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May be the HP-Museum forum readers and the world of HP41 enthusiasts do not realise the actual news about HP41 and about interfacing the handheld to PC world : Jump below to the interesting forum message from Jean-Francois Garnier about “EMU41, a complete HP-IL system emulator” !

There you will find a link to the new EMU41 web page from Jean-Francois which gives you much details including some HP41 software routines for up/download of data, any type of files, NNN´s to/from PC world. Furthermore nice solutions exist for creating multi-column program prints and fast HP41 Barcode plots....

More details about EMU41 you also will find on www.hpcc.org web page : Follow the link to HP41 / HP41 Hardware Activities and Interfacing / HP41-PC Gateway & Emulator.

But now realise the surprising news about the worlds leading HP41 emulator solution – which includes the most advanced features of the real HP41, including plug in modules like CCD, HEPAX, and RAM-BOX.

Discover some new virtual IL-Devices like Video Screen, Printer, Floppy Disk Drive, Hard Disk Drive and DosLink (a powerful gateway to the PC world). Control this virtual IL-Devices with EMU41 or alternatively with your real HP41 handheld.

Furthermore EMU41 is able to control your real IL-Devices, for example reading measurement samples from the HP3468 IL-Digital Multimeter, or outputting data to the HP7470 IL-Plotter. Also the data and program exchange between HP41 and EMU41 now is absolutely easy by using the virtual Hard Disk Drive.

Owners of the HP82973 HP-IL/PC Interface Card now have the chance to replace their existing LINK PLUS or TRANS41 software packages by EMU41, because this acts as “all in one solution” and includes nice gateway and advanced emulator features.

For HP41 enthusiasts who want to start with HP41-PC interfacing, now the second generation rebuilt HP-IL/PC Interface Card is available....

Best wishes from Germany - Christoph

This is exciting news, Christoph!

At the risk of "asking for too much," I'm curious:
Have you updated the interface to the board in such a way that it could be used with a laptop? That is, could a USB or Firewire port someday be used to access the HP-IL?

It would be really nice to take advantage of the original intention of the loop: to allow a low-power interfacing of portable, battery-powered devices.

Best wishes to you and Jean-Francois Garnier!

-Michael

Hi again, Christoph:

In further perusing, I found your comments elsewhere about the hpcc.org page and followed the links to the HP41 and HP41 Hardware Activities and Interfacing, # HP-41 - PC Gateway & Emulator where it explained that only the ISA bus card is available right now. I still think it'd be great to have a way to connect a modern laptop to the loop.

Thanks!

-Mike

Dear Michael,

remember, the HP-IL/PC Interface card is the long time and actual defacto standard solution for HP41-PC interface applications (beside the IL-RS232 Converter).

Because the number of handheldcomputer enthusiasts working active with this nice applications is limited, there would be no alternative or more modern solution also for future times : Developing hardware and software for this exotic application nees to much capacity.

But the general problem about adapting ISA-Bus cards to modern PC systems exist for much other professional and industrial applications, because for some exotic ISA Cards exist no replacement hardware.

For solving this, different special solutions exist, for example modern industral motherboards which assist again some ISA slots, or ISA-Bus expansion boards, or an USB-ISA converter (for this refer to www.pci-card.com / USB to ISA Bus Converter). But all this possible solutions have high prices, no problem for industrial processes, but a great problem for private HP41 enthusiasts.

Therefore follow the practically idea from Jean-Francois and reactivat an old PC machine, you may have availlable from former times or get for only low costs from second hand market...

Best wishes - Christoph