From: jgd@dixie.com (John De Armond)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.palmtops
Subject: Re: Wizard->95LX  (and 95LX bug alert)
Date: 14 Apr 92 23:05:53 GMT
Organization: Dixie Communications Public Access.  The Mouth of the South.

st901745@pip.cc.brandeis.edu (Alastair M. Bor) writes:

>I just bought a 95LX and I was wondering if there is a quick and easy
>way to transfer my phone book entries from my Wizard128K to my 95LX.
>I have the connectivity pack for both units...

No.  And coming from a sharp Wizard to the 95 as I did, you'll
find the phone manager hideous.  The memo editor too, for that
matter.   All the nice stuff you're used to in the Wizard such
as the big search key, data being committed to permanent memory
just by entering it, the freeform fields in the phone list
manager, the page-oriented text manager are all missing.  The
phone manager is so bad, particularly compared to the free form
Wizard manager, that I'm currently just keeping a text file
version of my Wizard database as a memo file while I write a
sysmgr-compliant Wizard-emulated phone list manager with a text manager
to follow.   

If you choose to use any of the Lotus written crap, er, I mean 
built-in applications, be SURE to backup often, like every day at
the minimum, and before you do any major changes.   It is trivial to lose data 
on the 95 quite unlike the Wizard, where the only time I ever lost any data 
was when my house burned and the Wizard went with it.

While I'm at it, here is a very serious bug alert regarding the memo
editor.

In the new 1 mb 95, edit a moderate sized file, say 40k, say, your
phone list.  Several times (>3), cut text from the file and change
to another file via the <menu> <file> <open> and so on keystrokes 
in order to paste.  Save the original file before changing 
to the other file each time.  After 4 or 5 cuts, you will be unable
to save the original file.  The application will report an out of 
disk space error.  Trying to save to another name will cause the same thing
to happen.  Since this idiotic software deletes the old file before
saving it out, your original file (your phone list, remember) is 
gone.   

I have no expansion slot RAM and the 1 mb is divided with 638K in the
RAMdisk and 386K TPA.

A workaround that works sometimes is to cut the whole file, switch to 
a new name, abandoning the edit in the process, and paste the cut text,
then save the new file.  Sometimes it works and sometimes the new
file cannot be saved either.  The other workaround is to strap on
the serial interface and copy your backup data back onto the 95.

After having had my 95 for a couple of months I'm beginning to wonder
if anyone on the development team ever actually uses the 95.  It seems
to me to be just the inverse of the Wizard.  The Wizard had crappy
hardware but excellent applications; the HP hardware is nice but the
apps suck.

Hey HP, why not make an "engineering" version of this thing - you know,
rediscover your roots.  Include DOS and sysmgr as an API, then give us more
RAM in place of all that wasted ROM space that now contains 123 and
the other blue keys.  Then we could install apps that work.  If you 
REALLY have to install an app, put something like MathCAD or TK!Solver
or even an HP-4{1,8} emulator onboard.

John
-- 
John De Armond, WD4OQC        | What's the difference between Jane Fonda
Rapid Deployment System, Inc. | and Bill Clinton?  Hanoi Jane went to 
Marietta, Ga                  | Viet Nam.              
jgd@dixie.com                 | Need public access in Atl?  Write me.
From: wong@hpcc01.corp.hp.com (Lai Wong)
Date: Mon, 13 Apr 1992 17:08:48 GMT
Subject: Re: HP-95 password /automatic
Organization: the HP Corporate notes server