HP 48 SYSEVAL

[MNH]

(01-07-2021 03:06 AM)Giuseppe Donnini Wrote:  Judging from your avatar, you seem to be a surveyor and might therefore be familiar with SMI's software, which was very powerful and very elegantly written (one of its main programmers was by the way the same Rick Grevelle you mention in your post). Well, SMI uses this second method for handling job files, whose names can therefore begin with, or even consist entirely of, digits (at least in the software I tested, which is version 6 of the Construction V package).

Yes, I'm a surveyor, and I did use SMI's software for years. I do know that Rick rewrote the version 6 software in assembly language, which then became version 7. It was so fast that sometimes the screen pixels appeared smeared, like they couldn't keep up with the program output. I never named any job files that began with a digit. It was wondeful how SMI, unlike TDS, kept improving their data storage. It went from "PACKING AND SAVING" data to instantaneous storage. SMI used to call it SMI Smart Memory. Memory management is absolutely critical when choosing a good data collector. Although I never learned SYSRPL, I used to like looking at SMI's program variables like BANKNIBS and FLUSHBUFF. It's a shame that SMI software is no longer sold, however a number of dedicated users are still using it on HP 48's. Thank you for your excellent explanation of parsing! I may want to get involved in SYSRPL programming and resurrect SMI's version 7, I'd write it for the Emu48, just for my own gratification.