A question re go71

[Valentin Albillo]

.
Hi, all:

Several years ago I bought the go71 app for my Android smartphone and had no trouble using it, though eventually it got stolen and by the time it was returned to me I'd gotten another phone and forgot about it.

Now, recently, I was presented with a gift Samsung tablet (Android too, of course), began to install various apps and remembered go71 so I bought it (again !), installed it and proceeded to test it.

I knew in advance that the app is not optimized for tablets and so it uses the big 1920px screen as if it were running on a phone so I wasn't surprised by the XXXL keys, etc. but I've run into a serious usability problem, namely:

- go71 comes with the Hp-IL and Math Roms and plenty of configurable RAM, which is great
- but it runs incredibly slow, some 10 times slower than the real physical HP-71B (a simple loop from 1 to 100 takes 10 seconds !?)
- it seems that it can emulate a multi-line display but it only shows the emulated LCD

I've consulted the scarce documentation and it mentions that there are some configuration menus to select the running speed, the multiline display, the amount of RAM, the installed ROMs, and all kind of goodies, but the instructions to access this configuration seem to only apply to smartphones, not tablets, and so I've been unable to access the configuration menus from my tablet go71, which makes the app next to unusable.

I've tried everything I could think of but to no avail. I've sent messages to the author but no reply so far, so if any of you have installed go71 on an Android tablet and/or can tell me how to access the configuration menu from my Samsung tablet in order to increase the speed and use the multiline display, I would be very grateful indeed.

Thanks in advance for any and all help, much appreciated.
Regards.
V.
.

[Jlouis]

Long press the back button in the tablet (press and wait a few seconds)

A menu should appear. Press settings

Choose the speed desired.

You can choose the size of the app, if you find big. Choose one of those mini screens.

I hope that help.

Cheers

[Didier Lachieze]

I have go71 installed on my Sony Z3 Compact tablet running Android 6.01.



To access the settings menu I press the three dots on the lower right corner of the screen, but I remember some discussions about go41cx where a Samsung phone owner didn't had these three dots on his screen, if the long press on the back button mentioned by Jlouis doesn't work you may try the trick I referred to in this post.

To access to the RAM and ROM configuration press the go71 LCD screen, but then you need also the three dots soft button to do any change.

(note: if you kept on your tablet the same Google account as on your stolen phone you should not have had to buy again go71, as the apps you buy are linked to your Google account and not to your device)

[Valentin Albillo]

.
Hi, Jlouis and Didier Lachieze:

Thank you very much for your replies, which I'll comment briefly:

Jlouis Wrote:Long press the back button in the tablet (press and wait a few seconds). A menu should appear

That did it ! A menu appeared at the bottom of the screen with four options, "Settings", "Actions", "About" and "Toggle keyboard".

Under "Settings", there were options to change the speed (from 1x to 128x), Haptic feedback on/off, Beep feedback on/off, Miniscreeens, "Text" (a slider control) and "Full":

• I set the speed to 128x and now counting from 1 to 10000 takes just 0.7 seconds, which is indeed 128x faster than the physical calculator.
   
• I have no idea what the "Text" slider does. I notice no change after moving the slider and pressing Ok.
   
• I also have no idea what checking "Full" does. I notice no change either.
   
• the miniscreens produce some lines above the display, but selecting various values frequently results in one less line (i.e.: miniscreen 8 produces 7 lines) and never more than 9 lines (though there are miniscreens 10 and 11 available

I wonder if there's some reasonable complete documentation somewhere. The app seems to come with very little docs and I'll need it to see how to:

• import or paste a 71B program which I have as a Windows plain text file (.txt)
• output or copy some program in go71b as a text file that I can use in Windows (Emu71)
• use additional ROMs or increase the amount of RAM available

After using it for an hour or two and with no other app running in the table (not even updates or notifications) I frequently experienced freezes: the LCD display would freeze, the cursor stopped blinking, and the app didn't respond. At times it would repeat in the LCD the last keystroke pressed and played a short beep every few seconds. I had to either bring the "Actions" menu to try and exit go71b or else kill it, the ATTN key seemed unresponsive or took too long to unfreeze the app.

Might this be because 128x is too high a speed ? Some other explanation ?

Re the screen + LCD or full screen options, I've found no way to have the screen lines and the tablet keyboard visible at the same time, so I don't see how can I use these two options if I can't type anything.

Some help with all these problems/nuisances would be very appreciated, I'd love to be able to write programs or concoct/solve challenges using this go71b/tablet while on the move or at my destination (at home I'll just use Emu71, which runs rings around this thing in usability).

Didier Lachieze Wrote:To access the settings menu I press the three dots on the lower right corner of the screen, but I remember [...]

You remember correctly. My tablet has 3 physical buttons below the screen so the three dots don't ever appear but thankfully Jlouis method works perfectly.

Didier Lachieze Wrote:(note: if you kept on your tablet the same Google account as on your stolen phone you should not have had to buy again go71b, as the apps you buy are linked to your Google account and not to your device)

Yes, I know. I did the first buy and installation under a different account than the one I'm using on this new tablet so I had to buy go71b again.

I sincerely hope I can finally use it as I expected to do. The lack of documentation, lack of adaptation to my tablet's screen (the LCD display looks horrible and nearly unreadable, with pixels like golf balls, and the multi-line screen looks no better) and frequent freezing makes me doubt it will be useable. I haven't still left any feedback at the Google Play Store but right now it deserves no better than 1 star.

Thanks for any and all help.
Best regards.
V.
.

[Didier Lachieze]

Hi Valentin,

I'm not using go71b very often but I should be able to provide some answers to your questions.

(07-25-2018 09:52 PM)Valentin Albillo Wrote:  

• I have no idea what the "Text" slider does. I notice no change after moving the slider and pressing Ok.

This slider controls the size of the text for the help provided when you touch the left part of the LCD screen (Flags, Base Functions, Base statements, Math ROM, JPC-F ROM)
 

(07-25-2018 09:52 PM)Valentin Albillo Wrote:  

• I also have no idea what checking "Full" does. I notice no change either.

This setting means "Full screen", on my tablet "Full" hides the lower row with the navigation (and three dots) buttons. As you have physical buttons, it's not relevant for your tablet.
 

(07-25-2018 09:52 PM)Valentin Albillo Wrote:  

• the miniscreens produce some lines above the display, but selecting various values frequently results in one less line (i.e.: miniscreen 8 produces 7 lines) and never more than 9 lines (though there are miniscreens 10 and 11 available

On my tablet miniscreens 10 and 11 work fine and produce respectively 9 and 10 lines (10 and 11 counting the LCD screen).

(07-25-2018 09:52 PM)Valentin Albillo Wrote:  I wonder if there's some reasonable complete documentation somewhere. The app seems to come with very little docs and I'll need it to see how to:

• import or paste a 71B program which I have as a Windows plain text file (.txt)
• output or copy some program in go71b as a text file that I can use in Windows (Emu71)
• use additional ROMs or increase the amount of RAM available

The only documentation I'm aware of is in two parts:

• the description on Google Play
• this page on the author web site
  

I'm not aware of any possibility to import/export text files with go71b. You should be able to import/export LIF files but I never tried it.

Using additional ROMs or increasing the amount of RAM available is done through the config screen brought up when you press the right side of the LCD screen, however it's been a long time since I did any of these actions and I'll need to spend some time refreshing my memory. I just remember that as for go41cx you need to put the ROM binary files in a specific directory on your tablet (/Android/data/o2s.emul.hp71b/files/...) and then import them in go71b via the config screen, before being able to plug them in a port.

(07-25-2018 09:52 PM)Valentin Albillo Wrote:  After using it for an hour or two and with no other app running in the table (not even updates or notifications) I frequently experienced freezes: the LCD display would freeze, the cursor stopped blinking, and the app didn't respond.

I never experienced such freezes on my tablet but it may be because I'm not using it at 128x, or more likely because I'm not using as much as you.

(07-25-2018 09:52 PM)Valentin Albillo Wrote:  Re the screen + LCD or full screen options, I've found no way to have the screen lines and the tablet keyboard visible at the same time, so I don't see how can I use these two options if I can't type anything.

I think these options are meant to be used with an external (bluetooth) keyboard.
EDIT: once you have selected screen + LCD or full screen, then press toggle keyboard to get the tablet keyboard visible. On my tablet sometimes the keyboard is covering the bottom screen lines. Going to the Android home screen and then back to go71b solves this issue.

(07-25-2018 09:52 PM)Valentin Albillo Wrote:  I sincerely hope I can finally use it as I expected to do. The lack of documentation, lack of adaptation to my tablet's screen (the LCD display looks horrible and nearly unreadable, with pixels like golf balls, and the multi-line screen looks no better) and frequent freezing makes me doubt it will be useable. I haven't still left any feedback at the Google Play Store but right now it deserves no better than 1 star.

I'm not sure go71b is well suited for a power user such as you. It provides a nice 71b emulation on the go, the configuration is a bit cumbersome and it obviously lacks a good manual but it may not provide all the extras you have with EMU71.

On my 8" tablet the LCD display looks OK, and the keyboard size is good (on my phone it's too small). On a bigger tablet, as there is no specific adaptation to the screen size I understand this app may not look good.

[Didier Lachieze]

How to add RAM to go71b :

• turn the emulation off with f ATN
• press the right side of the LCD screen to get the config menu
  
• ensure that Rams is highlighted in the bottom line and press on port 0 to see the port 0 RAM content which is by default 16 KB
• press the 3 dots button or long press on the back button to get the actions list
  
• press new to create new RAM
  
• select the size, for example 128 KB
  
• choose a file name, for example ram128k_1
  
• press OK, you see the RAM listed on the right side of the screen
  
• press on Port 0 content
  
• press on Add Ram and select the new RAM file
  
• you have now additional 128 KB of RAM listed for port 0 on the left side of the screen
  
• press Back, turn on the emulation and type MEM: you have now 128 KB more memory
  
  

[Didier Lachieze]

How to add ROM to go71b :

• first download the binary rom file and put it with a file manager app in the directory: /Android/data/o2s.emul.hp71b/files/roms, the file extension should be .rom, for example Finance.rom
• launch go71b
• turn the emulation off with f ATN
• press the right side of the LCD screen to get the config menu
  
• ensure that Roms is highlighted in the bottom line
• press the 3 dots button or long press on the back button to get the actions list
  
• press Import to import the rom file, it will then be listed on the right side of the screen
  
• select an empty port, for example port 1
  
• press on Port 1 contents
  
• press on Add Rom and select the rom module
  
• The rom module is now listed for port 1 on the left side of the screen
  
• press Back, turn on the emulation and type VER$ , the finance module appears in the list
  
  

[Gene]

Didier, these two posts are a great example of the help this forum is designed to provide. Thanks for your time to help out on this.

[KF6GPE]

Thanks for all the conversation about this. I am a disillusioned user of go71.

A mostly unrelated question --- has anyone gotten hard (i.e., Bluetooth or Chromebook) keyboards to work? It running on my Gemini PDA would be awesome, but it pains me to peck away at the screen when I have the real thing in front of me...

[Valentin Albillo]

.
Hi, Didier:

Wow !! Hats off !! Chapeau !! Para quitarse el sombrero !!

I'm really lost for words to express my appreciation for your posts and the time you took to create them, thank you very much indeed.

It's really a truly impressive set of posts fully answering my many questions. I never expected such a comprehensive, thorough reply, which it's also been most helpful, to the point that I now think I'll be able to make pretty good use of go71b on my tablet while on vacation, which it previously seemed somewhat doubtful.

I've printed the whole thread to a PDF document for reference, to consult and follow your instructions at my destination. I'll depart tomorrow morning and won't be able to read or post anything to this forum for a whole month or so, no internet or smartphone use where I'm staying.

Again, thank you very much for your kindness and goodbye for now, enjoy your summer vacations too. I owe you big time.

Best regards.
V.
.

[Didier Lachieze]

Hi Valentin,

I've learned a lot from this forum including from your wonderful challenges, so I'm happy when I can also contribute and share some knowledge.
Enjoy your vacations !

[Jlouis]

Hi Didier or whoever that can help,

I want to put the 41 translator Pac in the go71, but looks like this app only accepts .Rom files.

The files I found in the compendium are .bin. I tried to rename to . Rom, but it didn't work.

I didn't find any .Rom files in the net, so I'm asking if someone knows how to do it

Maybe a conversion? If yes, how?

TIA

Cheers

JL

[Didier Lachieze]

Hello Jlouis,

Unfortunately you can't use the 41 translator Pac with go71b. As mentioned on the go71b Web page: external rom support only softconfigured roms.

The 41 translator Pac is composed of 2 parts: a soft configured rom and a hard configured one which should be mapped at a fixed address.

The only hard configured rom supported by go71b is the built-in forth rom.

For the other soft configured roms that you can find in the compendium, just rename them from .bin to .rom and it should work.

[Jlouis]

(07-28-2018 09:15 PM)Didier Lachieze Wrote:  Hello Jlouis,

Unfortunately you can't use the 41 translator Pac with go71b. As mentioned on the go71b Web page: external rom support only softconfigured roms.

The 41 translator Pac is composed of 2 parts: a soft configured rom and a hard configured one which should be mapped at a fixed address.

The only hard configured rom supported by go71b is the built-in forth rom.

For the other soft configured roms that you can find in the compendium, just rename them from .bin to .rom and it should work.

Many thanks Didier.

Actually I did read Olivier site, but I didn't have a clue what softconfigured Rom was.

I will use EMU71 in my laptop then, until I install the translator in the real 71B.

Once again thanks for all your help here.

Cheers

JL

[rprosperi]

I've been thinking about getting go71b for a while; now that there is some discussion among users here, I have a couple questions:

1. Is it correct that that go71b comes with the MATH ROM and FORTH ROM pre-installed, and that they are permanent? There are screens shots showing portions of VER$ results that do not include the FORTH ROM (some do, some don't), but the text (which is definitely incomplete and confusing) seems to imply these modules are somehow installed (along with the HP-IL module) in Port-5.

2. What, if anything, does the HP-IL module allow you to do?

3. Is it correct that one can import/export 71B files between IRAM ports and an Android folder, but those files must have the .LIF header prepended to them (to provide file header details)?

4. There is a comment "show lex-ID and min-max tokens #" - does this simply mean the HELPLEX file is preinstalled?

5. I have a Moto Z Force with 5.5" (diagonal) LCD. Is go71b usable on a screen this small?

And thanks Didier for the detailed walk-through of configuring memory. Having used other emulators of Olivier's it makes sense and I'm sure I would have eventually figured it out, but your steps make it trivial plus I want to add that I too am impressed and wanted to convey thanks for the huge effort to make such a detailed tutorial. Not an easy thing to do on mybb!

[Didier Lachieze]

(07-29-2018 02:09 AM)rprosperi Wrote:  I've been thinking about getting go71b for a while; now that there is some discussion among users here, I have a couple questions:

The number of downloads for go71b on the play store is above 100, which means that it is between 100 and 500, so not a lot of active users for this app. You can make a difference !

(07-29-2018 02:09 AM)rprosperi Wrote:  1. Is it correct that that go71b comes with the MATH ROM and FORTH ROM pre-installed, and that they are permanent? There are screens shots showing portions of VER$ results that do not include the FORTH ROM (some do, some don't), but the text (which is definitely incomplete and confusing) seems to imply these modules are somehow installed (along with the HP-IL module) in Port-5.

go71b comes with the following roms built-in: Math, HP-IL, Forth, and JPC (rev F). They are listed on the top line of the config screen:



By default they are not plugged. You have to press on the rom you want to plug it. When selected, Math and HP-IL are plugged in port 5, Forth in port 4 and JPC in port 3.

(07-29-2018 02:09 AM)rprosperi Wrote:  2. What, if anything, does the HP-IL module allow you to do?

As far as I know the HP-IL loop is not implemented in go71b, so most of the functions of the HP-IL module are useless, however you can still use some of them such as TRANSFORM or the Binary operators.

(07-29-2018 02:09 AM)rprosperi Wrote:  3. Is it correct that one can import/export 71B files between IRAM ports and an Android folder, but those files must have the .LIF header prepended to them (to provide file header details)?

Yes. This allows you to import the lex files (.l71) and the BASIC programs (.b71) from the swap disks.

(07-29-2018 02:09 AM)rprosperi Wrote:  4. There is a comment "show lex-ID and min-max tokens #" - does this simply mean the HELPLEX file is preinstalled?

No. This refers to the display of the lex files on the config screen. But you can easily import the HELPEX file in an IRAM.

(07-29-2018 02:09 AM)rprosperi Wrote:  5. I have a Moto Z Force with 5.5" (diagonal) LCD. Is go71b usable on a screen this small?

You can check with one of the screen shots such as this one:



display it full screen on your phone so you can see if the LCD screen and the keys are big enough for you.

My phone has a 4.6" screen, I can use go71b on it but the keyboard is a bit too small for me. I think that it should be OK on a 5.5" screen.

[rprosperi]

Thanks Didier, all very helpful answers and this convinces me to buy go71b. I'll get it later today, which gives me a whole new flavor of 71B to explore.

Opening the full screen shot on my Moto Z, a (now obvious...) good suggestion, makes it look like it will be usable, I just hope it feels the same, I have big fingers.

Since the FORTH ROM is plugged like the others, which would only 'plug-in' the soft-configured ROM, this suggests the hard-configured ROM at E0000 is either always installed (I will check once I have this running), or it's done behind the scene when one installs the module. It should be no different to install the 41TRANS ROM, since it uses 2 ROMs of the same size, type and address as the FORTH ROM; perhaps with enough interest here, we may be able to got Olivier to add this capability too. It would be unique to have an HP emulator run an HP emulator.

As it seems one can load any HC ROM image, I suppose I can manually install the latest JPC ROM image (F05), which fixes several bugs since the original F version.

More after playing some....

Thanks again Didier.

[rprosperi]

Bought, installed and configured go71b; if careful, I can use the buttons without much problem on my phone.

I was able to create and configure RAM modules and install/remove the built-in ROMs with no issues; overall, an amazingly accurate emulation of the 71B, I am impressed.

But I have found some problems, can anyone confirm these?

I. If you create an IRAM (add RAM module per steps shown above, then FREE PORT(x) to make it IRAM) but never copy any files to it, shutting off the emulation ([f] [ON]) and turning back on will reclaim that port back into main RAM. However if you have copied a file to the IRAM, it is preserved during a power cycle, and thereafter the IRAM is preserved during power-cycle even if empty, as long as something has previously been copied there.

II. I was able to import and install a rom image, however I cannot now remove it. I copied JPCF05.ROM (renamed from .BIN) to the appropriate Android folder, then installed with no issues. I installed it into Port-3 and could see it in VER$. However I cannot remove it. This is what I did:

a. Power-off emulation
b. Touch LCD to open configuration
c. Touch ROMs
d. Touch Port-3
e. Touch "Port 3 contents" => Choose Action list opens
f. Touch Remove Chip => See msg "No chip in port" even though the JPCF05.ROM file is visibly present on the left side.
g. BACK to return to emulation
h. Power on
i. VER$ no longer shows ROM info, implying it is not installed
j. Power-off emulation
k. Touch LCD to open configuration again
l. Touch ROMs
m. Touch Port-3 (see the rom is still installed, i.e. listed on the left)
n. Press 3 dots (android options menu) => menu appears at bottom
o. Touch Delete => see "Choose Rom to delete" list
p. Touch JPCF05.ROM => see msg "JPCF05.ROM is in use!"

So some portion of jpc71b still believes the external ROM file is still being used, even though the 71B emulation itself does not 'see' the ROM.

Additional observations:

1. I can still tap the built-in "JPC" button at the top, and it does install that ROM which then works OK. But returning to the config screen shows BOTH roms (the built-in jpcrom and the previously imported JPCF05.ROM image) installed. The installed image still cannot be removed from here.

2. From the configure screen press Add ROM opens the list to choose, however the list has no items listed, even though I've confirmed the file is still in the proper folder.

3. Even causing a MEM LOST does not release the JPCF05.rom file.

Possible reasons (pure speculation):

A. Maybe Port-3 is reserved for the built-in jpcrom image?

B. Maybe the JPCF05.ROM image is troublesome since it installs several poll handlers and also hooks into the HP-IL message table.

C. Bugs in go71b? (But I'd like to have someone confirm them before reporting them as bugs to Olivier)

Thanks

[Didier Lachieze]

Hi Bob,

I've tried to reproduce the two issues without success.

I. If I create a new RAM, then make it an IRAM with FREE PORT without using it, turning the emulation off and then on doesn't claim the RAM. It still appears as IRAM.

II. I have no issues to import, install in port-3 and then remove JPC05.ROM. Here is what I get after choosing Remove Chip for Port 3:



There seems to something corrupted in your go71b installation. I would suggest to clear the data of the application (on my tablet it's in Android settings>Applications >go71b>storage) to see if it can help.

[Jlouis]

I'm having the same issue 2 as Bob.

I will try unisnstall and install everything again.

I support Bob's idea of asking Olivier to insert the hardcoded .bin 41 translator in the Go71.

JL