Blue Skying - A 71B Today

[Les Bell]

(06-26-2014 08:11 PM)Garth Wilson Wrote:  I sometimes wrote without line numbers, in my text editor [...]

At this point, I only have the 71B itself - I was curious about the machine and so got one just to play with. Despite being a dyed-in-the-wool RPN guy, I'm liking it much more than I expected - there are some very clever and elegant ideas in there.

(06-26-2014 08:11 PM)Garth Wilson Wrote:  Regarding the multi-line display [...] Although I have the 80-column video interface and monitor
[...]
HPIL was perfect for so many things, and I used it a lot

I figured that a single-line display would be fine for use as a calculator, for running applications and for simple program - especially if one could connect to the machine and use a full-sized screen and keyboard. However, after I posted I remembered that Python uses indentation to denote program structure, and a single-line display would not make that particularly clear. On the other hand, the answer might be as simple as marking the bezel so that the level of indentation is more obvious.

I'd completely forgotten about the HP-IL video display. Darn it - while I have an HP-IL tape drive and printer, I'd promised SWMBO (She Who Must Be Obeyed) that I was done acquiring vintage HP gear for a while, but it looks like I could be in trouble . . .

(06-26-2014 08:11 PM)Garth Wilson Wrote:  The 71 is where I got my introduction to Forth, and I was absolutely enthralled with it, in spite of the fact that what's in the 71's Forth/Assember module is an extremely poor implementatin of it. Fortunately, since it's Forth, I was able to improve and extend it a lot, even without learning the assembly language.

I think I'll give the Forth ROM a miss - so many toys, and so little time . . .