Documenting HP-67 programs

[Jurgen Keller]

When I was working on preserving the SUPERHIRN program for the HP-67 which I got from a German HP-67 user, I was looking for a tool to create a nice program listing.

I stumbled across this article on MoHPC by John H. Meyer. I liked the idea of that spreadsheet, however, I do not have Excel installed on my MacBook. Therefore, I started a little project on my own. The main goal was to implement a simple tool that everybody can use without any installation or dependencies on some applications. An obvious choice was to create a web page powered by JavaScript. Luckily, I found the Tabulator JavaScript library providing table editing functionality. That allowed me to create a tool similar to the Excel approach referenced above.

You'll find the result here.

Initially, the program listing page is empty. You have to click into the INPUT column of the first program step and enter the key code, for example 3301 for STO1 or 312511 for LBLA. Do not enter spaces between the digits. Then, you can press CURSOR DOWN to continue with the second program step, and so on.

You can also press the TAB key to move to the COMMENT column if you want to add some explanations for a particular program step.

To finish the program when entering the last program step, simply press ENTER instead of CURSOR DOWN.

If you made a mistake at some program step and entered a wrong key code, you can correct it. However, the current key code must be valid before you can change the input focus.

Unfortunately, it is currently not possible to delete a program step. I think the JavaScript library would allow for such functionality, but I did not implement it, mainly because I actually wrote the tool for my personal use and only wanted to spend limited time on it.

You also see the four icons on the left of the page. From top to down, they provide the following functionality:

• Upload: uploads a program stored locally in JSON format.
• Download: downloads the current program to a local file in JSON format.
• Print: Prints the current program or, using a PDF printer, exports it to a PDF file. You have to enter a program title. This is actually the main function of this tool :-)
  On macOS, you can simply export it to a PDF file in the Print Dialog, on Windows you'll need to install a PDF printer. Note for Windows users: if the keys are not filled properly in the generated PDF file, there is some option in the Print Dialog to enable background images.
• Clear: clears the current program without confirmation, so be cautious!
  

Here is an example output.

I provide this tool as is, use it at your own risk ;-) If you find it useful, go and document your favorite HP-67 program and publish it on MoHPC!