Need a couple of hints: HP-71B & PILBox

[smp]

Hello again, folks,

My HPIL module for my HP-71B arrived today. I installed it and VER$ says it's version 1A.

I've attached my PILBox, and I have it talking with my MacBook Pro using pyILPer. I dug out my old DAT files. The main one I have contains PILTERM.BAS and KEYBOARD.LEX. I copied both into my HP-71B, and when I RUN PILTERM on the HP-71B, the Terminal1 screen in pyILPer clears and indicates "Assigning: display.. printer.. keyboard.. done"

After that, if I do LIST PILTERM on the HP-71B, I get a nice listing out on the Terminal1 screen in pyILPer, and I get the HP-71B prompt after I type ATTN on the HP-71B.

However, when I'm in pyILPer, if I type on my Mac keyboard, nothing shows up - I finally figured out that if I type a command line (blind) on my Mac, and then hit ENDLINE on the HP-71B, then the command shows up, character by character, and (if I didn't make any typing mistakes) gets executed.

This doesn't seem correct. I was hoping that I could simply use my pyILPer display and Mac keyboard for operation after getting everything all set up.

What am I missing here? Can anyone offer me a couple of hints to get fully up and running?

TIA!

smp

[Christoph Giesselink]

Maybe the PIL-Box firmware version. When you open the PIL-Box there's a sticker with the version number on the CPU.

You need minimum v1.6 for the keyboard in the terminal program to operate with the 71B.

[smp]

Hi Christoph, and thanks for your reply.

My PILBox CPU sticker says PILBox v2.1

smp

[jsi]

(11-29-2019 08:29 PM)smp Wrote:  if I type a command line (blind) on my Mac

The focus must be set to the terminal window tab of pyILPER. You also should check the configuration of the keyboard type in the "configuration pulldown menu". The current setting is the disabled entry in the menu.

I did a check of the pyILPER terminal keyboard with my HP-71 (HP-IL ROM 1B) and PIL-Box firmware 2.1 on mac OS Catalina (VMware guest) right now with no issues so far.

If the problem is persisting I recommend to:
- Use the FTDI VCP driver for macOS (if not already installed)
- Do a fresh installation of the actual miniconda and pyILPER version
- Install KEYBOARD.LEX and PILTERM.BAS from the virtual disk which is part of the latest pyILPER release.

Regards
Joachim

[smp]

Thanks a million, Joachim!

I did not find a setting for the keyboard in the configuration pull-down menu initially, so I wasn't thinking about that. When I confirmed that there was no obvious setting, I took a look at the manual, and found that I had to enable IDY frames in order for the keyboard to operate properly. I did so, and now all is operating as I thought it should be.

Thanks so much for posting your advice!

smp