HP-71B & PILBox & Remote Terminal

[Nick Taylor]

I have recently built JF’s excellent PILBox, and managed to connect my HP-71B to my Mac using it.

I’ve started looking into the HP-IL commands, but was wondering if the following is even possible:

I would like to use a terminal emulator (called Serial) on my Mac to both send keystrokes and receive screen output to/from the HP-71B.

I’ve tried connecting the Serial App to the USB device provided by the PILBox, and although some strange letters appear on the Serial window, the HP-71B soon complains that the “Loop is broken”.

Using the PRINTER IS command on the HP-71B, I was able to mirror the output of the 71B on the ILPER application (running in VMWare), but I’m really after two-way communication to a standard terminal.

Any pointers, settings, commands or dissuasion gratefully received!

[vassilisprevelakis]

(06-25-2019 07:03 AM)Nick Taylor Wrote:  I would like to use a terminal emulator (called Serial) on my Mac to both send keystrokes and receive screen output to/from the HP-71B.

hi,

check the following forum article for info on pyILPER
https://www.hpmuseum.org/forum/thread-13138.html

This will work natively on your mac and should allow you to do what you want.

**vp
http://www.series80.org

[Erwin]

(06-25-2019 07:03 AM)Nick Taylor Wrote:  I have recently built JF’s excellent PILBox, and managed to connect my HP-71B to my Mac using it.

I would like to use a terminal emulator (called Serial) on my Mac to both send keystrokes and receive screen output to/from the HP-71B.

Hello,

I use a MAC too and connect the HP71b with the great PILBox und pyIlper program. Easy installation with Miniconda and no use of VMWare.

The easiest way to connect the HP71B with a computer is through the PIL-Box and in the case of Max OSX or LINUX do it with pyILPER. I used MINICONDA to install the python programm – download via their website http://conda.pydata.org/docs/inst all/quick.html. The python installation is straight forward and easy.
Download pyILPER https://github.com/bug400/pyILPER and go through the instal- lation instructions on https://github.com/bug400/pyilper/blob/master/INSTALL. md.
Don’t forget to run the update sequence in the terminal window: conda update --all

For comfortable editing in the terminal window of pyILPER on the PC instead fiddling around on the small keyboard of the calculator you can use the prog: PILTERM2 (PILTERM) and KEYBOARD (Lex-File).

regards Erwin

[vassilisprevelakis]

(06-25-2019 07:03 AM)Nick Taylor Wrote:  Using the PRINTER IS command on the HP-71B, I was able to mirror the output of the 71B on the ILPER application (running in VMWare), but I’m really after two-way communication to a standard terminal.

Actually a better alternative is the DISPLAY IS command so that anything you type on the keyboard shows up on the pyILPER terminal window.

Moreover, if you load the KEYBOARD LEX-file you will also be able to use the KEYBOARD IS command so that text typed on the Mac keyboard shows up on the 71B input buffer as if it were typed on the 71B keyboard.

KEYBOARD is available online on the SWAP/lexfl1 LIF Disk image. If you have a PIL-Box, you can download the disk image and copy KEYBOARD directly to your HP-71. A different version of the lexfile on the same disk is called KEYBRD. Try both. **

Regards

**vp

http://www.series80.org

** text was copied from http://holyjoe.net/HP71/TitanFileCompleteCollection.pdf

[Dave Frederickson]

(07-05-2019 11:11 PM)vassilisprevelakis Wrote:  KEYBOARD is available online on the SWAP/lexfl1 LIF Disk image. If you have a PIL-Box, you can download the disk image and copy KEYBOARD directly to your HP-71. A different version of the lexfile on the same disk is called KEYBRD. Try both. **

That's version B of the KEYBOARD LEX file. Older versions of PILTERM required version C which is on PILIMAGE.DAT. This can be copied to the workdir using the Utilities menu. See the Help Manual.

[Leviset]

Can someone point me the article/site where you got the information and schematics to build the PILBox please?

[grsbanks]

This is probably what you're looking for:

http://www.jeffcalc.hp41.eu/hpil/#pilbox

[Dave Frederickson]

Note that the PILBox Kit and the preassembled PILBox contain everything you need except for an HP-IL cable. If you choose to "roll your own", you'll still need a pre-programmed chip from J-F.

[Nick Taylor]

Hello, sorry to ask about this topic again, but after Erwin's reply:

(06-29-2019 06:05 PM)Erwin Wrote:  The easiest way to connect the HP71B with a computer is through the PIL-Box and in the case of Max OSX or LINUX do it with pyILPER. I used MINICONDA to install the python programm – download via their website http://conda.pydata.org/docs/inst all/quick.html. The python installation is straight forward and easy.
Download pyILPER https://github.com/bug400/pyILPER and go through the instal- lation instructions on https://github.com/bug400/pyilper/blob/master/INSTALL. md.
Don’t forget to run the update sequence in the terminal window: conda update --all

For comfortable editing in the terminal window of pyILPER on the PC instead fiddling around on the small keyboard of the calculator you can use the prog: PILTERM2 (PILTERM) and KEYBOARD (Lex-File).

I was able to get the remote terminal working with PyIlPer and PIL-Box.

I came back to this again today, and cannot get what I type in the terminal to appear on the HP-71B. What I type on the HP-71B is appearing in the terminal though.

I have the KEYBOARD command, courtesy of the Forth ROM.

I thought I only had to type KEYBOARD IS :1 on the HP-71B and it would work? Device 1 is the PILTERM according to PyIlPer.

Am I missing some vital commands here?

Thanks

Nick

[Dave Frederickson]

(09-03-2020 02:23 PM)Nick Taylor Wrote:  Am I missing some vital commands here?

On the 71, RUN PILTERM.

If that doesn't fix it then try Rev C of the KEYBOARD LEX file in PILIMAGE.DAT.

[smp]

I believe I had this same issue at some point.

In the pyILPER configuration, you must have the checkbox for Enable IDY Frames checked. I believe this will solve the problem.

Good luck!

smp

[twoweims]

Is there an equivalent setup for the HP-75?

[rprosperi]

Here are the roughly equivalent setup / reset program for using pyILPer, which includes separate PRINTER and DISPLAY devices. If you're using the traditional ILPer client, there is no dedicated DISPLAY device, but you can easily change the program to declare the printer is the display device, adding a statement DISPLAY IS ":P1"

Code:

LIST 'PILHP75'
10 ! PILHP75 version 0.1 set up printer, keyboard and display for pyILPER
20 DISPLAY IS * @ PRINTER IS * @ DELAY 1
30 ON ERROR GOTO 140
40 KEYBOARD IS * @ RESTORE IO @ CLEAR LOOP
50 ASSIGN LOOP @ DISP ;"Assigning: ";
60 ON ERROR GOTO 80
70 PRINTER IS ':p1' @ DISP ;"Printer.. ";
80 ON ERROR GOTO 120
90 DISPLAY IS ':d1' @ DELAY 0 @ DISP ;"Display.. ";
100 IF DEVID$(':d1')<>"PILTERM" THEN GOTO 120
110 KEYBOARD IS ':d1' @ DISP ;"Keyboard.. ";
120 DISP ;"Done "
130 GOTO 150
140 DISP ;"HP75 I/O rom needed for this program"
150 OFF ERROR @ END

LIST 'CLEARPIL'
10 PRINTER IS *
20 KEYBOARD IS *
30 DISPLAY IS *
40 OFF IO
50 STOP

[twoweims]

Thank You Bob. I am using PyIlper so that will work just fine.

But I have no I/O ROM

[Mark Hardman]

(11-26-2020 12:32 AM)twoweims Wrote:  Thank You Bob. I am using PyIlper so that will work just fine.

But I have no I/O ROM

The HP-75 Data Communications Pac provides an excellent terminal emulator; perfect for getting connected to CompuServe and BBS's. I wonder if there is a LEX with similar functionality.

[rprosperi]

I'm pretty sure the DataComm Pac is mostly a giant BASIC program or two, though there could be a LEX file with some key primitives for IO setup, etc.

But IIRC, assigning the keyboard requires the IO ROM, I just forgot about that earlier.

I'll check in the next day or two, got family visiting for Turkey day...

[twoweims]

The I/O ROM manual mentions an Autoloop LEX file (HP-75 Autoloop Users' Library program (HP part number 75-00104-6).
Maybe this has KEYBOARD IS in it?
I have searched for this without success. Any ideas where I can find it? Thanks.

[Mark Hardman]

(11-26-2020 12:48 PM)twoweims Wrote:  The I/O ROM manual mentions an Autoloop LEX file (HP-75 Autoloop Users' Library program (HP part number 75-00104-6).
Maybe this has KEYBOARD IS in it?
I have searched for this without success. Any ideas where I can find it? Thanks.

The best source is likely Joe Horn's "Onlne LIF Disk Project". It might be helpful. On recent HHC USB drives, .txt documentation is located in the "\HHC2020\HHC\2014\Joseph Horn\Online LIF Disk Project" directory.

And there is this thread: https://www.hpmuseum.org/forum/thread-2520.html

[twoweims]

I have searched the Joe Horn Archive and did not find anything called Autoloop.

Joe's archive is very extensive but there is not a lot of explanation as to what some of the LEX files do. At least the BASIC files can be opened so you can look at comments and the code to figure things out.

[rprosperi]

For the auto assign LEX, try this one, found in the CHHU03 volume:

140. AUTOASN LEX 75 512 bytes 383 2 00/01/19 13:10

I have not tried it, but it appears to be a likely candidate. No idea if this includes the KEYBOARD IS keyword, but 512 bytes appears large enough to include more than a single Fn.

The HELP LEX file (about 2/3 the way down the article) is the go-to tool to see which keywords are in a given LEX file, described in this helpful thread:

https://www.hpmuseum.org/cgi-sys/cgiwrap...read=76286

The HELP LEX file can be found in the OLDP SWAP/HPCC88 volume.

While searching for and verifying LEX files, etc. it is quite handy to use JFG's emu75/DOS (run on DOSBox) together with ILPer (via ILPilBox virtual connector). It takes a fair amount of fiddling to get it all setup initially, but once working, it's dead reliable and involves a lot less thrashing.