[misc.wanted] CASIO Electronic Diary Info wanted...

snoopy@ixos.UUCP (Snoopy Schmitz) (12/08/89)

Dear Net,

I am about to go out and buy a CASIO SF7500 electronic diary.
(For Yuppies bored with their Filofaxes ;-) )

I have some questions regarding this product, perhaps someone out
there has one and can help me.

0) How is the product ? Are you "happy" with it ? Is it useful ?
would you recommend it ?

1) Is the CASIO SF7500 (on sale in Europe) the same as the CASIO BOSS
product ? What exactly is the CASIO BOSS ?

2) I realise that one can buy a(n expensive) cable to connect the SF 7500
to an IBM PC for backup of the data etc. I wonder if someone has the make-up
of the cable, I am sure that I can make one myself. I refuse to fork out 
about 90$ for parts worth about $10. 

3) The above $90 does include some SW to run on the PC for the backup. I
doubt that there is a UNIX version. Maybe there is one, perhaps someone
out there knows. Has anyone written some software for UNIX themselves ?

4) In order to do 3) above myself, I would need to know the dataformat
of the data out of and into the SF 7500, so that I can write a proggie
myself.

MAXINT Thanks to all of you,
Love,
Snoopy
-- 
uunet!unido!ixos!snoopy -or- snoopy@ixos.uucp

"Every passing hour brings the solar system 43,000 miles closer to globular
cluster M13 in Hercules - and still there are some misfits who insist that
there is no such thing as progress." - Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

rochlin@arktos.pa.dec.com (Max Rochlin) (12/13/89)

snoopy@ixos.UUCP (Snoopy Schmitz) writes:

> I am about to go out and buy a CASIO SF7500 electronic diary.

Great choice, I bought one about seven months ago and love it.

>  What exactly is the CASIO BOSS ?

The new Marketing name for the SF-X where X > 6900.

> (complaints about the cable and cost)

There's a lot of electronics in the DB25 side of the cable.  
I haven't taken the time to decode it all.  The cable and PC
software work well, I haven't gotten a hold of the Mac version.
There is no plan yet for a native UNIX version of the SW.

> need to know the dataformat of the data out of and into the SF
> 7500, so that I can write a proggie myself.

The data format is simple ASCII, but the handshaking that goes 
on is rather significant during uploading and downloading. 
(good luck).


DATA FORMAT: ( Scheduler meets Accounting 101)

PhoneBook entries start 	:0000LAST FIRST
BusiCard Entries start		:0100COMPANY PNAME
Memos				:0200StartOfMemo
Schedule:	:0300YYYY-MM-DD STIME ETIME ATIME SchedText

Setting the low order bit on indicates a marked record eg:
PhoneBook entries start 	:0001LAST FIRST is marked

The "next line" button in text fields places a   \0D in the 
record.

Basically each record is stored in prompt order and prefixed 
with an 'area identifier.'

Very easy to edit on a worstation or PC, move to your favorite DB
or whatever.

|---------------------------------------------------------------\
|		       Revenons a nos moutons...                |
|---------------------------------------------------------------|
|   rochlin@decwrl.dec.com       {sun,uunet}saxony!madmax!max   |
|   rochlin@arktos.pa.dec.com                apple!madmax!max   | 
+---------------------------------------------------------------+

news@udenva.cair.du.edu (netnews) (12/13/89)

I looked at the Casio, but for a little more money I went with the Atari
Portfolio.  Check it out.