DM42 Display Control Tutorial

[revwillie]

(03-25-2018 03:57 PM)jjohnson873 Wrote:  Am I missing something simple on DM42 display control? I'm still experimenting with flags 34 & 35 and perhaps therein lies the answer to my problem.

I agree with you if you are saying that it's a pain to gather together the known info in one place. This is further complicated by the friendly banter that most threads evolve into.

It's all about the virtual variables. If you haven't read that part of the built in quick reference guide or the online manual, make sure you do. One thing you seem to be asking is if you can hide the stack when the classic HP resolution mode (GrMod=0) is chosen. I don't think that's currently possible but the stack display is hidden in the higher resolution modes. At that point, your output would just have to be generated by PIXEL or AGRAPH. Note that AVIEW or VIEW are for displaying in one space and PIXEL and AGRAPH display in another space where the two spaces do not overlap. I hope someone corrects me if I'm wrong, but I think PIXEL or AGRAPH overtakes the VIEW or AVIEW display in all modes when they are invoked.

The programs Bill shared are built upon the native AGRAPH if I understand correctly. I also have to do some reading to get up to speed on them. There is also some good stuff in THIS thread for line drawing. Starting on the simple end, I experimented with a modification to the DJPLOT program that comes preloaded in the DM42. In this post,I shared the 'test2' version and a primitive 'big dot' idea for plotting. I have yet to read if that idea was previously published in the WP43S user manual or otherwise borrowed.

So, taking 'complete control' of the display seems at this point to require drawing what you want in pixels or Alpha-encoded pixel groups. See the SMILE program in the original 42S manual as well as the HP logo program that appeared in the later programming manual. I think I read that there is a way to use matrices or complex numbers, too. I wish I had more time to delve into it.
The new display hardware is begging for more graphical exploitation, but the 42S was never a 'graphical' calculator.

And one last wrinkle: Free42 also has the virtual printer display capability. Several of us have wondered if that will appear later in the DM42. What is the mysterious GrMod=1 reserved for???