Battery Level of a RAM card backup cell, SRAM HP 95LX

[cfh]

Dear Forum,
I am in the process of "recommissioning" my HP 95LX. Both work and leisure. Most data concerning total cost of ownership and depreciation of automobiles.

Have all programs I need, and CF adapter for the SANDISK/SUNDISK 32 MB: many more bytes than I will ever need. Love the keyboard and the HP Solve Calculator. The display is also nice.

BUT, for my 128 kB, yes, kilo bytes , HP Original RAM card, or SRAM, with a coin cell battery backup, I am courious on how to measure the battery level. The 95LX has the voltage for the main batteries and the "mainframe" battery backup.

How can I acces the SRAM card backup battery level, preferrably via DOS?

kind regards
CFH

(also, nomenclature for the 95, is it an HP 95 LX, or HP95LX, or HP-95LX, or something else?)
(Battery Low issue solved, broken hinge not solved and file transfer with Linux through USB port solved with gkermit)

[rprosperi]

(03-03-2015 12:07 PM)cfh Wrote:  Dear Forum,
I am in the process of "recommissioning" my HP 95LX. Both work and leisure. Most data concerning total cost of ownership and depreciation of automobiles.

Have all programs I need, and CF adapter for the SANDISK/SUNDISK 32 MB: many more bytes than I will ever need. Love the keyboard and the HP Solve Calculator. The display is also nice.

BUT, for my 128 kB, yes, kilo bytes , HP Original RAM card, or SRAM, with a coin cell battery backup, I am courious on how to measure the battery level. The 95LX has the voltage for the main batteries and the "mainframe" battery backup.

How can I acces the SRAM card backup battery level, preferrably via DOS?

kind regards
CFH

(also, nomenclature for the 95, is it an HP 95 LX, or HP95LX, or HP-95LX, or something else?)
(Battery Low issue solved, broken hinge not solved and file transfer with Linux through USB port solved with gkermit)

First, look here. This site is dedicated to HP's Palmtops and you can still get parts, repair advice and service, etc.

Also, here you can find all back issues of The Palmtop Paper, which undoubtedly has these kinds of details. These issues were donated by Hal Goldstein, the original publisher, and (patiently!) scanned by Dave Frederickson, a member here.

[cfh]

(03-03-2015 01:53 PM)rprosperi Wrote:  

(03-03-2015 12:07 PM)cfh Wrote:  Dear Forum,
I am in the process of "recommissioning" my HP 95LX. Both work and leisure. Most data concerning total cost of ownership and depreciation of automobiles.

Have all programs I need, and CF adapter for the SANDISK/SUNDISK 32 MB: many more bytes than I will ever need. Love the keyboard and the HP Solve Calculator. The display is also nice.

BUT, for my 128 kB, yes, kilo bytes , HP Original RAM card, or SRAM, with a coin cell battery backup, I am courious on how to measure the battery level. The 95LX has the voltage for the main batteries and the "mainframe" battery backup.

How can I acces the SRAM card backup battery level, preferrably via DOS?

kind regards
CFH

(also, nomenclature for the 95, is it an HP 95 LX, or HP95LX, or HP-95LX, or something else?)
(Battery Low issue solved, broken hinge not solved and file transfer with Linux through USB port solved with gkermit)

First, look here. This site is dedicated to HP's Palmtops and you can still get parts, repair advice and service, etc.

Also, here you can find all back issues of The Palmtop Paper, which undoubtedly has these kinds of details. These issues were donated by Hal Goldstein, the original publisher, and (patiently!) scanned by Dave Frederickson, a member here.

I have browsed through them, actually, but only found vague references that the battery holds at least one year, possibly two, but set an alarm in the meetings organizer to switch every 11 months. Nothing in DOS. But ofcourse I have not read everything.

Anyone with an old AUTOEXEC.BAT to display the status? I use BATTERY2.COM in my reboot scheme to see the backup and main batteries statii.

cheers

[Dave Frederickson]

This webpage suggests using LXPro to read the battery voltages. Don't know if it'll work on the 95LX. Let us know.

Dave

[cfh]

(03-03-2015 05:45 PM)Dave Frederickson Wrote:  This webpage suggests using LXPro to read the battery voltages. Don't know if it'll work on the 95LX. Let us know.

Dave

Tested, and no, LXPRO.COM does not work on 95LX. The prompt told me
..and so far no success on accessing the bat status of the SRAM.

[rprosperi]

(03-04-2015 07:40 PM)cfh Wrote:  

(03-03-2015 05:45 PM)Dave Frederickson Wrote:  This webpage suggests using LXPro to read the battery voltages. Don't know if it'll work on the 95LX. Let us know.

Dave

Tested, and no, LXPRO.COM does not work on 95LX. The prompt told me
..and so far no success on accessing the bat status of the SRAM.

Most (but not all, so check first) devices that supported battery-backed memory cards in this period allowed you to change the card battery while it was inserted in the machine, without loss of contents. There were some gotchas however like some machines had to actually be turned-on to do so, others had to be turned off, so read the 95LX manual to see if/how this is supported.

[cfh]

(03-04-2015 08:37 PM)rprosperi Wrote:  

(03-04-2015 07:40 PM)cfh Wrote:  Tested, and no, LXPRO.COM does not work on 95LX. The prompt told me
..and so far no success on accessing the bat status of the SRAM.

Most (but not all, so check first) devices that supported battery-backed memory cards in this period allowed you to change the card battery while it was inserted in the machine, without loss of contents. There were some gotchas however like some machines had to actually be turned-on to do so, others had to be turned off, so read the 95LX manual to see if/how this is supported.

Yes, checked that - the 95LX needs to be TURNED ON while swapping battery when the PCMCIA 1.0 is inserted into the Machine.

But still I am clueless on how to check SRAM card battery voltage. All indications tell me that it should be possible: 1) there is a card low battery warning. 2) the "motherboard" has 4 analog to digital ports, only 2 are used (for the other batteries). Someone was successful making a microphone port . But maybe DOS can't access it? Clueless.

[Dave Britten]

I'd be surprised if there were a way to read the actual voltage from the card. Consider that different cards could have different operating voltages and battery requirements, and the computer wouldn't be able to interpret those readings correctly. Seems more likely that the PCMCIA spec would just provide for a standard way to say "hey, my battery is low". No reason a card manufacturer couldn't provide a way to poll the voltage, but I can't imagine it being standard.