HP41 plus Nov64d or DM41x

[highfell]

I am a longtime lurker but may have posted in the old Forums.

I was a high level coder in my youth and started my interest in calculators with the (“superb”) Commodore PR100. In those school days I could never afford a machine like the HP41 and in fact I had never heard of it until I stumbled across the excellent I41CX for IOS. I fell in love with the concept of the HP41 and managed to get a halfnut CV in VG condition together with a working card reader, printer, XFunctions and Time modules. I also have a loose leaf PPC rom manual - but no PPC rom, but to be honest I didn’t really use it, but now some five years later and with more time to kill, I have decided to have some fun with it.

I fancy writing the odd programme and doing geeky things with the Calculator like synthetic programming and making it do some silly things. So just kind of noobing versus doing anything serious.

So my dilemma is should I get a Nov64d (I have been in touch with Diego, who was very helpful) or for a similar price get a DM41X.

My gut says it will be more fun with the real thing and given I have the i41cx - i already have an emulated version of the machine. But am I just being nostalgic, and the DM41 is really the way forward ?

Is there something to be said for having the “real” keyboard of the DM41. Is the 4 line screenbig advantage? Is loading Roms onto the Dm41 much easier than using a Nov64d ?


I would welcome some views of those who are in the know.


I also have some questions about using the Nov64d.

1. It appears that with Hepax preloaded , you have room for 8 other roms ? Do I or can I keep the XFunction and Time modules in place with the Nov64 installed ?
2. I have an old Mac Book pro on which I can run XP on Virtual Box, so I assume I could load Roms via these route ? I do not have any window based PCs.
3. With the Hepax , I can save my programs via that route or use my card reader.
4. My card reader seems to chew my battery life ! Does the Nov64 suffer from the same problem?

Anyway, all comments & views welcomed.

[johnb]

I think which one you get is [almost] purely a matter of opinion and likes/dislikes.

ObDisclaimer: I own a 41cx and am trying to justify spending 3x my usual cost-of-calculator on a DM41. I speak only for myself here.

My thoughts are:

• If you want the "full HP experience" because you're just playing around, I would use your real 41cx and spend the money on the module...
• If you are planning to do some serious work, or carry your calc around, get the DM41.
  

My reasoning is as follows:

1. Only the real thing will feel like the real thing. If you're re-imagining your youth and you're doing it not only for fun but also for the visceral "feel" of doing so, then only the real thing will do. [Edit: You should pay close attention to what @blackjetrock has to say here regarding fun factor.]
2. I find that when I'm doing any more than "just the quick calculation" on any of the calculators in my "daily driver rotation," I reach for one with two lines, or I reach for the 48g so I can see more of the stack.
3. Continuing that thought, I didn't realize how much I like having more than 4 stack levels. Are they necessary for real work? Of course not! Are they convenient sometimes? Absolutely.
4. Nothing else beats the high precision arithmetic of the modern SwissMicros machines.
5. Finally, I am given to understand that the build quality of the SwissMicros machines is really quite something to behold, at least in regards to the case/housing and such. If I were planning on carrying my calculator in places where I might damage and/or lose it, I'd rather it happen to an expensive-but-replaceable DM41 than to an out-of-production HP-41cx.
   

Having said all this, since I have the 41cx already, I personally would buy the DM41 and have both... unless I really really wanted the Nov64d module and had a clear usage envisioned for it.

Just my $0.02 here. Not sure how helpful this might be, maybe just some food for thought.

[TallKey]

(07-06-2023 10:05 AM)highfell Wrote:  My gut says it will be more fun with the real thing and given I have the i41cx - i already have an emulated version of the machine. But am I just being nostalgic, and the DM41 is really the way forward ?

Is there something to be said for having the “real” keyboard of the DM41. Is the 4 line screenbig advantage? Is loading Roms onto the Dm41 much easier than using a Nov64d ?


I would welcome some views of those who are in the know.


I also have some questions about using the Nov64d.

1. It appears that with Hepax preloaded , you have room for 8 other roms ? Do I or can I keep the XFunction and Time modules in place with the Nov64 installed ?
2. I have an old Mac Book pro on which I can run XP on Virtual Box, so I assume I could load Roms via these route ? I do not have any window based PCs.
3. With the Hepax , I can save my programs via that route or use my card reader.
4. My card reader seems to chew my battery life ! Does the Nov64 suffer from the same problem?

Anyway, all comments & views welcomed.

You have a CV, TIME, XFUNCTIONS, CR, get the Diego module. That is my quick summary. No HP-IL with the 41X.

Multi line 41X display is a welcome feature and more on it below.

Very easy to load/switch ROMs on the 41X.

1-Yes on the HP41 and the 64d module, use with care (XROM module numbers can conflict, and be wary of conflicts in ROM program names being the same). HEPAX has many XFUNCTIONs functions, see clonix41.org for the HEPAX manuals.

2-Not tested VB and 64d flashing. Given the Mac is old, best COA is a W10/11 laptop with a intel 8000 series CPU or newer (my they are cheap).**

3-Saving programs to PC is not straight forward, have not ran through the steps. It is documented on this site and on clonix41.org. Yes, you can use your CR to save programs with the 64d module attached.

4-No

There are things I really do not like about the 41X. Keyboard labels, inaccurate battery level (one bar down and I get intermittent MEMORY LOST). One size fits all display (width) and character zoom problems in PRGM. Pluses are 41X to PC interface, speed, multi line display, is a CX plus XMEMORY and the batteries are cheap. The 41X is a good tribute calculator, not a great one.

See this and this, for additional good experiences with the HP41 ecosystem.

**Please do not use XP. Windows 10 runs unactivated. Meaning no dollars spent on the a license and you avoid the security pitfalls of an unsupported OS. I have ran 10 and 11 unactivated (no dollars spent on a license), for years. Which is great of MS and is great for spinning up and testing VMs.

[Sylvain Cote]

(07-06-2023 10:05 AM)highfell Wrote:  I fell in love with the concept of the HP41 and managed to get a halfnut CV in VG condition together with a working card reader, printer, XFunctions and Time modules.

Nice setup!

(07-06-2023 10:05 AM)highfell Wrote:  I also have a loose leaf PPC rom, but to be honest I didn’t really use it,
...
I fancy writing the odd programme and doing geeky things with the Calculator like synthetic programming and making it do some silly things. So just kind of noobing versus doing anything serious.

Since you like synthetic programming, you should take time to study the PPC ROM manual, the synthetic routines inside it are excellent.
The PPC journals, is also a great place to learn synthetic programming, they are available in PDF format at these locations:

• PPC Archive (v2.43, latest)
• PPC Archive (v2.41, part of HHC 2022 USB Drive)
  

(07-06-2023 10:05 AM)highfell Wrote:  So my dilemma is should I get a Nov64d (I have been in touch with Diego, who was very helpful) or for a similar price get a DM41X.

Since you already have an original HP-41 setup, IMHO the NoV-64d is a better option.

(07-06-2023 10:05 AM)highfell Wrote:  But am I just being nostalgic, and the DM41 is really the way forward ?

Not really, the original HP-41 and the DM41X are two separate hardware platform.

The DM41X is the cheapest solution overall when you start from scratch.
It has a modern hardware architecture, a big screen, it is very fast, it has a USB interface for file transfer, run a modified version of the 41CX-OS and several other features.
Unfortunately, the DM41X does not support HP-IL nor any of the plug in custom hardware.

The HP-41 is the gold standard, it is compatible with everything and it is extensible through its plug in ports, but it is slow when compared to the DM41X.
Fullnut versions of 41's can be upgraded with a 41CL main board which is a fully compatible step up from the original board.
A 41CL v5 board can store up to 1024 ROMs, comes with 500+ ROMs pre-loaded, add Q-ROMs, Expanded Memory, can run up to 50 times faster than the original board, etc.

The philosophical difference between the DM41X and the original HP-41, is that the former is a finite system while the latter is an open ended system.

(07-06-2023 10:05 AM)highfell Wrote:  Is there something to be said for having the “real” keyboard of the DM41.

The DM41X uses the same hardware platform as the DM42 but has the new key domes that resolves all keyboard issues the first generation of DM42 had.
The DM41X keyboard layout is a little different than the HP41, if you are not used to the original layout then it is not important but if you do, some adjustment ou your part will be needed.

(07-06-2023 10:05 AM)highfell Wrote:  Is the 4 line screenbig advantage?

Not really, some improvements has been made, but the DM41X is still running the original 41OS that was made for 1 line, so YMMV.

(07-06-2023 10:05 AM)highfell Wrote:  Is loading Roms onto the Dm41 much easier than using a Nov64d ?

Clonix-D, NoV-64d, 41CL uses the ROM format which is just a 10-bit to 8-bit encoded raw format.
The DM41X uses the MOD format which has a header describing the module and several payloads that include the ROM and some metadata.

(07-06-2023 10:05 AM)highfell Wrote:  I also have some questions about using the Nov64d.
1. It appears that with Hepax preloaded , you have room for 8 other roms ?

HEPAX ROMs is enabled by default, but can be deactivated if you do not need it.
NoV-64d has 64K of RAM that can be used as HEPAX RAM or as Q-ROM.
NoV-64d has 48K of Flash that can be used as ROM.
Not all that memory can be mapped into the HP-41 address space at the same time,

(07-06-2023 10:05 AM)highfell Wrote:  Do I or can I keep the XFunction and Time modules in place with the Nov64 installed ?

Yep you can.

(07-06-2023 10:05 AM)highfell Wrote:  2. I have an old Mac Book pro on which I can run XP on Virtual Box, so I assume I could load Roms via these route ? I do not have any window based PCs.

Yes you can.
My setup is a MacBook Pro Intel running macOS Monterey.
I run Diego software on Windows 7 Pro 32-bit under Parallels Desktop.

(07-06-2023 10:05 AM)highfell Wrote:  3. With the Hepax , I can save my programs via that route or use my card reader.

The best route to backup and restore HEPAX RAM is through HP-IL.
HP-41 + HP-IL module (82160A) + PIL-Box + pyILPER on macOS + virtual cassette + LIF Utilities.

(07-06-2023 10:05 AM)highfell Wrote:  4. My card reader seems to chew my battery life ! Does the Nov64 suffer from the same problem?

No it does not.

More infomation on NoV-64d can be found on Diego website, User's Guide and in my HPCC 2020 presentation.

Sylvain

edit: typos

[highfell]

Thank you taking the time to respond and for your thoughts. I agree that the best way forward is to go down the Nov62d route.

I have since found an original copy of Jarett’s book “Synthetic programming made easy”, which I am looking forward to reading and hopefully understanding it. I created the BG and saved it to one of my magnetic card.

I have also been trying to figure out the memory map of the HP41 and how to “place” the roms stored in Nov64 into the unused ports on the HP41:

1. It seems like there is a way in which you can instruct on the HP41 machine itself which Roms are active on your HP41 into which ports - by somehow storing different values into the H100 location
2. BUT is it also the case that whenever you configure the Nov64d with the burner , you also dictate which Roms are initially active within the Hp41.

I assume I can choose 32K of Rom space in addition to the Hepax 16K , so the question is which Roms to choose to begin. I am drawn to PPC 8K (as I have an original print out) and because of its iconic status ; Nov Chap 4K as it is designed to assist in using the Nov64d; CCD Rom 8K ; Games Pac 4K Rom

[highfell]

My new Nov64d arrived this morning. Diego kindly preloaded the following Roms in accordance with my instructions : Rom bank one and live from Day 1 : PPC, Icebox, GamePak, and Rom bank 2 : CCD (Raymond), NovChap, Zenrom, Isene.

I managed to Swap the Rom Banks by using either Hexedit, or the N100, N200 instructions in Novchap, or Icebox but it took me a little while to realise that for the Hexedit instruction to work you need to switch the calculator off and then on.

Let the fun commence.

[Diego Diaz]

Hi,

Good to know you've received your module in good shape.

Enjoy! :-)

Diego.

[MeindertKuipers]

Dear user highfell,

You sent me a PM thorugh the forum, and I tried to reply. It seems that you have Private Messaging disabled, so I cannot reply. Please enable it so I can respond,

Thanks,

[highfell]

(08-15-2023 09:08 AM)MeindertKuipers Wrote:  Dear user highfell,

You sent me a PM thorugh the forum, and I tried to reply. It seems that you have Private Messaging disabled, so I cannot reply. Please enable it so I can respond,

Thanks,

Sorry - had no idea. Have now resolved it