Printing from HP-86B ?

[rprosperi]

I hacked JFG's sample into this simple test program:

Code:

10 ! Test program to copy a text file from HPIL DOSLINK device to a disk file
18 ON ERROR GOTO 100
20 DIM A$[120]
30 CREATE "OUTPUT:D700",80,120
40 ASSIGN# 1 TO  "OUTPUT:D700"
50 ENTER 904 ; A$
60 DISP A$[1,20]
70 IF A$[1,4]="*EOF" THEN GOTO 100
80 PRINT# 1 ; A$
90 GOTO 50
100 ASSIGN# 1 TO  *
101 IF ERRN #0 THEN DISP "Error";ERRN ;"at line";ERRL 
110 END

The program is intended to accept up to 80 lines of text (120 chars long) and write them to records in the OUTPUT data file on disk.

When run, the program creates the data file, and continues to run, but no data is displayed; the program seems to run 'forever' requiring RESET to regain control. Further testing showed it basically hangs forever on the initial ENTER command.

I suspect DOSLINK sent the first line of the test file, and the program is waiting for the rest of the 120 bytes in the first record. Fixed length records may be required here.

Since Series-80 has no native TEXT file support, it's not surprising that it doesn't simply treat the received data as "lines of text". The GETSAVE binPRGM may shed some light, more exploring to do here, just thought I'd share some info for others following the thread and trying stuff.