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Dave Britten · 05-18-2015, 08:08 PM

(05-18-2015 07:29 PM)TASP Wrote: I wouldn't worry about the capacitors. HP bought good stuff. There is some risk to taking a machine apart, like the screw posts breaking, if it works it works. I have 6, and 5 are fine, and #6 was bought knowing I am looking for a HP41CL donor body.

That's kind of what I figured. If the caps have held up this long, they must be pretty good. And since opening HP calculators without damage ranges from "tricky" to "impossible", I'll leave the guts alone unless it becomes necessary.

(05-18-2015 07:29 PM)TASP Wrote: XMem evaporates whenever main memory goes poof. If you're going to learn synthetics with a similarly steep learning curve to myself, it's the price of admission to really wringing the last particle of performance from your machine. If you aren't into synthetics and live in a humid climate, I wouldn't worry about the dreaded Memory Lost too much.

Yeah, I don't usually have issues with memory corruption on HPs, so as long as I don't go wild with synthetics, it ought to be fine. And if I mess with synthetics, it won't be so much for performance, but for doing things you simply can't do otherwise. At least if I do go down that rabbit hole, it wouldn't take all day to rekey 1-2 KB of programs.

(05-18-2015 07:29 PM)TASP Wrote: If I may ask, was the decision between a CV and CX easy ?? (I have 2 Cs, a CV, and 3 CXs now, 2 which have been modified, woot!)

It mostly just came down to what was available, and conditions and price. I figure a CV with X Functions gets you pretty close to a CX, and I can hunt for a Time module if I want that. Not too worried about the text editor. Ruling out the C was pretty easy, though; not nearly enough memory for all the utility programs I want to keep loaded.

(05-18-2015 07:44 PM)TASP Wrote: I see I neglected the overlay questions. Black ones aren't too good for pencil. Back in the 80s I was really into rub on lettering (do they still make that these days?) but I see 20+ years of storage hasn't been kind to it.

I've seen suggestions in the archives of carefully whittling out the divider between the EEX key and the <-- and using the back side of the overlays. I haven't tried that, but I'd say it's on my (lengthy) to do list.

I'm not sure if my P-Touch goes small enough to make key labels (I'm usually trying to make BIG labels with that machine) if it does, I am probably going to use that.

Good luck finding the tape except on auction sites. Seems like anything I want is considered unusual. White on clear, or black on clear, if it went small enough, would be fine. Trimming with scissors and careful application is taxing my skill set as I approach 60 however. I did put some larger labels on my HPIL modules last night, and I can tell them apart now. White on clear worked fine for that.

My P-Touch definitely doesn't have tape that small, though choosing a small font and trimming might be viable. I'll have to see if I can find some kind of thin matte plastic that I can feed through a laser printer. I'm handy enough with an X-Acto knife that I could at least make something functional that doesn't look like a complete travesty, assuming I can find a good template. I have to visit Staples later to look for a case anyway, so I'll see what they've got available in heavier stock.

For now, I can at least do single-letter mnemonics like with the 32S. Prime factors on F, permutations on P, combinations on C, etc.