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HP 50G PC Connection Problems...Old Fool Needs Help..!! - Printable Version

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HP 50G PC Connection Problems...Old Fool Needs Help..!! - Alan Taylor - 03-09-2007

Well I'm back in the HP fold. I have just purchased the HP 50G, my previous HP's were "the electronic slide rule" circa 1972. This unit replaced my trusty Decilon 10 inch and 5 inch slide rules (which I still have!!), then in the late 1980's I had a HP41..

First impressions......well after all the technical inovations etc..the documentation for the HP50G is magnificently inadequate, to be more direct....it really **cks!! My goodness, I remember when it was possible to settle down with a HP calculator and the superb manual(s)for a good evening read, and when finished to put everything back into the hard plastic carry case...those were the days...sigh....:)

Well here I am prostrating myself on this forum....stumped by my inability to connect my 50G to my PC. Any help would be much appreciated... God!! I feel such a fool!!!!!!

Really, I would not mind paying the few extra bucks for some good old fashioned HP manuals of yester-year style.... :(

Alan


Re: HP 50G PC Connection Problems...Old Fool Needs Help..!! - Giancarlo (Italy) - 03-09-2007

Hi Alan,
welcome back to the group :)

I resonate with you about the quality of the last HP manuals....
You might find some consolation by downloading and reading the good ol' 48G series manual
(as far as programming RPL programming is concerned):

http://www.hpcalc.org/hp48/docs/misc/hp48gaur.zip

or the 49G user guide as far as getting to know how the 50G can be (almost fully) exploited:

http://www.hpcalc.org/hp49/docs/misc/hp49gpugb.zip

Please consider that 99% of what you can learn about the 49G+ hold trus for the 50G as well - and the manual is better....

Turning to your specific issue, you might find helpful to read this (long) thread on comp.sys.hp48
(which is, by the way and IMHO, a better place to find help about the 50G than HP Museum forum):

http://groups.google.com/group/comp.sys.hp48/browse_frm/thread/fea856d8f18cab28/5325118f3c1de62b?lnk=gst&q=50g+CONNECTION+TO+PC&rnum=9#5325118f3c1de62b

Last but not least, as far as transferring files between a PC and a 50G is concerned,
I'd strongly advise to use a SD card instead of the ConnKit (which I myself struggled a bit to get to work).

Hope this helps.
Best regards.
Giancarlo




Re: HP 50G PC Connection Problems...Old Fool Needs Help..!! - dbatiz - 03-09-2007

Sir,

First make sure flag 33 is set to Transfer Via Wire.

Install the connectivity kit and calculator driver on your PC.

Connect the calculater to the PC with the USB cable.

Press (AND RELEASE) the right shift, then the right arrow. The display should say "Xmodem Server Waiting for command."

Start your Calculator Connectivity Kit. Set Connect Using to AUTO. Then press the quick connect button (it's right beside the button that looks like a camera).

Your directory tree should appear on the screen.

Good luck!

Very Respectfully,

David


Re: HP 50G PC Connection Problems...Old Fool Needs Help..!! - Dave - 03-09-2007

There's a fantastic manual for the 49/50g, even more comprehensive than the old 48 AUR. This post from James Prange has all you need.

Quote:
Regarding the manuals, get the hp 49g+/ hp 48gII graphing calculator advanced user's reference manual instead of (or in addition to) the 49G manual.

If your 50g comes with ROM revision 2.08 (check this with the VERSION command), upgrade it to 2.09 or Bernard Parisse's 2.10-7. Optionally, install libraries 226 and 227 for the equation library and 229 for the periodic table. Use the libraries that come with 2.10-7, also available at Hydrix.

This forum is good, but for RPL models, you'd probably be better off with the usenet group comp.sys.hp48. In case you don't already use a newsreader, you can also access it (including the archive) through http://groups.google.com/group/comp.sys.hp48.

Regards,
James





Re: HP 50G PC Connection Problems...Old Fool Needs Help..!! - cfh - 03-09-2007

1) Make sure you have the latest connx4.

2) press and release shift right arrow (as pointed out here)

3) if no connection, turn on and off the 50, plug and unplug it again, sooner or later the PC will "find it". I have had similar problems - it seems a little stochastic at times finding the calculator for the connX4 program (while ALWAYS finding the calc as a RAM-card...)

If anyone else has ha perfectly clear answer to this I'd be glad to read it.

cheer

Carl




Re: HP 50G PC Connection Problems...Old Fool Needs Help..!! - Alan Taylor - 03-12-2007

Hi Giancarlo,

Thanks for this. I eventually managed to get the 50G to talk to my PC.

One of the issues was the activation of the XMODEM server. I eventually managed to start the server via the CAT dropdown.

Thanks for all the help from the guys.

The next issue is the 50G screen capture. The manual refers to
the "up arrow"?? Just what is this??

Or is there a simpler command format...

Very Best Regards
Alan Taylor


Re: HP 50G PC Connection Problems...Old Fool Needs Help..!! - Giancarlo (Italy) - 03-12-2007

Hi Alan.

Don't know if I understand correctly, but you can use the "File" menu

in the ConnKit program - it provides a "Capture Calculator Screen..." option that

according to the on-line help, allows to:

Quote:
Capture Calculator Screen

The screen image of the calculator can be captured into a graphic window. This window can then be copied to the Windows clipboard ready to be used in a graphics application.

The calculator provides this feature through its printing capability. It thinks that the HP 48, 49 Calculator Connectivity Kit is an HP graphics printer.

To use Screen Capture:

Disconnect any XModem connection with the calculator by selecting disconnect from the File menu.
On the calculator, make sure flag -33 is clear and flag -34 is set.
Get the screen that you want to show on the calculator
Select Screen Capture from the file menu
Follow the prompts to start the screen print on the calculator
The captured screen should then appear
Once the calculator screen has been captured, you may customize its appearance with the Screen Capture View Menu




Hope this helps.

Best regards.

Giancarlo


Re: HP 50G PC Connection Problems...Old Fool Needs Help..!! - Les Wright - 03-13-2007

I am so baffled by the USB interface with my 49G+ I don't even bother with it, and transfer files with an SD card. Fortunately, this is very straight forward for me since I have a cardreader on my PC--put the SD card in the slot, drop files into the folder, put card in calculator, navigate to the SD card with FILES, recall desired object to stack, store it accordingly as program, variable, or library on the calc.

The smaller SD cards, which are more than adequate for storing relatively tiny calculator programs and libraries, are really cheap these days, as are card readers that plug into a USB port. It means shelling out a little more money, but maybe this is a more sensible and intuitive file transfer solution? Were it not for my little SD card and card reader, I would be pretty befuddled when i comes to ROM updates and other file transfer tasks.

Les


Re: HP 50G PC Connection Problems...Old Fool Needs Help..!! - Giancarlo (Italy) - 03-13-2007

Hi Les.

To me, there seems not to be any other chaeper and easier way.

No bothering with cables and connections and software and drivers.....

I find it straightforward - as you point out - to simply extract the SD

card from one side and put it into the other one :)

And a 1/2 Gb card is far more than I'll ever need in this life :))

Best regards.

Giancarlo


Re: HP 50G PC Connection Problems...Old Fool Needs Help..!! - Alan Taylor - 03-18-2007

Hi Guys,

This is also the conclusion that I have come to! :)

The only thing that I am having difficulty with concerns
PC interconnection is with the calc screen download to the PC.

I disconnent via the software prompt, press the
screen download button: Then I am instructed to
press the HP50G "on key" and "up arrow"....

????? What is the "up arrow"?

Does anyone have a better routine??

Alan


Re: HP 50G PC Connection Problems...Old Fool Needs Help..!! - Gerson W. Barbosa - 03-18-2007

Quote:
????? What is the "up arrow"?

That's one of the four round-shaped silver keys, the one just below the F5/E key.

Regards,

Gerson.


Re: HP 50G PC Connection Problems...Old Fool Needs Help..!! - James M. Prange (Michigan) - 03-18-2007

Quote:
That's one of the four round-shaped silver keys, the one just below the F5/E key.

Yes. Personally, I prefer to call it the "CursorUp key", largely because character 144 really does look like an arrow pointing up, and there are also characters that look like arrows pointing down, left, and right.

Anyway, to invoke the PRLCD command (used for Conn4x's "screen capture"), press and hold the ON key, press and release the CursorUp key, and release the ON key.

Regards,
James


Re: HP 50G PC Connection Problems...Old Fool Needs Help..!! - Alan Taylor - 03-19-2007

Gerson, and James,

Thanks for this. I like the 50G, however the learning curve is quite steep, even for an old HP user. The lack of adequate documentation makes it even steeper.

Alan


Re: HP 50G PC Connection Problems...Old Fool Needs Help..!! - Les Wright - 03-19-2007

Quote:
And a 1/2 Gb card is far more than I'll ever need in this life :))

Heck, I am fine with an old 128mb card, which does double duty in my Palm TX and the HP49G+. This is plenty to store all of my little files for the HP49G+ and Free42.

I do have a 2gig card but it is better used in a digital stereo recorder I have--the highest quality wave files are very big and 2gig handles about an hour of recording, I think.

Les


Re: HP 50G PC Connection Problems...Old Fool Needs Help..!! - Pete - 03-22-2007

LOL!!!

Thanks. I just got my calculator about 5 minutes ago. Popped in the batteries and wanted to make a connection just to test it out. I couldn't find it either for the life of me!!! Thanks for responding to his message!