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HP-41Z module ready (at last) - Printable Version

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HP-41Z module ready (at last) - Ángel Martin - 09-20-2009

You can stop holding your breath :) The module is ready and good to go to the daylight. I bet you thought it'll never be finished (I for one did!) but sure enough it's reached the "good enough" stage.

A quick recap of its highlights:

- a 4-level complex stack, complete for all the functions and routines.

- simplified/optimized complex displaying. It now uses the "RE+jIM" notation, more legible with real-life numbers (with EEX part)

- The displaying is nor rounded, but Integer numbers will display without trailing zeros in the decimal part. So you quickly tell if it's integer or not (and saves real state in the display).

- common factor is extracted when Re(z)=Im(z), and not zero - somehow I found slightly misleading the line "0(1+j)"

- 8k module, holding more than 120 complex math and complex stack functions, plus about 20 more buffer-related functions, 98% of them in MCODE

- programmable promptimg memory functions - with IND addressing support in run time

Already submitted to TOS, should hopefully be ready for download in a few days time.

Thanks to those who provided suggestions and actual coding, real MCODE programmers out there. Peter, Eric, Egan, Howard... In particular Doug Wilder for his implementation of the programable prompting routine, and Håkan Thörngren for his coaching on the buffer implementation. It would have taken them just a fraction of the time it took me to put it together had they wanted to!

Best,
AM

Edited: 20 Sept 2009, 4:05 a.m.


Re: HP-41Z module ready (at last) - Egan Ford - 09-20-2009

Thanks. I look forward to using it.


Re: HP-41Z module ready (at last) - Howard Owen - 09-20-2009

Congratulations on implementing all those improvements! I'm sure the programming wasn't a trivial exercise. I'd like to differ with you on one point however. I almost certainly couldn't have implemented those ideas in mcode anywhere near as fast as you could. The only mcode program I ever wrote was a simple initializer for Hepax memory. Stack and buffer manipulation like you achieved would have taken me a long, long time to write.

Congratulations again!

Regards,
Howard


Re: HP-41Z module ready (at last) - Eric Smith - 09-20-2009

I've found that writing microcode for HPs goes much more quickly when I've got a simulator that lets me single-step through it, set breakpoints, etc. Otherwise debugging is extremely tedious.

I have no idea whether Ángel Martin uses such a thing, though.




Re: HP-41Z module ready (at last) - Ángel Martin - 09-21-2009

I wish! Is there one available? That'll sure make my day... you're right it's tedious, but also painful and sooo easy to make mistakes. Yet it's as addictive as any programming language can be, maybe even mode.




Re: HP-41Z module ready (at last) - Raymond Del Tondo - 09-21-2009

Of course there are simulators with built-in debuggers.

One of them is part of SDK41 from Warren Furlow,

and the other is part of Emu41 from J.-F. Garnier;-)

HTH

Raymond


Re: HP-41Z module ready (at last) - PeterP - 09-22-2009

Angel, now I'm even more impressed! You did all of your fabulous MCODEing without Warrens m41? It is a most wonderful tool that allows single stepping of MCODE and many more easy features. I've had to learn how to use it myself and wrote a little expanded manual for it with examples etc which you can find at TOS as well.

Cheers

Peter


Re: HP-41Z module ready (at last) - Ángel Martin - 09-24-2009

Currently posted & available for download. Feedback is appreciated... hope you enjoy it.


Edited: 24 Sept 2009, 9:26 a.m.