HP48GX Newbie Needs Help

[cdmackay]

There are a number of useful HP-48/49/50 cables at Casio880, both plain serial DE-9, and also incorporating a serial-USB converter.

I recommend Casio880 (based in Spain) as a supplier, and have bought cables and a calculator from them.

I bought both (long story) the official HP kit shown above, which is a plain DE-9 female serial cable at the PC end, and also the €40 48GX cable with integral serial-USB convertor, which works perfectly on my Mac using the Serial app, at least. If anyone wants to know what chip it uses, I can check.

The official HP kit is the PC Connectivity Kit — F1897A, which comprises the HP 10-pin (38/49G) cable (F1897-66000), and an HP 4-pin (48GX) adaptor (F1633-66001). To use it with a PC/Mac that does not have a serial port you will need a USB-serial convertor. Ones with FTDI chips are normally preferred, although some Prolific ones work well too.

Note that the calculator presents as DCE, so you do not need a null-modem adaptor, unless you're connecting two calculators together.

Once you've got the cables connected, you need a serial comms application that speaks Kermit, for the transfers. For Mac I recommend Serial, which has its own USB drivers so you don't have to mess up your OS installing random crap that came with the cable.