HP41 FOCAL notation summary or cheat sheet?

[mfleming]

Hi everyone,

While working through HP41 manuals or code listings, I find notations for a program step I'm not familiar with from reading the calculator manual. For example, in the SandMath manual I see such statements as

ST+ X(3)
ARCL X(3)
STO IND Y(2)


Obviously over the years programmers have developed shortcuts to express a series of keystrokes, but it can be a pain for someone new to the machine to track down what is meant by the notation.

Is there some sort of quick summary or cheat sheet for this that you can direct me to? Perhaps a short reading list that will cover these and other example notations and how they are used? It certainly seems like a worthwhile article to introduce new owners to their calculator without retracing 35+ years of user development.

Any pointers appreciated! Thanks everyone,
~ Mark

[Gene]

Where do you see these notations in the Sandmath manual? A page number would help.

other than the (3) on the end ST+ X(3), the ST+ X is what is shown in the display and is explained in the HP 41C owners manual. I'm not sure what the (3) would mean unless you found ST+ X three times?

If that's what it means, then the notation is what is shown in the 41c owners manual and what is also shown in the display of the 41c calculator.

?

[Ángel Martin]

(09-06-2016 02:24 AM)mfleming Wrote:  ST+ X(3)
ARCL X(3)
STO IND Y(2)

Those are just the standard STO, ST+ statements on stack arguments. I tend to add the stack# next to its "name" to make it clear and avoid ambiguities that may arise using synthetics or CPU registers; so T is #0, Z is #1, Y is #2, X is #3, etc... nothing more!
Sorry if that confused anybody.

[mfleming]

(09-06-2016 05:12 AM)Ángel Martin Wrote:  I tend to add the stack# next to its "name" to make it clear and avoid ambiguities that may arise

Aha, that's the answer then! Register arithmetic and indirection are user manual basics, but the indexing notation (3) confused me. To answer Gene's question (citation should have been given) the page number in question was page 35 of 198, SandMath_44 revision "Q." I'm working my way through the manual and I'm quite amazed at what the module can do.

I've seen other instructions I wasn't able to reproduce, including one recently in a fractions program in the old HP41 code archive. I'll have to dig that up and post it. I guess I was hoping, as the article title suggests, that there might be a good intro article or list of suggested reading for those new to 41 programming. No shortcuts to success though!

Thanks,
~Mark

[Gene]

No problem on not having the page citation :-) I just tried a search in the sandmath manual and couldn't find a (3). My PDF search didn't show it.

I thought you might have found something new!