HP Forum Archive 17

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PC application HPCALC.EXE Message #1 Posted by Donald Williams on 24 Aug 2007, 3:39 p.m. Another thread about solvers and the 200LX prompted me to ask this question which may be a little too off topic for that thread. I have an old application called HPcalc.exe that I have faithfully migrated to every PC I have delt with for the past 15 years or so, and I cannot remember where it originally came from. It is obviously an old Win 3.1 era application but amazingly it still works on every MS OS down through the years. If you use Help, About you get the message HP Financial Calculator V 1.02 8/31/93 Copyright Hewlett-Packard 1993 The name is misleading since this is a full scientific application with a great solver. It has options for RPN or Algebraic. It actually has 6 applications Arithmetic, TVM, Business, Solver, Conversion, and Math. Actually now that I think of it, this is probably the "Calculator" that I use the most. Old habits are hard to break. Could it be that this was the 200LX emulator and I have just forgotten that is where I aquired it? Anyone else still use it? It just bothers me that I cannot remember where I originally got the application. It is antiquated compared to modern emulators but quite simple and very useful. And get this! It uses a whole 250 KB of disk space.

Re: PC application HPCALC.EXE Message #2 Posted by Bruce Bergman on 24 Aug 2007, 4:06 p.m., in response to message #1 by Donald Williams Yeah, that's part of the 100lx/200lx sync pack. I had the same thing with the 100lx I bought years ago. I used it to access some old custom databases I built with the db app. Funny, I didn't even THINK of going back and finding that to have it running on my desktop! I should go find my disk and mess around with it, if only for nostalgia. ;-) thanks, bruce

Re: PC application HPCALC.EXE Message #3 Posted by Donald Williams on 24 Aug 2007, 4:53 p.m., in response to message #2 by Bruce Bergman I wrote many equations for radar and antenna problems intended to be used on the 200LX. Unfortunately MS decided to wrap some mystery layers in the OS so syncing the 200LX device eventually became impossible. Surprisingly the PC application still works and the equations are all still there. I just continue to copy from PC to PC. If you cannot locate your disks and but still remain interested let me know, and I can send you a copy. ( Is this the perfect oppurtunity for me to once again start my rant about calculator I/O? About how HP-IL was the only I/O conceived for calculators and the only I/O that could talk to computers but still provided mass storage independent of a computer, so your investment of time and money was not hostage to the capricousness of an OS provider or a vendor who wasn't interested in updating their software. No! I will stifle myself.) Thanks for the info. EDIT: Actually posted this message before I read Bills response. So I don't know if CPACK 200 would still run or not. I once owned an omnibook so I guess thats how I obtained it. Glad I did. Now I wonder if the CPACK 200 would also run. Edited: 24 Aug 2007, 5:01 p.m.

Re: PC application HPCALC.EXE Message #4 Posted by Bill (Smithville, NJ) on 24 Aug 2007, 9:37 p.m., in response to message #3 by Donald Williams Hi Donald, Quote: EDIT: Actually posted this message before I read Bills response. So I don't know if CPACK 200 would still run or not. I once owned an omnibook so I guess thats how I obtained it. Glad I did. Now I wonder if the CPACK 200 would also run. Yep, CPACK200 runs in a dos window. On my system it always goes to full screen and refuses to run in a smaller window. Don't know if it can can actoally access the com ports that way, but you can have all the features of the HP-200LX on your WIN XP machine. I have a shortcut on my desktop to CPACK200 so I can run it whenever I need to. Bill

Re: PC application HPCALC.EXE Message #5 Posted by Bill (Smithville, NJ) on 24 Aug 2007, 4:14 p.m., in response to message #1 by Donald Williams Hi Donald, Quote: I have an old application called HPcalc.exe that I have faithfully migrated to every PC I have delt with for the past 15 years or so I have done the same. It's on all my PC's. It originally came installed on the HP Omnibook OB-300, 425, 430, 530, 600c and 600CT. It may have also come with some other Omnibook models. Those systems also came with HPPIM.exe which was compatible with the Phone Book and Address Book of the HP-200LX. Quote: Could it be that this was the 200LX emulator and I have just forgotten that is where I aquired it? Nope - they are not the 200LX emulator. The LX emulatotrs are CPACK95, CPACK100 and CPACK200. While HPCALC does include a solver, it's not as complete or as full featured, as the solver in the HP-200LX. Not exactly sure what it lacks, but I know some test equations that I entered would not run on it - while they ran fine on the 200LX and the 19BII. Bill

Re: PC application HPCALC.EXE Message #6 Posted by Peter A. Gebhardt on 25 Aug 2007, 1:48 p.m., in response to message #1 by Donald Williams Donald, Bill & Bruce, It does run in VirtualPC (5.3.582.32)in a small Window on XP2 on my Notebook PC just as I'm typing this ... The version data of CPACK200 (which is in turn part of the already mentioned Sync-Package) are as follows: HP 200LX Connectivity Pack Version 1.02 (c) 1990, 1994 HP (c) 1991, 1993 Lotus (c) 1993, 1994 Intuit Best regards & a sunny weekend for all of you! Peter A. Gebhardt PS: My Desktop-Shortcut points to the stored session of Virtual-PC, which contains the last session of HPCALC - of course ... Edited: 25 Aug 2007, 6:31 p.m.

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