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HP Forum Archive 21

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HP-50G Functionality with Macintosh
Message #1 Posted by Matt Agajanian on 7 Mar 2012, 8:52 p.m.

Hello all,

As I am a Macintosh user running OS/X v10.4.11, what functionality is available to me if I connect the 50G via USB cable to my Mac or remove the SD card and mount that on the Mac desktop?

      
Re: HP-50G Functionality with Macintosh
Message #2 Posted by Peter Murphy (Livermore) on 7 Mar 2012, 10:59 p.m.,
in response to message #1 by Matt Agajanian

I will soon get a new Macintosh, running the latest OS available in the USA. I have the same questions as Matt, but with respect to that setup. And is there anything special I should get while I'm at the Apple Store?

      
Re: HP-50G Functionality with Macintosh
Message #3 Posted by Marcus von Cube, Germany on 8 Mar 2012, 2:15 a.m.,
in response to message #1 by Matt Agajanian

The SD-Card approach should be painless. The only hurdle might be that you will want to transfer programs in ASCII encoding from and to the card t edit them on the Mac. I don't know exactly how to do that but I'm sure it's possible.

I'm not aware of a driver that recognizes the 50g as a serial device directly on MacOS. Running Conn4x in a virtual machine is seamless. I run Windows XP in a Parallels Desktop VM for such things.

            
Re: HP-50G Functionality with Macintosh
Message #4 Posted by Matt Agajanian on 8 Mar 2012, 3:57 p.m.,
in response to message #3 by Marcus von Cube, Germany

That ASCII encoding sounds promising. Does anyone know how to accomplish this?

      
Re: HP-50G Functionality with Macintosh
Message #5 Posted by Mike Mander on 9 Mar 2012, 11:25 p.m.,
in response to message #1 by Matt Agajanian

Hi Matt,

There is an OS X program available for uploading/downloading files via USB, and it works in ASCII or Binary mode too. It is called HPConnect and is available here...

http://hpconnect.sourceforge.net/

I just tried it with my HP-50g, running OS X Lion (v10.7.3) on my 27" iMac and, somewhat to my surprise, it still seems to work fine. I haven't used it for quite some time actually...

For backing up or copying larger files, the SD card is great, but frequently removing the card can get to be a pain, not to mention possible wear on the SD slot mechanism and contacts. An added bonus of leaving the 50G tethered via USB is that it saves batteries, since as far as I recall, the 50G runs off USB power when plugged in.

Good luck!

Mike Mander


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