HP-41<>USB

82143A Simulator
 Contents

Introduction...............................................................................: 3

Hardware description................................................................: 4

Software description..................................................................: 5

Port configuration..........................................................: 6

Controls.........................................................................: 7

Printing commands output........................................................: 8

Apendix A.

Interface info for developers:........................................: 10

2
Introduction:

Although many devices have been developed along the years for the HP-41 system, most of them
were dedicated to RAM and/or ROM memory extensions. From the original MLDL to the later
MLDL2000 (by Mendert Kuipers) and my own Clonix/NoV's series.

Special mention to the development of the 41CL (by Monte Dalrymple) which not only includes a
wide range of memory enhancements and expansions but also a serial interface.

Apart from this, previous interfacing with HP-41 system have been based on proprietary devices or
the HP-IL loop protocol and its interconecting devices: HP-IB, RS-232, 82973A (ISA), etc. Which
limited the type of devices and PC's allowed to operate in such environment.

PIL-Box (by J-F Garnier) is a later development much more improved which allows USB to HP-IL
interconnection.

The HP41<>USB interface presented here is intended to provide users with a direct link between
the HP-41 and any current PC, without the need of intermediate devices nor dedicated interface
ROM image.

The first application available for this new interface device is the 82143A Peripheral Printer
simulation. However, the USB interface has been designed as a tool to create a whole range of
Input/Output capabilities between current PC's and our beloved vintage 41's sytems.

One of the keystones in this developments is the use of the standard ROM's for the simulated task.
So, the 82143A Printer simulation presented in here, only needs of the -PRINTER- .ROM to work,
and such -PRINTER- ROM image is also included in the HP41<>USB interface.

The microcontroller inside the module has therefore two function: first it behaves (and can be used
like) a Clonix module, reserving page #6 for the -PRINTER- ROM; and second, it traps any
communication between 82143A Printer and the HP-41 system, simulating that a real printer is
present, and sends relevant data to the USB interface in serial mode.

Current printer implementation has some known limitations:

– It is permanently set to MAN mode. TRACE or NORM mode printing is not allowed.
– Graphical features are not included, only text printing is simulated.
– Some of the special characters in the 82143A set has been replaced, see Table 1.

Internal design of the HP41<>USB interface allows development of future applications including
bidirectional data transfer. So far only unidirectional transfer is implemented; page transfer from
HP-41 to PC .ROM file has also been successfully tested using the COPYROM command from
HEPAX module.

3
Hardware description:

From a HW point of view the HP41<>USB interface module is divided into two main subsystems:
– HP I/O interface & Clonix (ROM) simulation.
– USB serial interface.

A modified version of the Clonix-D device has been choosen to provide the ROM simulation part of
the interface.

It can be re-configured using the ConixConfig.exe utility (ver. 3.0)* like any other Clonix or NoV
module.

In its current status, only 82143A emulation is developed so, there will be no other available
configurations when 41<>USB module is selected.

User can select up to 8 more pages to be included into the module so that the whole range of port
addressable memory plus 82143A simulation can be filled with a single module port usage.

On the USB part of the device, care has been taken in choosig the same RS-232<>USB driver
already used by the USB Programmer (Prolific interface) therefore there will be no need for the
users to install new drivers on their PC's

Serial interface for this simulation has been set to the following specs:

– Speed: 115200 bps

– Data bits: 8
– Parity bits: None
– Stop bits: 1
– Handshake: None

Make sure that your PC port used to interconect with the HP41<>USB interface is set to the above
configuration.

You can find the Serial Port list of your PC in: Control Panel > Device Manager. Once there just
plug the USB connector to your PC and you'll see a new Prolific COMx port under Ports (COM &
LPT). Please take down the number “x” assignated to your port as it may be neccesary to configure
the software interface.

*Current ClonixConfig.exe (ver. 2.1) does not provide reconfiguration tools for the HP41<>USB module.
Ver. 3.0 will be released along with the HP41<>USB interface.

4
Software description:

Since it's a personal project and hence constrained by my limited skills, the software utility
provided inhere, USB-82143A.exe, is a simple GUI written in .NET Visual Basic. Appendix A
provides details for any skilled programmer to build suitable solutions on their preferred platform.

Present utility it's a modified sample program from Windows VB library. Some functions have been
added to allow file saving and hardcopy printing.

Main Window (Fig. 1): Shows “CHARS” program listing and DISASMbling of “PRA” command.

5
Port configuration:
Make sure you have your HP41<>USB connected to your computer before USB-82143A.exe is
launched.

If no COM ports are available you'll see an error message just below the text window indicating that
circumstance. If this happens, please close the application, connect your USB interface and run
USB-82143A.exe again.

By default the lower numbered available COM port is assigned to the USB-82143A application.
You can check which port number is actually selected by looking at the status bar at the bottom of
the main form. In the example above COM1 has been selected.

In case the designated COM port number does not fit the one used by your Prolific USB adapter,
click the “Port settings” button to change it. See Fig. 2 below.

If HP41<>USB is the only serial interface attached or the first numbered one then no further
configuration is required, and you can star using your system

See Hardware description above for details on how to find out the COM port number assignated to
your interface.

Changing default COM port number dialog (Fig. 2):

Once you have set the appropriate default COM port cick OK. Please do not modify “Bit Rate” nor
“Handshaking”.

Port number default configuration is not interactive, therefore, you'll need to close the application
and run it again to get your port number effectively changed. It will be kept as long as you don't
change it again. It is recommended that you use the same USB port everytime you use your
HP41<>USB interface module.

6
Controls:

A few controls have been added to the top of the Main Form in order to help users in handling the
printing output from their USB-82143A simulation.

– Clear: This button erases all contents present in the Text window.

– Save: This button opens a standard Save File Dialog box, allowing the user to enter an
appropriate name to the file to be saved. Files are saved using a .rtf (Rich Text File) format.

– Print: This button opens a standard Print Dialog box. User may set usual default printing
parameters: Printer, Paper size, etc. Once finished, just click Print and you'll get a hardcopy
of the contents in the Text window.

Both Text window and printed output use “Lucida Console” font. A translation look-up table has
been set in order to produce an output as similar as possible to the original HP-82143A character
set.

A detailed character set output (0 to 127) is shown below (Table 1).

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
0 ♦ Θ space 0 @ P ` p
1 (¤) Ω ! 1 A Q a q
2 (ж) δ " 2 B R b r
3 ← Å # 3 C S c s
4 α å $ 4 D T d t
5 β Ä % 5 E U e u
6 Γ ä & 6 F V f v
7 ↓ Ö ' 7 G W g w
8 Δ ö ( 8 H X h x
9 σ Ü ) 9 I Y y y
A ♦ ü * : J Z j z
B λ Æ + ; K [ k π
C µ æ , < L \ l |
D (д) ≠ - = M ] m →
E τ £ . > N ↑ n Σ
F Φ ▒ / ? O _ o ├

Characters in parenthesis have been chosen for their similitudes with the original HP-82143A
characters.

7
Printing commands output:
This chapter shows the comparative behavior of different printing commands listed as they're
presented in the HP-82143A catalog. Please keep in mind that only printing functions working on
MAN mode are available.

Other printing modes (NORN & TRACE) or graphical features are not functional in the USB-
82143A simulation.

The printing Flags setting (12 & 13) have no effect in the output of the USB-82143A

ACA: Accumulate Alpha.

Behavior: Same as HP-82143A, accumulates the contents of ALPA register into printer
buffer for later printing.
Note: in case of a series of ACA commands to be sent to the USB simulator and no
printing command (ADV or PRBUF) is issued in less than 5 seconds, a Time Out
warning will show up below the Text Box window. Other than this it will behave and
continue working as expected.

ACCHR: Accumulate Character.

Behavior: Same as HP-82143A.

ACCOL: Accumulate Column.

Graphical command not available in USB-82143A simulation.

ACSPEC: Accumulate Special Character.

Graphical command not available in USB-82143A simulation.

ACX: Accumulate X-Register.

Behavior: Same as HP-82143A.

BLDSPEC: Build Special Character.

Graphical command not available in USB-82143A simulation.

LIST: List Program Lines.

Behavior: Same as HP-82143A.

PRA: Prints ALPHA contents.

Behavior: Same as HP-82143A.

'PRAXIS: Print Plotting Axis.

Graphical command not available in USB-82143A simulation.

PRBUF: Print buffer contents.

Behavior: Same as HP-82143A for text printing.
Note: This command is also used to print graphical accumulated info, which is not
available in USB-82143A simulation.

PRFLAGS: Print Status and Flags.

Behavior: Same as HP-82143A.

8
PRKEYS: Print Assigned Keys.
Behavior: Same as HP-82143A.

PRP: Print Complete Program Listing.

Behavior: Same as HP-82143A.

'PRPLOT: Print Plotting Curve of a given function.

Graphical command not available in USB-82143A simulation.

'PRPLOTP: Print Plotting Curve of a given function. (Non Interactive)

Graphical command not available in USB-82143A simulation.

PRREG: Print Registers.

Behavior: Same as HP-82143A.

PRREGX: Print Registers by X.

Behavior: Same as HP-82143A.

PRΣ: Print Statistics Registers.

Behavior: Same as HP-82143A.

PRSTK: Print Stack.

Behavior: Same as HP-82143A.

PRX: Print X-Register.

Behavior: Same as HP-82143A.

REGPLOT: Plot Single line using data in registers.

Graphical command not available in USB-82143A simulation.

SKPCHR: Skip characters.

Behavior: Same as HP-82143A.

SKPCOL: Skip Colums X-Register.

Graphical command not available in USB-82143A simulation.

STKPLOT: Plot Single line using data in stack.

Graphical command not available in USB-82143A simulation.

9
Appendix A:
The information below is intended to provide programmers with the required information to write
their own application on their favourite platform.

The requirements for this utility are very simple. The Clonix function of the interface simulates a
printer connected to the calculator; it handles the status and flags requests from the NUT CPU. So
the HP-41 'sees' a physical HP-82143A connected to one of its ports.

The serial part of the interface sends every byte received from the NUT CPU to the USB serial port.

Allowed range of received bytes are as follows:

– Values from 0 to 127 (h'00 – h'7F) are the printable characters. See Table 1 above.
– Values from 161 to 183 (h'A1 to h'B7) inserts 1 to 23 spaces in the printing buffer.
– Value 224 (h'E0) causes End of Line left justified. Prints and sets new line.
– Value 232 (h'E8) causes End of Line right justified. Adds as many spaces as needed to
fill a 24 character line, then prints and sets new line.

Any other value is disregarded. Print width is fixed to 24 characters.

Four “If...Then” constructions are used in the VB implementation to filter the received bytes and
print them as required. Below you'll find the Sub construction in VB to produce the required output.

Dim newReceivedData As Byte

Dim PrtTxt As String

Dim HP82143ACharMap As String = "♦¤ж←αβΓ↓Δσ♦λµдτΦΘΩδÅåÄäÖöÜüÆæ≠£▒ !" + Chr(34) + "#$

%&'()*+,-./0123456789:;<=>?@ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ[\]↑_`abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzπ|
→Σ├"

Public Sub DataReceived(ByVal sender As Object, ByVal e As SerialDataReceivedEventArgs)

Try
newReceivedData = 0 'Initializes received data variable

While newReceivedData <> 240 'Receiving loop active for every line
'240 is set as “print-done” indicator
newReceivedData = SelectedPort.ReadByte 'Gets byte from serial port

If newReceivedData < 128 Then ' If it's a printable character

PrtTxt = PrtTxt + HP82143ACharMap(newReceivedData) 'Translate according to look-up table
End If

If newReceivedData > 160 And newReceivedData < 184 Then 'If it's a “skip-chr” byte
PrtTxt = PrtTxt + Space(newReceivedData – 160) 'append spaces as required
End If

If newReceivedData = 224 And PrtTxt <> "" Then 'If it's an EoL (left justified)
PrtTxt = PrtTxt + Chr(10) 'add a LF (h'10) character
End If

If newReceivedData = 232 And PrtTxt <> "" Then 'If it's an EoL (right justified)
PrtTxt = Right(Space(24) + PrtTxt, 24) + Chr(10) 'add spaces as required and LF
End If
10
 If Right(PrtTxt, 1) = Chr(10) Then 'If LF has been issued
RaiseEvent UserInterfaceData("AppendToMonitorTextBox", PrtTxt, Color.Black) 'Proceed with printing
PrtTxt = "" 'Reset Printing variable
newReceivedData = 240 'Sets value to exit loop
End If
End While

Catch ex As Exception
DisplayException(ModuleName, ex)

End Try

End Sub

Hope this info may be useful to anyone willing to write applications for different platforms. Please
do not hesitate in mailing me if you want further details, or find any errors in this document.

11 Diego Díaz Feb. 2012