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HP Forum Archive 21

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HP-67 and Synthetic Programming
Message #1 Posted by Matt Agajanian on 11 May 2012, 12:20 a.m.

Hi all.

Nina Scholz's 'Help wanted SR-52' post got me wondering. And, combined with the Black Box for the 67 that was popular in the 70s, was there a Synthetic Programming toolkit for the HP-67? If so, where can I find it?

Thanks

Edited: 11 May 2012, 12:20 a.m.

      
Re: HP-67 and Synthetic Programming
Message #2 Posted by Valentin Albillo on 11 May 2012, 4:08 a.m.,
in response to message #1 by Matt Agajanian

Quote:
Hi all.

Nina Scholz's 'Help wanted SR-52' post got me wondering. And, combined with the Black Box for the 67 that was popular in the 70s, was there a Synthetic Programming toolkit for the HP-67? If so, where can I find it?

Thanks


No such thing as far as I know. The only thing you could do with so-called "synthetics" in the HP-67/97 was to generate Non-normalized numbers (NNN's) to create pseudo-alpha displays which would resemble some words in a limited fashion.

You'd store such NNN's on magnetic cards and recall them to the display where appropriate for prompts and such.

If you delve into this be extremely careful to never, ever, attempt to print such NNNs to thermal paper using an HP-97 because they wouldn't print at all but would instead burn the printhead to a crisp (literally) resulting in a very costly repair.

Regards from V.

            
Re: HP-67 and Synthetic Programming
Message #3 Posted by Matt Agajanian on 11 May 2012, 2:41 p.m.,
in response to message #2 by Valentin Albillo

Oh no!! As I was diving into the Archives here, the repetition of the danger in burning the print head was STRONGLY reinforced. And, being that I have a 67 and not a 97, I am not looking to print. I was just looking for some mathematical functionality, extended data register access or programming enhancements which could be achieved through Synthetic Programming much like what can be achieved on the 41. Thanks for the info.

      
Re: HP-67 and Synthetic Programming
Message #4 Posted by Olivier De Smet on 11 May 2012, 4:37 a.m.,
in response to message #1 by Matt Agajanian

If you want to play with NNN, use an emulator (see http://sites.google.com/site/olivier2smet2/ but only for windows, use virtualbox if you have a mac or linux machine).

For HP67/97, you can edit the card with a text editor and load them without checksum, (see doc), honestly I didn't test the display of NNN's very thoroughly. For printing you can try without fear :)

As 'Synthetic Programming', you can try a 97+, with 5 new opcodes (original HP67/97 uses 250 opcodes), more memory (126 vs 26 regs), more steps (896 vs 224).

Have (virtual) fun

Olivier


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