umapd51@cc.ic.ac.uk (03/01/90)
Answers to some recent questions on Portfolio, Organiser, HP28, rumours. It was good to see some responses to the recent comments that this area has become an HP28 forum. We should not live by the HP28 alone [though, at the moment, I seem to be doing so since my HP28 book is the only one selling well ;-) ]. I used to have the impression that this board splits 50% on the latest top-end HP (the 28 at present), and 50% on other less expensive or older HP models (42, 27, 41, 71B) and other makes. Scenario 1) in Frank Wales' recent posting seems to explain this well. The much-heralded and presumably soon-to-be-released new product from HP will probably swamp us for a few weeks though! Maybe that will be a suitable time to fork a new area. Portfolio: Michael Doherty reports trouble with file transfer. I checked with someone at DIP (the UK designers). If you are using Parallel Transfer, be sure you are receiving from LPT1. Further, there is a known problem transferring to PCs which use old versions (pre-1985-ish) of the Phoenix BIOS. Ask your dealer or Atari or DIP for a software fix (a TSR) to this. DIP are actively developing the product, and they should soon get connected to this area. Psion Organiser: Tony Stieber's enthusiastic description of this unit was a pleasure to see. The somewhat surprising character set provided by the display is dictated by the choice of display makers - the characters are built into the display unit. The HP addicts among us may well ask why HP did not evolve the HP-41 to a unit with more of the features of the Organiser. The 41 and its Wand are no longer sold, but guess who made the Wand for the Organiser - that's right, HP! Tony wishes for an address list, machine language manual, and more information - well, Psion produce a very comprehensive technical reference documentation set, intended for applications program developers (in OPL and/or machine language) and hardware designers. The Organiser II set comes on 3 360k floppies; a total of over 800kbytes. It finishes with a 3-page index of system function calls! This documentation is Psion copyright, so you will have to ask Psion for it - but yes it does exist! HP28: Thanks for all the interesting stuff that keeps coming! The HP28 clock and speed-ups have been discussed in some detail. Thanks to P Brown who told me that the HP28S reverts to "normal" speed whenever it "thinks" that the ON key has been pressed - he adds that the circuit to detect the ON key is over-sensitive. Thus most HP28S units can randomly act as if the ON key had been pressed even if it has not. ESD, a shock (maybe even putting the HP28S down), or pressing other keys can all activate this circuit. If you REALLY need FAST mode, then I suggest you reset to FAST mode every so often in long programs, and make sure you use Bob Peraino's "fuel gauge" program to check if the batteries are even beginning to be exhausted - then quit FAST mode fast! Questions about the HP28C and HP28S - there is no upgrade program - details of speeding up an HP28C and adding memory to it were given in DATAFILE (magazine of the British club for users of HP handhelds), and repeated in my book. A long and detailed list of differences between the C and the S was published in both places too - do people want them all repeated on this area? If not, I can send details to those who ask me directly (BITNET addresses if possible, please). Battery changes - yes I did mention in my book that newer HP28S units have stronger springs - but primarily in the upper compartment to improve the contact between the two batteries there - it does not help much in removing the lower battery. The HP28 is very robust, so you can fairly safely employ a lot of force shaking out the batteries - few units retain their memory for more than a minute - has ANYONE else had the overnight memory retention described by C. Lishka? I don't understand the FETCH problem - if you press FETCH then the unit name should enter the command line and you should leave the UNITS menu. Is something different happening? New HP: There is no doubt that a new "super" HP handheld is coming. HP hoped to show it as long ago as at last Summer's meeting of the Chicago area club for users of HP handhelds. It was not ready then, but that was about 7 months ago, so... That's enough for one message! Wlodek Mier-Jedrzejowicz Space Physics, Imperial College of Science Technology & Medicine, London BITNET: MIER @ SPVA.PH.IC.AC.UK or UMAPD51 @ VAXA.CC.IC.AC.UK Disclaimer: Neither my employers nor I claim anything, but I hope the above is correct and may be of some use.