ACT available

[bshoring]

Emulate the 34C ! That is exciting news !

[PANAMATIK]

(06-14-2015 07:17 PM)bshoring Wrote:  Emulate the 34C ! That is exciting news !

Looking (googling) around for HP-34C emulators, I found two projects, one app for android and the nonpareil for MAC etc. The first claims to be an accurate emulation, the second reports about problems with labels. As I fixed the nonpareil label search for HP-29C it seems, that I also have an accurately emulated HP-34C, which does not have problems with labels in programs.

As far as I tried to check all functions, including Solve and Integral, there seems to be no difference to the original up to now.

Thanks again to Eric Smith, he is the true responsible person behind this achievement.

Bernhard

[PANAMATIK]

ACT Assembler available!

There are some news about the new ACT, which I want to present here in advance to fill the sometimes boring summer days with something possibly exciting.

I made a completely new approach for extending the original features of the HP-25 calculator. For the first time I manipulated the original HP firmware to add a new behaviour. This could not be achieved with my previous approach by just manipulating the ACT registers. I needed to manipulate the ROM firmware. I don't know if ever somebody tried to write ACT Assembler. It is not very comfortable, the instruction set is rather unusual, compared to todays microprocessors. And there are nearly no scratch registers. Everything is very tight and already outbid. I tried to learn the ACT assembler language to get used to it. For analyzing and manipulating the firmware and entering the mnemonics I had to write a new utility: an ACT Assembler (traditionally either the language is called "Assembler", as well as the compiler for assembling the mnemonics).

Here is a screen shot. You see several windows showing the actual state of the machine. When the program is running all registers will be refreshed at every cycle.



This is not just another HP-25 Emulator, although it is one and all buttons work. Its intention is not to calculate, but to show all registers and to have the possibility to enter new values at any time, even to enter new instructions and to set breakpoints. The assembly mnemonics are exactly the same as presented in Eric's "nonpareil" disassembler. Thanks to Eric for preparing so much.

As a first result I managed to add additional "Continuous Memory" RAM space to the HP-25 calculator and I changed the initialization procedure, which now loads the complete stack X,Y,Z,T and the display format from these new RAM registers, thus making them "Continuous memory". Also the actual program step number and trigonometric mode are preserved. If you switch on your HP-25 you will see the last X Register number in the display with the same decimals when switched off.

And as the second and more tricky result I was able to increase the program size, giving the HP-25 now 98 program steps instead of 49 in one single program. If you press the SST button then you can step forward from 01 to 98 now. The use of additional RAM for the new program space is integrated in the firmware. It was not too difficult.



But there is still some work to do. For now only GTO 00 to GTO 49 instructions are programmable. GTO 98 cannot be programmed, because there is no program code for it. I will have to extend the available one byte program codes and the decoder.

However with these first steps I can already see that it will be possible to integrate very new features, for example adding some more registers and making the Stopwatch or the Print functions programmable. I hope I can make some progress in ACT assembler language, when the summer allows me to have some time for it.

Bernhard

[rprosperi]

Truly impressive Bernard!! Though I've not explored your ACT solutions yet, this tool makes it much more interesting. I had not considered upgrading a working Woodstock machine, but this could be enough to do so. Keep the info coming.

[Geoff Quickfall]

Bob, Bob, Bob, ...

The Woodstock is now a tool for the new century! That's what Bernard has done. More about it in Nashville.

Suffice to say, the 25c then the 29c with the new ACTS have been my go to calcs on the flight deck. All the power of the 67 and its cards but easier to load (from memory instead of cards).

Installed the IR ACT and wow, printing also. And the MAGIC of LEDs.

Cheers!

Oh yes, programmable with one hand and a thumb.
And two stop watches, and using the countdown program from the manual (accurate now)
And ......

[rprosperi]

Geoff: I'm looking forward to your talk on these enhanced Woodstocks!! Hopefully, the assembler will mature enough to demo at the show as well.

My first HP was a -21, which I very quickly upgraded to a 25C, which served me through most of Engineering undergrad. I eventually sold it to buy my 41C, but it always had a place in my heart. I picked up a very nice one a few years ago, and, after seeing the assembler shots, am now thinking about upgrading to a 25E.

Besides the big improvements, simply adding more program steps solves one of it's most frustrating limitations. Am I the only guy that found that the programs I wrote needed 51 steps? But this also taught me how to optimize the stack to squeak out a couple lines.

Will you be showing the IR printing too?

[PANAMATIK]

ACT Flash update Tool available!

I made a complete rework of the Boot Loader tool actupdate.exe. As this was a simple command line tool, it is replaced now by a more comfortable Dialog based application, where you can chose the COM Port and select the update file.

This tool allows you to update the ACT firmware in 10 seconds like before, but furthermore, it allows you to update also your personal program collection of up to 100 HP-25 programs. You can send your user programs after a firmware update seperately to the ACT and you have not to type them in again. It allows you to change the current set of your programs at any time without touching the actual firmware. It's like reading a magnetic card with 100 programs into the calculator. Also sending a single program to any program location is possible without touching the other programs.

This makes the new ACT even more versatile, but I doubt if ever more than 100 user programs were needed

The screen shot shows the "ACT flash update" Dialog on the left and a normal text file editor at the right. You just type your sequence of programs with program number and up to 49 steps into a text file and send this textfile to the ACT.



The current update files and the new tool can be downloaded from my website

http://www.panamatik.de/actupdate104.ZIP

Bernhard

[Geoff Quickfall]

I can attest to the ease of use. Updated a 29E to a working 29E IR in about 1 minute of setup time.

Windows 8
USB 3.0
The latest actupdate windows console
Bernhards ACT update kit.

I can't say enough but you will see it in Nashville.

[PANAMATIK]

Another major step "backward" is done!

This sounds funny, why should I go a step backward with the new ACT?

The answer is:

I made the original HP-35 firmware running on the ACT!

Thus a woodstock calculator can be transformed into a classic calculator now. I replaced the woodstock emulator by the classic emulator and programmed the original HP-35 firmware. Thanks to Eric's wonderful "nonpareil" source code, which shows exactly how the classic processor works, now it is behaving (nearly) exactly like the good old first pocket calculator.

Surely this is not a practical approach, because everything the HP-35 offers, the woodstocks could do as well. But it is really beautiful to see that the same keys typed on an HP-25 produce the same results as the same keys on an HP-35.

Well, there are some differences.

Because the 20s have only 12-digits instead of 15, the last 2 digits of mantissa will be hidden if an exponent is shown. This is the same behaviour that HP invented when the woodstock models were introduced. This kind of flexible formatting and reducing digits allowed to make the calculators cheaper than the first one.

Another small difference: because we don't have so many digits, the decimal point is not shown in a separate digit like in the HP-35.

Also the number of key buttons were reduced from 35 to 30. Oh, how this can be done? 5 buttons are missing in the woodstock keyboard! For everything, there can be found a solution.

The HP-35E, which I likely will call it, doubles the first keyboard row by a trick. If you press the buttons of the upper row normally it will execute the functionality of the HP-35s second row. If you hold the buttons for more than 1/2 second it will execute the first row functions.

That's it!

For anybody who has the update kit for the new ACT, you can download the HP35/HP-45/HP80 firmware after I made some final tests from my website. I think you will have real fun with a physical HP-35 clone, with real buttons. And if you want to have a programmable again, you can update from the HP-35 to the HP-25E or whatever again as often as you want.

The unequal twins after power up.

Now, after this is done, probably I don't know what to do with the coming weekend

Bernhard

[Geoff Quickfall]

19c ?

Hehhehehh!

P.S, well done on the 35 ACT for the Woodstock.

[Thomas Klemm]

(07-10-2015 07:39 PM)PANAMATIK Wrote:  For anybody who has the update kit for the new ACT, you can download the HP35/HP-45/HP80 firmware after I made some final tests from my website.

Are you aware of this bug in Eric's ROM-dump of the HP-80?

Cheers
Thomas

[PANAMATIK]

(07-11-2015 05:35 AM)Thomas Klemm Wrote:  Are you aware of this bug in Eric's ROM-dump of the HP-80?

Cheers
Thomas

I didnt know about this bug. Obviously there was a single bit error in the "nonpareil" ROM code, which was extracted by Eric. I compared my HP-80 ROM code and found, that is was correct. Not surprisingly the HP-80 DATE function is running on the new ACT without error.

Consequently the HP-35 HP-45 HP-55 and HP-80 ACT firmware is ready for download now.

Bernhard

[PANAMATIK]

(07-10-2015 11:45 PM)Geoff Quickfall Wrote:  19c ?

Hehhehehh!

P.S, well done on the 35 ACT for the Woodstock.

19c ? No, if anybody sends a working HP-19c to me I will replace the ACT and read the ROM code.

However I made the HP-55 running on the ACT today. Exactly from 0:00 clock today sunday morning it is ready for download.

The first classic programmable can be run on the woodstock calculators now. And the timer function is also there. Because there is no three position slide switch on the woodstocks, the timer will be toggled by the f g button sequence instead. The emulator runs exactly at the speed for the timer counting correctly but without crystal accuracy.

This is my first HP-55! And I really enjoy to play with it.

Now, after this is done, I probably don't know what to do with the coming sunday
Bernhard

[Thomas Klemm]

(07-11-2015 04:15 PM)PANAMATIK Wrote:  Obviously there was a single bit error in the "nonpareil" ROM code, which was extracted by Eric.

I assume that he used the US-patent 3863060 and didn't extract the code from an existing ROM.

Cheers
Thomas

[PANAMATIK]

(07-12-2015 11:16 AM)Thomas Klemm Wrote:  

(07-11-2015 04:15 PM)PANAMATIK Wrote:  Obviously there was a single bit error in the "nonpareil" ROM code, which was extracted by Eric.

I assume that he used the US-patent 3863060 and didn't extract the code from an existing ROM.

Cheers
Thomas

He copied 17920 bits manually from the patent and made only one bit error. And this was not even an error, because it is the correct opcode of the printed p # 14 instruction. The patent was wrong. Did he read the mnemonics and translated them into binary?

Cheers
Bernhard

[anetzer]

(06-14-2015 12:36 PM)PANAMATIK Wrote:  you can build now you own HP-34C from a HP-21 or HP-25 hardware, even when using a defective device

This is very impressive. Congratulations and thank you!

I have never seen the innards of a 34C. A simple question therefore: There is no way to install a new ACT directly into a Spice series calculator, right?

Thank you!

a.

[PANAMATIK]

(07-13-2015 01:25 PM)anetzer Wrote:  

(06-14-2015 12:36 PM)PANAMATIK Wrote:  you can build now you own HP-34C from a HP-21 or HP-25 hardware, even when using a defective device

This is very impressive. Congratulations and thank you!

I have never seen the innards of a 34C. A simple question therefore: There is no way to install a new ACT directly into a Spice series calculator, right?

Thank you!

a.

The 30s hardware has a completely new design. The ACT processor functionality and display drivers are combined into one big chip. However it would be not too difficult to build a replacement for it too, but most of these chips are still intact. The problem of the 30s calculators is, that many of them suffer from battery connector corrosion and contact problems in the solderless version.

Bernhard

[PANAMATIK]

New Horizons day

I like to celebrate this day with my personal flyby:



Fully functioning! With Continuous Memory! 30 user programs of 224 steps! Infrared printing! Four times original speed! (but less than 50000 km/h)

Bernhard

[rprosperi]

(07-15-2015 08:24 PM)PANAMATIK Wrote:  New Horizons day

I like to celebrate this day with my personal flyby:



Fully functioning! With Continuous Memory! 30 user programs of 224 steps! Infrared printing! Four times original speed! (but less than 50000 km/h)

Bernhard

Very cool, thanks for sharing this, and congrats on accomplishing this feat.

How do you map the much larger 67 keyboard onto the 25?

[TASP]

extra buttons on bottom