Sparcom General Chemistry Application Pac

[gege]

(08-16-2023 12:12 PM)acapde Wrote:  

(08-16-2023 08:30 AM)gege Wrote:  Hello,

@acapde, can I add it to my shared rom collection?

Of course, that will be nice. I'm already working on some improvements regarding plotting with units. Hope I have a new version soon.

In case you are interested, I had improved the Celestial Navigation Pac, it runs error free on HP49/50 now. This is the link: https://www.hpcalc.org/details/9406

Thank you! Have a good day.

Hello,

Thank you acapde, I would update my collection when I have a little more time. I would also take the opportunity to test all my rom on HP50G to update the compatibility table.

[acapde]

Hi,

You can find here the latest version of Sparcom General Chemistry App Pac
https://1drv.ms/u/s!Ao3jLWtpNA02gZcm-Wwo...Q?e=42sdBN

It runs on HP49 and HP50.

I fixed all the limitations found on the previous version, I even corrected some of the bugs present on the original HP48 implementation.

This should be the final compilation unless a new problem is found.

Best regards.

[BruceH]

(06-05-2023 03:36 AM)Eric Rechlin Wrote:  Unfortunately, Sparcom is no more. It eventually was renamed to da Vinci, and then totally disappeared

As an aside, I seem to recall Mega explaining that he renamed the company because Sun Microsystems' legal people contacted him claiming that "Sparc" was a Sun trademark and they wanted him to stop using it.

The fact that "Sparcom" was pronounced "spar-com" not "sparc-om" cut no ice and they were insistent. At which point he then showed that he'd registered the Sparcom name long before Sun registered Sparc and - by their logic - perhaps they were infringing his trademark?

It was resolved by him agreeing to change the company name if Sun paid the costs. Bizarrely, however, he didn't change the name to da Vinci! Sun were happy to let him use "Sparcom Computer Systems" or some such, just as long as he didn't use "Sparcom" on its own.

No idea what caused him to later change to da Vinci - but it sounds a lot better and I'm surprised it was available as a name anyway. :-)

[gege]

(09-04-2023 04:50 PM)acapde Wrote:  You can find here the latest version of Sparcom General Chemistry App Pac
https://1drv.ms/u/s!Ao3jLWtpNA02gZcm-Wwo...Q?e=42sdBN

Thank you for this update.
it would be interesting if you could describe your process (tools used) that you are using to perform this update.

[acapde]

Hi gege,

This is mostly the software I use:

On PC:
Emu48 by Christoph Gießelink and Sébastian Carlier
Debug4x Version 2.2 Build 168 by William G. Graves
HPUserEdit version 6.0.0.916 by Roger B. Reyes
HPCONV / HPDIS version 1.4.0 by Eduardo M Kalinowski

On HP48:
Library Cracker G(x) version 1.53 by HPMANIAC
Jazz version 6.8 by Mika Heiskanen and Jan Brittenson.

On HP50:
Development lib (lib # 256)

In a nutshell, I “explode” the lib(s) with LibCracker, save the individual files to a PC, convert those files to HP49/50 format using HPCONV. This utility works very well but it’s not perfect, so I need to manually “massage” some of the offending files. The general chemistry app has about 400 files across 3 libraries, so if only 10% fails during the conversion, I end up with 40 files to debug! Some problems are easy to fix, like changing keycodes and adjusting display elements, some others are more complex like machine language routines crashing or SysRPL programs misbehaving. Sometimes I re-write the entire routine if I can’t find an easier fix.
I use Debug4x to debug (of course!), write new SysRPL routines and create libraries from SysRPL or machine code routines. HPUserEdit is useful to debug UserRPL routines.
I use the HP50 development lib to create libraries from UserRPL programs and Jazz is handy to disassemble machine code.

Unfortunately there isn’t a fully automated solution that I can think of (maybe ChatGPT, one day!). I was considering to write some PC scripts to facilitate the tasks but I haven’t done it yet.

Hope this helps.

[gege]

Thank you acapde for the explanations. I will have to try now.

[acapde]

(09-07-2023 10:59 AM)gege Wrote:  Thank you acapde for the explanations. I will have to try now.

Sounds very good. Just to let you know that I'm currently porting the Sparcom Math Pac 2.10.

Keep in mind that several Sparcom pacs use LIB834 (James Donnelly's Toolkit) and LIB786 (JD's Data Browser), I ported those already (part of the General Chemistry Pac). The toolkit might have some routines that don't work since I only debugged those used by the Chem pac, however I can check the rest to make sure all is good. The data browser should work 100%, as far as I can tell.

Just send me a private message if I can be of any assistance.

Best regards.

[rprosperi]

(09-07-2023 06:36 PM)acapde Wrote:  [snip]
Keep in mind that several Sparcom pacs use LIB834 (James Donnelly's Toolkit) and LIB786 (JD's Data Browser), I ported those already (part of the General Chemistry Pac). The toolkit might have some routines that don't work since I only debugged those used by the Chem pac, however I can check the rest to make sure all is good. The data browser should work 100%, as far as I can tell.
[snip]

I think versions of both of Jim's utilities would be useful and appreciated on the 50g, so here's 1 vote for that, but clearly this is not urgent or needed for any particular purpose at the moment; but I know that having them available will make creating certain kids of new 50g apps a lot easier.

Jim is planning to attend HHC in a few weeks in Orlando, I'll be sure to tell him these may be updated for 50g! I'm fairly sure this is about the last thing he's expecting to hear...

[acapde]

[/quote]
Jim is planning to attend HHC in a few weeks in Orlando, I'll be sure to tell him these may be updated for 50g! I'm fairly sure this is about the last thing he's expecting to hear...
[/quote]

That's funny! Initially I didn't know this was his Programmer's ToolKit until I found a hidden "About" subprogram with that information... and that was actually very helpful because then I was able to get good documentation and learned what each routine was supposed to do.

His coding style is not easy to follow, at least for me, much more advanced than my SysRPL skills. I ended up with a headache more than once while trying to reverse-engineer his work!

[rprosperi]

Go to Eric's site here, and put "Donnelly" into the search, you'll like the results. Eric has scanned nearly all of Jim's products from the period, many of which I sent. There are a few other products he made (some on 71B, some 48) for which we haven't been able to locate the manuals yet, so the search continues. If anyone has any manuals of Jim's other products, please contact Eric, as he'd love to add them to the collection for the community to enjoy.

Thanks again!

[$Calculus_HP]

(06-13-2023 01:50 PM)MattGreer Wrote:  

(06-05-2023 08:42 AM)gege Wrote:  If you are interested by other card for the HP48, I shared the ones I was able to recover with the documentation.
https://mega.nz/folder/c8N0wbzS#lTzpYl9ewyBSuIBjQq9v_w

And if you have one not listed feel free to share if you want.

You are the real hero my friend. This is amazing. Thank you!!

i'm interested of this library but i would like to know how i can install it over my IOS Smartphone
I think is possible to load by load object but i don't know if can work properly.

[gege]

Hello,

I don't know the possibility of the iOS 48 emulator. On Android I use Emu48 which works like the windows version. Maybe it's the same on iOS.

You have 2 kinds of library :

1. Library files in Lxxx.lib format, for this case you can use the menu "Load Object" and select Lxxx.bin file (one at a time) and save it to a port (ex: 1 STO). Repeat this for each Lxxx.bin file. Sometime Lxxx.bin file are to big, so in this case, you need to merge port 1 to ram and store the Lxxx.bin to port 2 or upper (create a ram car with the menu).
2. Library file Name.bin format, for this case You first need to convert the file to unpacked with ROM2EMU.EXE. Then in the emultator in the settings you can "Plug" the Port 2 and select the file.
   

Don't forget to switch off and on the HP48 to activate the library.
Hope this works the same on iOS.

[$Calculus_HP]

(09-26-2023 09:47 AM)gege Wrote:  Hello,

I don't know the possibility of the iOS 48 emulator. On Android I use Emu48 which works like the windows version. Maybe it's the same on iOS.

You have 2 kinds of library :

1. Library files in Lxxx.lib format, for this case you can use the menu "Load Object" and select Lxxx.bin file (one at a time) and save it to a port (ex: 1 STO). Repeat this for each Lxxx.bin file. Sometime Lxxx.bin file are to big, so in this case, you need to merge port 1 to ram and store the Lxxx.bin to port 2 or upper (create a ram car with the menu).
2. Library file Name.bin format, for this case You first need to convert the file to unpacked with ROM2EMU.EXE. Then in the emultator in the settings you can "Plug" the Port 2 and select the file.
   

Don't forget to switch off and on the HP48 to activate the library.
Hope this works the same on iOS.

Thanks a lot !