New Member

[4ster]

Recently I had a small surveying project and I dug out the HP-41 and my old HP Surveying Pac.... and became nostalgic. That lead to finding this site.

I've written some new programs for some more recent activities and in the process of documenting them I got my HP 82162A thermal printer up and running with a rebuilt battery pack. I also loaded the "PRBC" program for printing program barcode.

Only then I remembered that the PRBC program used to give me fits. I can print bar code for some programs but not others. I dimly remember that I had figured out a work around but for the life of me can't remember what it was.

The PRBC program gets through entering the name of the program to print and begins to process, then returns a "NONEXISTENT" error message. I've double checked and I am entering the program name correctly. Again some programs are have barcode generated successfully, others are not.

Anyone still printing barcode with the thermal printer and is there a work around?

[TASP]

Welcome.

You have hit the motherlode.

You will enjoy looking around the site, there is copius information on everything.

I'd be surprised if there weren't at least 50 barcode programs in the documentation.


Also, the 'seniors' here will want to know more about your equipment. Do you have a C, CV, CX or something special ?

I think when the program stops on 'Nonexistent', you can go into 'prgm' mode, and see what step it stopped on.

Post that info here, and I bet they can figure it out.

[4ster]

Thanks for the tips!

Its a HP-41CV, I have the plotter module, HP-IL and the HP-IL thermal printer.

I just ran the program and it returns "Nonexistent" on line "19 BCP". This is the program on pages 172 and 173 of the plotter module manual:
   

Sorry for the dumb way to post a program listing, but I thought it better to post what's printed from my 41 vs re-keying it in here.

[Massimo Gnerucci]

May I suggest a more modern solution to the problem, given that you have a Windows PC available?

[Thomas Klemm]

(03-11-2015 04:18 PM)4ster Wrote:  The PRBC program gets through entering the name of the program to print and begins to process, then returns a "NONEXISTENT" error message.

What happens when you execute: GTO IND ST Y

[Shift] [GTO] [Shift] [.] [Y]

What's in the string in register Y? VIEW ST Y

[Shift] [VIEW] [.] [Y]

Does a program with this name exists?
How many letters does your program have?
A register can only hold 6 characters while a label can be made of 7 characters.

This is only based on the description of the BCP command in the Quick Reference Guide of the Plotter Module:



Or then maybe the row number/bit pattern (rrr.bb) isn't correct.

Cheers
Thomas

[TASP]

**deleted**


Sorry, that's just too mean. I shouldn't make jokes like that at all. My apologies.

[4ster]

Thomas,

Thanks for the reply - this solved the problem. I didn't remember the 6 character limit and the programs that won't print do indeed have 7 character labels. I renamed the program using 6 characters and the barcode prints!

Thank you!

Massimo - truly a more modern solution but my PC nearly as ancient as an HP-41 and my connection at work is so slow when the modem died I didn't bother to replace it. My office is nearly off the grid in the forest! I run a mac laptop at home and while I could probably figure out how to make your solution work on a mac I would miss the nostalgia of doing it the ancient way. ;-)

(03-11-2015 07:48 PM)Thomas Klemm Wrote:  

(03-11-2015 04:18 PM)4ster Wrote:  The PRBC program gets through entering the name of the program to print and begins to process, then returns a "NONEXISTENT" error message.

What happens when you execute: GTO IND ST Y

[Shift] [GTO] [Shift] [.] [Y]

What's in the string in register Y? VIEW ST Y

[Shift] [VIEW] [.] [Y]

Does a program with this name exists?
How many letters does your program have?
A register can only hold 6 characters while a label can be made of 7 characters.

This is only based on the description of the BCP command in the Quick Reference Guide of the Plotter Module:



Or then maybe the row number/bit pattern (rrr.bb) isn't correct.

Cheers
Thomas