p.m.,
in response to message #3 by Gene

Well, itīs quite remarkable, for the manual Iīm using is the HP48gII Userīs guide, 2003 edition, that I downloaded from somewhere some months ago.

Jose

                  
Re: Little memory in my hp 48gII
Message #5 Posted by Gene Wright on 2 Oct 2005, 7:33 a.m.,
in response to message #4 by jose goncalves

Hi again Jose. Can you give me an exact page reference where it says the "48gII" has that much memory?

I have the manual here and would like to look it up.

thanks, Gene

                        
Re: Little memory in my hp 48gII
Message #6 Posted by jose goncalves on 2 Oct 2005, 12:08 p.m.,
in response to message #5 by Gene Wright

Well, This information is in two segments of the Userīs guide: pages 2-32 to 2-35 and again in the Chapter 26 - Managing memory (the main picture of the display is in page 26-1 and is the same you can see in page 2-35.

I am not familiar with the HP 49G+, so I wonder if itīs so completely compatible with the HP 48gII that all functions and commands are the same. Even if this user guide I have was for the HP 49+, I think there might be some noticeable differences in terms of contents.

All I can learn from this is that the HP 48gII doesnīt even have the same amount amount of memory as the HP 48G does. Is this correct ?

Jose

                              
Re: Little memory in my hp 48gII
Message #7 Posted by Gene on 2 Oct 2005, 2:59 p.m.,
in response to message #6 by jose goncalves

The 48gII and 49g+ are completely compatible with each other. All commands are the same...

other than:

The 49g+ has USB whereas the 48gII has serial. The 49g+ has 1MB of flash ram whereas the 48gII has none. The 49g+ has a larger screen than the 48gII. The 49g+ has an SD card slot but the 48gII does not have one. The 49g+ ROM can be updated but the 48gII cannot.

And, the memory differences you have already noticed (80K on the 48gII).

EVERYTHING else is the same. Any differences are a result of these differences. Example? The default graphing ranges are different on the 48gII vs. the 49g+ with ROM 2.0, since Rom 2.0 is "large screen aware".

For any practical purpose, they are the same with these differences.

      
Re: Little memory in my HP-49G+, as well ...
Message #8 Posted by HrastProgrammer on 2 Oct 2005, 4:51 a.m.,
in response to message #1 by jose goncalves

The back page of my HP-49G+ manual says:

"512KB RAM plus 2MB flash ROM"

Where is that "512KB RAM"?!? I see 256K of main RAM and 128K of ERAM (Port 1). Of course, I know that another 128K bank is reserved for the system but, as user, I am only interested in the amount of RAM which is free for me to use and this is 384K.

"2.5MB of total memory lets you take advantage of the most comprehesive library of calculator programs, etc., etc."

What "2.5MB of total memory"?!? There is 384K of RAM and less than 800K of flash memory (as seen from the Filer) free to the user!

            
Re: Little memory in my HP-49G+, as well ...
Message #9 Posted by James M. Prange (Michigan) on 2 Oct 2005, 4:07 p.m.,
in response to message #8 by HrastProgrammer

I suppose that it's sort of like the amount of usable storage of any magnetic disk, optical disk, or flash memory card.

Ever notice how much is actually available to the user for storing files on a "1.44MB" formatted 3.5" floppy? And if I recall correctly, those floppies were first marketed as having "2MB" (small print: unformatted) capacity.

For an even better example, my PC has 512MB of memory, but I've never had that much available for actual use by applications with the MS Windows (or any other) operating system running. And of course the operating system files take up some space on my hard drive too, so even its "formatted" capacity isn't fully available for my use.

The 48 series also have somewhat less than the specified memory capacity actually available for the user.

Face it, sellers will tell us the best-sounding specs that they can get away with, and either put the less fortunate details somewhere inconspicuous, or neglect mentioning them.

They aren't exactly "lying"; that capacity really is built in to the calculator, although since it isn't all available to the user, it does seem rather "misleading".

Regards,
James

Edited: 2 Oct 2005, 4:09 p.m.

                  
Re: Little memory in my HP-49G+, as well ...
Message #10 Posted by HrastProgrammer on 3 Oct 2005, 1:31 a.m.,
in response to message #9 by James M. Prange (Michigan)

... my PC has 512MB of memory...
... The 48 series also have somewhat less than the specified memory capacity actually available for the user.

As a beginner, I didn't know that, sorry. I believed that all 131072 bytes in my HP-48GX are free! Of course that some amount of memory is reserved for the system, this is normal. I am not talking about system overhead and I haven't even mentioned that HP-49G+ has 256K RAM of which about 240K (or less) is free to user while 16K (or more) is reserved. But HP is talking about 512K RAM of which 128K is totally invisible to the user (not showing in Filer etc.) and about 2M flash memory (for "the most comprehesive library of calculator programs, ...") of which 1280K is occupied by the system ROM!

And of course the operating system files take up some space on my hard drive too, so even its "formatted" capacity isn't fully available for my use

Obviously, you used it to install the operating system because you had many different operating systems to choose from. What isn't available to you is the system BIOS (flash) ROM. It would be wrong if the manufacturer of your PC wrote that you have 2M of flash memory installed for "the most comprehesive library of computer programs" ...

Edited: 3 Oct 2005, 6:21 a.m.

                        
Re: Little memory in my HP-49G+, as well ...
Message #11 Posted by James M. Prange (Michigan) on 4 Oct 2005, 7:40 p.m.,
in response to message #10 by HrastProgrammer

It gets worse. With ROM 2.00, libraries 266 and 267 (for the Equation Library) are stored in port 2 (user flash), using up over 66KB more of it.

On the other hand, HP's Web site lists the memory for the 49g+ as 1.13MB, so apparently someone at HP realized that advertising 2.5MB was misleading.

Regarfd,
James.

                              
Re: Little memory in my HP-49G+, as well ...
Message #12 Posted by HrastProgrammer on 5 Oct 2005, 12:44 a.m.,
in response to message #11 by James M. Prange (Michigan)

Thanks for the info. I have a very old HP-49G+ (CN3310...) and the numbers above are from its manual. Good to see that someone at HP was aware of the wrong numbers.


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