HP Forum Archive 20

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Emulators for old HP Message #1 Posted by Olivier De Smet on 8 Jan 2012, 7:55 a.m. Hello, I enjoy writing emulators of old computers and calculators (see http://sites.google.com/site/olivier2smet2/) After finishing an hp67/97 emulator for windows (with the roms from nonpareil), I started an HP15C emulator for windows (with the roms of an old nonpareil release .. I use to archive files from internet for my own use ;) ). Soon I started a new hp 67 emulator for android, followed by an HP33/34 one (same woodstock processor). As it was nice to write this one for android I started a new HP11/12/15/16 one for android. Actually it's near the end of the beta phase. (perhaps I will start an HP41 emulator before finishing this one ...) But I have now a strange observation : when running emulators (windows or android) from the HP1x roms from nonpareil, it display "running" with the "r" in the lower part of the second digit, but my own original hp15c display "running" with the "r" in the upper part of the digit. (sr 2242a12656) Did someone already notice this display artifact ? Could it be due to roms version ? Olivier P.S. all those 1X emulator are private (as it seems there are some trouble with the copyright of HP1x roms)

Re: Emulators for old HP Message #2 Posted by Vladan Dugaric on 8 Jan 2012, 8:01 a.m., in response to message #1 by Olivier De Smet That is Eric Smith's signature - if a calculator uses his nonpareil code and ROM images, it will show lowered r, as opposed to real calculator's raised r. Vladan

Re: Emulators for old HP Message #3 Posted by Olivier De Smet on 8 Jan 2012, 8:07 a.m., in response to message #2 by Vladan Dugaric I hope he changed some other stuff, this one is very easy to patch (even with checksum). I have a dis assembler for those roms, I commented 50% of the 15 rom to patch it with 224 registers (vs 64 for original), btw it seems that the HP15 roms can't do certain matrix op for matrice larger than 9x9). Its also usefull to find when to be in FAST or SLOW mode (for display pause ...) Olivier

Re: Emulators for old HP Message #4 Posted by J-F Garnier on 8 Jan 2012, 11:13 a.m., in response to message #3 by Olivier De Smet it seems that the HP15 roms can't do certain matrix op for matrice larger than 9x9 Interesting observation. I too have my personal HP15C emulator (based on my Emu41 and using the same source for the ROMs...) and I also patched it for higher register size (up to 192 only, configured as 94 user registers and 99 register pool, so I didn't have to patch the MEM display code). Can you give more details? J-F Edited: 8 Jan 2012, 11:19 a.m.

Re: Emulators for old HP Message #5 Posted by uhmgawa on 9 Jan 2012, 9:59 a.m., in response to message #3 by Olivier De Smet Quote: I have a dis assembler for those roms, I commented 50% of the 15 rom to patch it with 224 registers (vs 64 for original).. That level of coverage is quite encouraging actually. I myself had only commented scattered points of interest in the 15c image. I'd been interested to kindle an open effort documenting the entire rom image. However having some explicit release of copyright status from HP would lend creditability to the effort. I can't see that happening though until the 15c le runs it course as a product. assuming it would ever happen. Also the persistent elephant in the room is that of time being better spent on truly reusable firmware such as the wp-34s work.

Re: Emulators for old HP Message #6 Posted by Christoph Giesselink on 10 Jan 2012, 12:29 p.m., in response to message #3 by Olivier De Smet Quote: btw it seems that the HP15 roms can't do certain matrix op for matrice larger than 9x9 referring to the HP-15C Owner’s Handbook HP Part Number: 00015-90001 Edition 2.4, Sep 2011 p140, "Matrix Dimensions: Up to 64 matrix elements can be stored in memory. You can use all 64 elements in one matrix or distribute them among up to five matrices." Regards Christoph

Re: Emulators for old HP Message #7 Posted by Olivier De Smet on 10 Jan 2012, 1:49 p.m., in response to message #6 by Christoph Giesselink With patched roms (ie 224 registers) a 9x9 matrix can be used, determinant and inverse can be computed, but with a 10x10 matrix, determinant is always false (and take too little time to be computed). The rom can deal with such a matrix ie you can have 64x1 matrix with regular roms, so non-square matrix can have one dimension greater than 9 (but less than 100). The basic routines can deal with 10x10 and larger matrix but not with 100x1 matrix (2 digits for one dimension). More elaborate operation such as inverse and determinant fail at 10x10 and success with 9x9 (even if standard rom are supposed to be limited with 8x8)

Re: Emulators for old HP Message #8 Posted by Paul Dale on 16 Jan 2012, 5:33 p.m., in response to message #7 by Olivier De Smet My guess here would be that the LU decomposition is storing the partial pivots in the matrix descriptor and that the descriptor is overflowing somehow. The Doolittle algorithm is easy to code without limiting the size of matrix it can handle -- putting a limit in would be more effort. However, it does need to store the pivots so that systems of equations and inverses can be evaluated and to restore the original matrix later. - Pauli

Re: Emulators for old HP Message #9 Posted by Paul Dale on 16 Jan 2012, 5:38 p.m., in response to message #7 by Olivier De Smet Anyone up to producing a patched image for the 15C LE with the extra memory? :-) - Pauli

Re: Emulators for old HP Message #10 Posted by Massimo Gnerucci (Italy) on 8 Jan 2012, 8:44 a.m., in response to message #1 by Olivier De Smet Quote: P.S. all those 1X emulator are private (as it seems there are some trouble with the copyright of HP1x roms) When ready, could you release only the emulator, please? Finding ROMs would be our problem. ;) I am planning to switch soon to an Android phone so I am *very* interested in a 41 emulator!... :) Massimo

Re: Emulators for old HP Message #11 Posted by Namir on 9 Jan 2012, 8:12 a.m., in response to message #1 by Olivier De Smet Olivier, I am sure I can speak for most if not all forum members--we are all eager to download the new emulators when they are ready for release! Namir

Re: Emulators for old HP Message #12 Posted by Mike (Stgt) on 10 Jan 2012, 1:33 p.m., in response to message #11 by Namir I'd like to have the ROM of the HP-10C, I do not mind if the r of 'running' is up or down. Ciao.....Mike

Re: Emulators for old HP Message #13 Posted by Thomas Klemm on 11 Jan 2012, 6:10 a.m., in response to message #12 by Mike (Stgt) Probably Eric Smith could do this but I'm afraid he won't. There were some nice pictures of his rom-sucker here: http://gallery.brouhaha.com/romsucker-voyager. The link is broken, but we can still use The Wayback Machine. IIRC the reason why he didn't extract the ROM of the HP-10C was that he didn't have one. Chances are small that HP will ever release the HP-10C again even as an emulator. But just for the sake of completeness I'd appreciate it nevertheless. So maybe if we ask him politely? Kind regards Thomas

Re: Emulators for old HP Message #14 Posted by uhmgawa on 11 Jan 2012, 9:14 a.m., in response to message #13 by Thomas Klemm Quote: Chances are small that HP will ever release the HP-10C again even as an emulator. But just for the sake of completeness I'd appreciate it nevertheless. I had been looking for a loaner 10c to complete the set of KEMU images. Yet from a practical perspective even the 11c image is hard to justify in light of a 15c. That said I wouldn't refuse access to a loaner 10c for a few minutes. Quote: So maybe if we ask him politely? The polite asking needs to be of HP in terms of a clarification on their interpretation of voyager firmware copyright status, which matters far more than the apparent legal status. Although I'd be surprised to see this happen before the 15c le product life cycle draws to a close.

Re: Emulators for old HP Message #15 Posted by Thomas Klemm on 11 Jan 2012, 10:38 a.m., in response to message #14 by uhmgawa I'm not a lawyer but I read somewhere (maybe even on Eric's site) that in order to claim the copyright of the firmware ROM it must be "written" in it. Since this statement is missing in older ROMs it won't be possible for HP to sue you if you copy it. However this was my understanding why the ROM of the HP-42S is not available whereas the ROMs of the HP-41C and older models are: at the end of the HP-42S self-test it says: COPYRIGHT HP 1988. On the other hand the ROMs for the 48/49/50 series are available. Recently I stumbled upon Dave's ROM Dump Copying Comments. Besides the legal there's a moral issue here as well. But then we know HP dumped all this information of the voyager series. Therefore I don't think we steal but preserve their work by sharing these ROMs. With the advent of emulators as smart phone apps the situation changed: suddenly some money could be made with these outmoded ROMs. It's a pity because it made access of the voyager emulators harder. So I hope you will gain "access to a loaner 10c for a few minutes" in the near future. Best regards Thomas

Re: Emulators for old HP Message #16 Posted by uhmgawa on 11 Jan 2012, 11:29 a.m., in response to message #15 by Thomas Klemm Quote: I'm not a lawyer but I read somewhere (maybe even on Eric's site) that in order to claim the copyright of the firmware ROM it must be "written" in it. Yes I'm familiar with Eric's efforts to demystify the issue. Quote: Since this statement is missing in older ROMs it won't be possible for HP to sue you if you copy it. Probably technically true but I am neither a lawyer nor do I welcome needing one in order to prove that theory. Quote: So I hope you will gain "access to a loaner 10c for a few minutes" in the near future. I'd like to cross off the 10c from a testing perspective. I don't expect problems but early on I did chase down KEMU bugs which I'd only seen surface on some Voyager models. Even then doing so may cross the line as thus far I've only used images captured from devices I actually own.

Re: Emulators for old HP Message #17 Posted by Paul Dale on 16 Jan 2012, 5:36 p.m., in response to message #15 by Thomas Klemm Quote: Since this statement is missing in older ROMs it won't be possible for HP to sue you if you copy it. They can still sue you. They might go in knowing they can't win, but they could outlast you. - Pauli

Re: Emulators for old HP Message #18 Posted by Mike (Stgt) on 11 Jan 2012, 11:18 a.m., in response to message #13 by Thomas Klemm I do not ask anybody for a ROM image just for collecting/playing with it - as long as the distribution could be unlawful. And I still have enough to do with all the other ROMs and emulators. But now and then my collector-me shows up: there is still missing the ROM of the 10C. Hard cheese. Ciao.....Mike

Re: Emulators for old HP Message #19 Posted by Olivier De Smet on 16 Jan 2012, 1:20 p.m., in response to message #11 by Namir I just finished my registering as android developper. You can search now for go41c a free HP41C emulator in Android Market Olivier More emulators to follow ...

Re: Emulators for old HP Message #20 Posted by Kees Bouw on 16 Jan 2012, 2:41 p.m., in response to message #19 by Olivier De Smet Quote: More emulators to follow ... Can you do a HP-65 for Android please?

Re: Emulators for old HP Message #21 Posted by Olivier De Smet on 16 Jan 2012, 3:16 p.m., in response to message #20 by Kees Bouw First 33C, 34C, 67 (with card reader support) then perhaps 11C, 12C, 15C, 16C after ... who knows ... Olivier

Re: Emulators for old HP Message #22 Posted by Massimo Gnerucci (Italy) on 16 Jan 2012, 4:55 p.m., in response to message #19 by Olivier De Smet THANK YOU Olivier! I should receive my Galaxy Note soon so I will test it @ 1280 * 800. I also see a 41CX version: I think I will buy it right after. Greetings, Massimo Edited: 16 Jan 2012, 4:55 p.m.

Re: Emulators for old HP Message #23 Posted by Jeroen Van Nieuwenhove on 16 Jan 2012, 5:26 p.m., in response to message #19 by Olivier De Smet I just installed the app on my Acer Liquid phone. There seems to be a problem with the LCD display handling: the regular LCD display elements work allright, but the display contains gibberish. Whenever I push keys, the display changes, so clearly the emulator reacts to keys being pressed, but I cannot make out anything from the screen. Nevertheless, this app looks very promising, thank you for this effort!

Re: Emulators for old HP Message #24 Posted by Guenter Schink on 16 Jan 2012, 5:36 p.m., in response to message #19 by Olivier De Smet Quote: I just finished my registering as android developper. You can search now for go41c a free HP41C emulator in Android Market Olivier More emulators to follow ... I've downloaded the 41c and also bought the 41cx, probably I'm one of the first ones :-) The 41cx (and the 41c) work good for the first few minutes on my Galaxy S GT-i9000. Not so on my tablet Acer Iconia 500. The "<--" from the menu and "on" simply don't result in "Memory lost" As described, the calc being off, I press "<--" from the menu and the "<--" becomes and stays green framed. then I press and hold the "on" key until its green framed, release the "<--" button -- only garbage in the display. The same sequence works perfectly well on the phone. But I believe it's a promising approach. Günter Now busy playing around ...

Re: Emulators for old HP Message #25 Posted by Howard Owen on 16 Jan 2012, 6:01 p.m., in response to message #1 by Olivier De Smet I bought the 41CX version as well. So far no problems on my EVO 4G. I haven't exercised it much yet. Thanks!

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