dont@tekig1.UUCP (Don Taylor) (03/20/84)
X
I hope this does not inflame the brothers of the sect.
Very simply, synthetic programming rests on a bug in the firmware of the
HP41xx. This bug allows a user, through a meaningless series of button pushes,
to poke bytes into the memory, that comprises your program and data. These
pokes allow you to dummy up the operands to instructions, basically. You dummy
up an operand and the instruction loads a counter that creates a tone outside
the normal range. You dummy up an operand and set a flag that could not be set
under normal circumstances, by a program. You dummy up an operand and access
memory differently from the usual way. That "BASICALLY" is all there is to it.
You are not modifying the firmware at all.
You are not programming in the assembly language of the base processor.
You are not microprogramming the instruction set of the base processor.
You are dummying up the data that is interpreted to be your user program
and that data entered to and created by it.
Sometimes it takes quite a while for someone from the outside to get to the
point where he understands that the explanations mean basically this.
My apologies to all those who feel it is so much more, Im sorry.
Don Taylor