HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: jlbraddy@IASTATE.EDU (Jason L Braddy)
Subject: Re: Security devices for exams 
Reply-To: jlbraddy@IASTATE.EDU (Jason L Braddy)
Organization: Iowa State University
Date: Fri, 17 Apr 1992 07:51:27 GMT

I've been here at Iowa State for a year, and I have yet to hear ONE WORD from
any of my instructors regarding calculators.  Period.  There are several
possible reasons I can see for this:

1) The professors don't realize what advanced calculators are capable of.  This
is unlikely as most of them probably use one themselves.

2) The professors realize the capabilities of advanced calculators and write
tests with this in mind.  I have seen quite a bit of evidence for this, as many
problems are either of a theoretical nature or are too complex to make the calc
much use.  Of course a person could store notes in the calc, but this is
addressed in the next reason.

3) The professors realize the capabilities of advanced calculators, but work
under the tacit assumption that misusing these capabilities could be prosecuted
as cheating if it was so desired.  What exactly is cheating is not well-
defined, but a bit of common sense can be used.  Graphing a function to get an
idea of how it looks or using the Solver to find an answer are both things that,
while giving an advantage, are not unreasonable, IMO.  Dumping fifty pages of
notes into your calc, however, is unarguably cheating unless the test is
open-notes, in which case paper notes would be handier and easier to read
anyhow.  If they decide to nail you, you'd have an easier time arguing your case
if all you did was have an equation in memory than if you have your entire
textbook stored on a RAM card.  There is a lot of grey area, but it might be
that the professors are giving us credit for a little moral fortitude by leaving
it up to us to decide what is cheating.  Some people can't be treated like
adults no matter how old they get, but they tend to get what they deserve sooner
or later.

4) The professors don't think that people know how to use their calculators all
that well.  I know lots of people that own 48's, but most of them have no clue
what to do with them.  Here is my scenario for the average HP user in my
classes:  Sit there going through menus looking for the "answer key" function. 
Upon not finding it, they fumble around with the calc, annoying everyone with
error beeps every couple of seconds because they didn't know you can turn it
off.  Then they give up and pull out their TI-30 and use it.

I guess the bottom line is that scumbags have, do, and always will cheat, no
matter what.  Perhaps the professors realize this and decide not to punish
everyone by handicapping them with ineffective restrictions.  For people with
the guts to do poorly on a test (yes, I said it, flame away :) rather than
cheat, advanced calculators are merely tools, not brain replacements.

						IMnsHO,
						 Jason Braddy
						 jlbraddy@iastate.edu

					       "Can't shake the Devil's hand
						and say you're only kidding."
						 -They Might Be Giants
Newsgroups: comp.sys.hp48
From:  (riley@src.honeywell.com)
Subject: catalog idea
Organization: Honeywell Systems & Research Center
Date: Fri, 10 Apr 1992 12:04:29 GMT

All the talk about worn displays from rubbing against the booklet leads
me to an idea I had when I first got my 48SX.  It's a wonderful machine,
but a very complex one, and if any machine could benefit from having an
online catalog function like the older HP caculators did, this would be it.

I'd like to suggest that HP consider developing a ROM card with a catalog
function.  The catalog would contain the total command set and should
allow searches with wildcard characters, alphabetically, and by command
type (memory, statistics, etc.).  It should have a "hypertext" feature for
related commands; highlight the related command and go directly to it.
Finally, the user should be able to enter a template associated with
every command onto the stack, so that when the user returns to the stack
environment, labels are placed on each stack level indicating the type
of entry required on that level for that command.  Then, the user need
merely replace each label placeholder with the proper data and
execute the command.

I think this would make the 48 a much easier machine to use, and it
would get rid of the dreaded book.
From: Rob_Prior@mindlink.bc.ca (Rob Prior)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.hp48
Subject: Re: Battery question/what is [ON]-D MTH?
Date: 16 Apr 92 18:07:22 GMT
Article-I.D.: mindlink.11465
Organization: MIND LINK! - British Columbia, Canada

re: the ON-D MTH question... what does it mean?

When you press [ON]-[D] then [MTH], you see:

ESD 210V 210V

and some bars under the 2,1,or 0.  A bar under one of the numbers indicates a
low-battery condition in that port.  Port 0 is the calculator itself, 1 and 2
are the expansion ports.  My 48sx has two ROM cards and I see no bars with good
batteries.  If I remove a card (leaving an empty slot) I see a bar under the
corresponding port #.  Seems the 48 knows that in a ROM card, the battery is
always good :).  If you pull a card out
, however, you see a bar because the (non-existant) battery is bad.

I think this explanation is correct... I remember someone who was more familiar
with the internals posted the explanation above.  Any arguments/additions?

ROb
--
 _______________________________________________________________
|Rob Prior - President, Still Animation Logo Design, Burnaby, BC|
|---------------------------------------------------------------|
|            Mail to: a634@mindlink.uucp                        |
|   ___  _        or: !uunet!van-bc!rsoft!mindlink!a634         |
|  /__  /_\    "You must find us.... a shrubbery!!!!!!"         |
|____/ /   \____________________________________________________|
Newsgroups: comp.sys.hp48
From: jhawk@panix.com (John Hawkinson)
Subject: Battery question/what is [ON]-D MTH?
Date: Thu, 16 Apr 1992 03:54:11 GMT
Organization: PANIX Public Access Unix, NYC


Okay, the other day, I got a LowBatt warning on my 48sx and decided
to replace the batteries (what an idea!). Anyway, before I did, I'd
remembered that when I had been fooling around in [ON]-D mode last
year, there was some reference to voltage (or so I thought). Anyway,
so I went to [ON]-D MTH and got this (w/ constant beeping):

ESD 210V  210V
    |  |  |  |
       ^-----------this one (I think) was flashing.

Then, I tried it a little later, and got this:

ESD 210V  210V
    |  |  |  |  (no flashing)

After I installed the new batteries, I got this:

ESD 210V  210V
    |     |

This was beginning to get puzzling. Anyway, I asked some friends w/ 48's and
got more confusing stuff. Two of my friends w/ 48sx's got this

ESD 210V  210V
		[no lines at all]

And a friend of mine w/ a 48s go this:

ESD 210V  210V
    |     |

So, it seems like this *might* be related to battery life, but I just
don't know. Does anyone know/have-ideas (or something more definitive)?

Thanks in advance.

-- 
John Hawkinson
jhawk@panix.com
From: lng@bonnie.ics.uci.edu (Lester Ng)
Subject: Re: Automatic files
Newsgroups: comp.sys.hp48
Reply-To: lng@ics.uci.edu (Lester Ng)
Organization: Univ. of Calif., Irvine, Info. & Computer Sci. Dept.
Date: 13 Apr 92 08:35:32 GMT

In article <92103.203812MKHORTOP@MTUS5.BITNET> MKHORTOP@MTUS5.BITNET writes:
>Is there a name I can give a file to make it run automatically
>when I turn my HP on or switch directories? (In other words,
>an autoexec file)  I would like tp be able to change modes
>(DEC to RAD and back again) depending on which directory I change
>to.

I too have been searching for this ability.  It is sorely missed as on the
41's there was a flag which could be set such that the when turned on
the program (where the current pc was) was executed.

Newsgroups: comp.sys.hp48
From: elee8zz@rosie.uh.edu (Pagan, John)
Subject: Help me locate this person.
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.41    
Organization: University of Houston
Date: Thu, 9 Apr 1992 07:52:00 GMT

	I while ago I was getting messages form Ray depew.  He keeps a 
mailing list of Atari-HP users.  It seems that his email address has changed
If anybody out there knows it, please let me know.

	Regards.

					John Pagan
					elee8zz@jetson.uh.edu
From: al186@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Mark Spaeth)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.hp48
Subject: HP firmware differences ???
Date: 6 Apr 92 23:01:32 GMT
Article-I.D.: usenet.1992Apr6.230132.17958
Organization: Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio, (USA)


I have n HP-48sx rom E, made in Singapore...

My friend has an HP-48sx, rom E, made in USA...


Well... I downloaded pacman onto my unit and it played fine,
except when I get killed, I get an extra guy and am advanced to
the next screen...

On his, the game works FINE!

So we IR'transfered the game ovr onto mine, checked the checksums,
(they were correct) but mine still doesn't work right...

and to make it even weirder, when I checkedthe checksum on the
directory after I tested it (didn't get a score high enough to
effect the high score file) the checksum was DIFFERENT!!!


Could this be caused by differebe something wrong with my 3-week-old $300 calculator???

thanks...

(and a repost of ASC in text format would really be nice...)
-- 
__   _  ___     __   _
|_) (_` |_  | | | \ | | |\| \ / |\/|            al186@cwns1  i
|   ._) |__ !_! |_/ !_! |\|  |  |\/| lives...                s  Mark Spaeth
Newsgroups: comp.sys.hp48
From: rmg53668@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (Ryan M. Grant)
Subject: Re: SYSEVAL codes?
Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana
Date: Mon, 13 Apr 1992 22:53:12 GMT

willegen@research.ptt.nl writes:

>> I was wondering where I could get a list of the SYSEVAL codes for the HP48SX.
>> Jack Tan

>Try to get TOOLS.EXE from HP. It's a package consisting of an RPL-compiler,
>If there is enough interest, I'll ask the proce and start sending
>out floppies.
>Christ

Or you could ftp to seq.uncwil.edu and look in their /hp48/tools directory.

				-Ryan Grant
Date: Mon,  6 Apr 92 22:36:32 +0000
From: Wolfram_Sauerteig@hippo.fido.de (Wolfram Sauerteig)
Subject: Re: IR ports on the HP48SX
Newsgroups: comp.sys.hp48
Distribution: world
X-Comment-To: umoster0@ccu.umanitoba.ca (Sean K. Ostermann)
Organization: SauerSoft 

Hi Sean, You wrote:
SK> Does there exist an HP48SX without the IR communication port?  The
SK> University
SK> of Manitoba will not let engineering students use these calculators and I
SK> amthinking of buying one (but may not because I might not be able to use
SK> it).

Maybe You should check up with the Profs, if they are doing right;
the transmission range of the 48's IR port is _very_ limited:
about a maximum of 30_cm for receive and exchanging data, and 3_m for send (if 
another device as an 48 is receiving, tested with an TV-Set and a IR-remote 
software).
I think, Hewlett Packard has previewed problems like Yours, and limited the 
transmission range intentional. Maybe You could get a data sheet from HP, to 
show it to Your Profs and proof, that this is no problem....

please excuse some mistakes, english is not my native language.....

ciao
    Wolfram
From: willegen@research.ptt.nl
Newsgroups: comp.sys.hp48
Subject: Re: New 48 Stuff at EduCALC
Date: 6 Apr 92 09:29:37 GMT

In article <29cf1a33.878.1comp.sys.hp48.1@hpcvbbs.cv.hp.com>, akcs.matt1@hpcvbbs.cv.hp.com (Matthew C. Mead) writes:
> 
>    Could someone explain how the 256 and 512K cards work?
>  
>  
>  
> Matt

They consist of 2 and 4 *seperate* 128 k cards. Bank-switch software is on
the card. *BEWARE*. Crashes are made easy for you....

Example:

You run a program from 'card' 1, that gives you the error:
Very Wrong Error: Totally Wrong Input

(User defined error ofcourse).

You switch to 'card' 2 to play a game. You're finished playing (about +/-
5 hours later?) and want to retrieve the error. You type ERRM and the calc
displays:

Insert RAM, press ON.

Oops. The calc found a pointer (to the error message) and found out that
the RAM was switched. One problem though... The card has been switched out
and can *NEVER* be switched back again.... Pulling the batteries will work
ofcourse, but also remove the RAM card, becasue the HP lives on the RAM
card when its own bats are out.

Hope this helps

Christ van Willegen
C.P.vanWillegen@research.ptt.nl
From: willegen@research.ptt.nl
Newsgroups: comp.sys.hp48
Subject: Re: Why can't I transfer to my hp48 using NO parity?
Date: 6 Apr 92 09:41:45 GMT

In article <1992Mar25.182012.387@thunder.mcrcim.mcgill.edu>, wonga@ee470.EE.McGill.CA ( allen  wong ) writes:
> For some reason, I cannot transfer between my hp48 and my PC using NO
>  parity. When I use EVEN parity everything works fine. I have tried
>  Procomm+ 1.1b and Kermit 3.11. Both programs refuse to transfer with
>  parity set to NONE. The only time I can use NO parity is when I an
>  transfering between 2 hp48's using IR.
> 
> Can somebody tell me why this is happening? 
> 
> If I am transfering binary files, is it faster to use NO parity? If I
>  use EVEN parity, wouldn't 8 bit characters have to be sent with more
>  than 1 byte?
> 
> Thanks
> 
> Allen Wong
> wonga@ee470.ee.mcgill.ca

Using ANY parity makes Kermit use 2 bytes for every byte with the high bit
ON. This DOES make it slower, especially when sending binary. Strange. I've
never had problems using NO parity, on all sorts of machines.

Christ van Willegen
C.P.vanWillegen@research.ptt.nl
From: struzak@disuns2.epfl.ch (Marcin Struzak)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.hp48
Subject: Re: What sort of compression is .Z?????
Date: 15 Apr 92 18:38:48 GMT
Reply-To: struzak@disuns2.epfl.ch (Marcin Struzak)
Organization: Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne

In article <15APR199211192048@summa.tamu.edu> brk4690@summa.tamu.edu (READ KING (409) 696-1591) writes:
>
>I am familiar with a lot of compression types, but what in the world is .Z ??
>

.Z is a unix compress/uncompress archive file. Having a file filename.extension
you compress it with the statement

  compress filename.extension

which will create a file filename.extension.Z. To get your data back, you issue

  uncompress filename.extension.Z

To get more info, try man on compress.

Regards,
Marcin.
From: fee@waikato.ac.nz
Newsgroups: comp.sys.hp48
Subject: Source code from Binary???
Date: 7 Apr 92 13:59:15 +1200
Organization: University of Waikato, Hamilton, New Zealand




Gidday,

Is it possible to decompile binaries with any of the development
tools such as SLOAD? ie: take a binary code, say uploaded from the 48SX,
and produce a source code RPL listing from it?



-----------------------------------------------------------------
Conan J. Fee			    _      fee@waikato.ac.nz
Centre for Technology              (_)o    
University of Waikato, Hamilton    /\  \   Phone: +(64)(7)8384206
Private Bag 3105, New Zealand              Fax:   +(64)(7)8384218
-----------------------------------------------------------------
From: steffl@ast.stgt.sub.org (Stephan Block)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.hp48
Subject: Q: `Markers' in menus
Date: 9 Apr 92 14:08:15 GMT
Organization: Private Subversive Site, Moeglingen, Germany

Hello everybody!

I've got a question about user-defined menus. I hope you understand
what I mean, since the point might not be very easy to get, and
English isn't my first language.

I'm writing a User RPL program where (among other things :-) I display
a menu using TMENU. If the user then presses a menu key, I want to
set a marker into the menu title similar to the markers e.g. in the
<MODES> menu that show the status of the system flags.
It's possible to do this by just adding a non-printable character
such as ^A to the menu text and then re-displaying the menu.
But then the whole menu text including the marker is centered, and
the space between the menu text and the marker is either too big or
too small, depending on wheter you insert a <SPACE> (between text and
marker) or not, which doesn't look very pretty in either case. In the
<MODES> menu, the position of the marker is one pixel away from the right
edge of the menu field and the text is centered in the remaining space.
Is there a possibility to do it exactly the same way in a User RPL
program (without having to draw it pixel by pixel `by hand'), perhaps
a nice little SYSEVAL or something like that?

Bye,
steffl
-- 
   / o   Stephan Block           EMail address: steffl@ast.stgt.sub.org   o /
  / o   Hohenstaufenstrasse 16     Optimists only: FidoNet 2:247/708.3   o /
 / o   7141 Moeglingen (Germany)         Voice Phone: +49-7141-241688   o /
/________________________________________________________________________/
From: abb3w@fulton.seas.Virginia.EDU (Arthur Bernard Byrne)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.hp48
Subject: Re: Unit conversion bug
Summary: YAUB (yet another units bug)
Date: 6 Apr 92 16:09:15 GMT
Article-I.D.: murdoch.1992Apr6.160915.14421
Organization: University of Virginia

In article <01GIGBMV2JPCEBO215@TNTECH.BITNET> DEB3291@TNTECH.BITNET writes:
>        One day, out of curiosity, I tried using the unit conversion on the
>48SX to convert the quantity '1_H*r/s' to '1_ohm'(using the apropriate
>symbol).  Also I tried to see if '1_s/r*F' would do the same.  Unitwise, I
>got the correct units.  However, I noticed that a factor of '2*pi' was
>completely divided out from the quantity.  However, when I used Hz or
>s^-1 for the frequency unit, I got the correct value. Any EE out there
>knows that radian frequency is to be used when calculating an impedance, so
>this could be a serious error.  Incidentally, this is the only bug I have
>found in Version E.

	I think part of this may be a bug in EE, not the HP48. 8)

	While we're on the subject of possible bugs in the unit conversions,
I just recently made an annoying discovery about the UBASE function on the
version C that I'm currently using: it insists on returning all integer
exponents on the SI Base units. Now, I admit that there are not a lot of
situations in the real world where the result you get is going to be in
fractional units, but the a coolant's figure of merit is:

	(Specific Heat)^2.8   *   (density)^2
	-------------------------------------
	          (viscosity)^0.2

	Which gives:

	(kg*m^2*s^-2*K^-1)^2.8   *   (kg*m^-3)^2
	----------------------------------------
	          (kg*m^-1*s^-1)^0.2


	Resulting in the rather bizzare unit of

	        kg^4.6
	---------------------------
	(s^5.4) * (K^2.8) * (m^0.2)


	I seem to recall other bizzare units resulting from some work
in thermogoddamics and fluid mechanics. Applying UBASE gets rid of these
inconvenient fractions which BELONG there.
	*BUT WAIT! THERE'S MORE!!!!*

	I also just noticed that when it does the conversion on this
(admittedly) silly unit, it turns it to kg^5/(s^5*K). Not Kelvins to
the third, not Kelvins to the second. Kelvins. Interestingly, A little
exploration showed me, that while UBASE turns 1_K^4.5 to 1_K, it turns
1_K^5 to... 1_K^5, which it should be. This strikes me as silly.
	Is this set of misfeatures/bugs documented anywhere? And is
it showing up on the version D and E roms?

AB^2
From: x9999bvi@maple.circa.ufl.edu
Newsgroups: comp.sys.hp48
Subject: Re: HP FTP Freshman
Date: 14 Apr 92 05:33:12 GMT
Reply-To: X9999BVI%oak.decnet@pine.circa.ufl.edu
Organization: The CIRCA Underground

In article <1992Apr8.223804.2966@ucsu.Colorado.EDU>, frechett@spot.Colorado.EDU
 (-=Runaway Daemon=-) writes:
>Unfortunately, there is such a beast.  I don't remember exactly how it spreads
>but it is VERY small and the design is pretty clever.  It will make your
>calculator crash.  There is a program to clean it out of your calculator.
>
>It's not over overwhelming concern though as it is not very widespread at all.

	Some details would be nice.  And where is this program?

-Steve :)
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Steve Morgan 			LTCOMDATA%maple.decnet@pine.circa.ufl.edu
Univ. of Florida			Singing the days away...

	Need to babble?  Drop a line.  Mail makes me happy ==>  8D
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: akcs.joehorn@hpcvbbs.cv.hp.com (Joseph K. Horn)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.hp48
Subject: Re: Syseval wanted
Date: 17 Apr 92 06:40:06 GMT
Article-I.D.: hpcvbbs.29ee70c3.926.2comp.sys.hp48.1

cipriani@viking.gatech.edu (Jerry Cipriani) writes:

> On the HP48sx, the commands DBUG, SST, and SST(down arrow) are
> available only if you press the corresponding key in the Program
> Control menu.  I would like to be able to call these, (particually
> the DBUG and SST(down arrow)) from within a program. I'm pretty sure
> that SYSEVAL will do it, but I don't know the numbers.
>
> Could someone please:
>
> 1) Give the numbers to me,
>

DBUG: #1508Eh SYSEVAL
SST: #14506h SYSEVAL
SSTdown: #144DEh SYSEVAL

These SYSEVALs are equivalent to pressing the keys, *B*U*T* (and this
is a Big But!), testing whether or not they are programmable is left
as an exercise for the student.  ;-)

>
> 2) Tell me where I could get them,
>
> 3) Or maybe suggest another method.
>

Assign the following SOFTK program to any key.  Press it, then press
any menu softkey, and its "contents" will be recalled to the stack.
For example, press SOFTK and then press DBUG and the whole DBUG
program will be recalled to the stack.  You can then use any of the
many ways already posted to find its hex address, for example the ADDR
function in Rick Grevelle's HACKIT library, or the ADDR program in the
IO or HACK directories on the first few Goodies Disks.

%%HP: T(3);
@ SOFTK - recalls a menu key's assignment
\<< "Press a menu key...\010" 1 DISP
  # 41F65h SYSEVAL DROP
  # 4A0Bh SYSEVAL
\>>

-Joe Horn-
From: ctt31684@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (CMP)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.hp48
Subject: Hi, is $85 for a used HP 128k card a good deal?
Date: 16 Apr 92 06:24:50 GMT
Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana

Hello, I'm so far removed from HP calculator prices, that I waas dumb enough
to buy my calc. a little while ago for close to $300.  So I'm wondering
if $85 is a good deal for the above item.
Thanks,
Ching
From: akcs.roland@hpcvbbs.cv.hp.com (Roland O Davis)
Date: Wed, 15 Apr 1992 05:40:05 GMT
Subject: OFF Program
Message-ID: <29ebbde6.724.1comp.sys.hp48.1@hpcvbbs.cv.hp.com>
Newsgroups: comp.sys.hp48

I have personally written a program in RPL to passprotect the HP. 
Unfortunately the system reset would reset it.  Also another neat thing
to do is to use the user funstion and if the password is entered wrongly
theen simply turn off the normal system keys in user and the keyboard
will lock.  If you do it right then the only key they can press is ON
which infact will turn off the calculator and be ready for execution of
the program again.  This is kinda the way that GATEWAY uses except it
simply turns itself off once it is entered the wrong password.  I will
get back to you if I can find a copy of my password program still kicking
around somewhere.....

:) rod

Newsgroups: comp.sys.hp48