EMU41: A Little Late to The Party, but Loving It!

[Les Wright]

I have neither a suitable device nor the technical skill to upgrade myself to a 41CL, so to console myself I have been splurging on other HP41C accoutrement. I am eagerly awaiting a replacement NoV-64 from Diego (I was cursed with a faulty programmer, a rare occurrence, so an exchange was needed), and, am even more eagerly awaiting a PIL-Box from J-F Garnier.

In preparation for the latter, I have been familiarizing myself with HP-IL and mass storage issues via EMU41, and though the DOS interface requires some getting used to, it is giving me hours of retro fun. With some judicious searching of this forum's archives, I have learned already how to convert my text listings into a format with hp41uc that can be saved to EMU41's emulated mass storage media for easy access via the PIL-Box and ILPer software at a later date. The ability to compose my programs on PC and convert them to a format that, shortly, I will be able to read directly into the calculator without printing and wanding in barcode, as I used to do, is nerdily thrilling.

J-F hasn't developed EMU41 any further in a couple of years, and I don't see it discussed much around here these days, but I am fascinated with its power and how much it's teaching me about the extended capabilities of the actual calculator.

Just thought I'd share that.

Cheers,

Les

P.S., I do indeed know that one can convert text or RAW files directly to LIF format which can be read by PIL-Box via ILPer, but in the meantime it has been instructive and fun to work with the EMU interface. I have a virtual HDRIVE all set with my favourite programs just waiting to get imported to my HP41CV once the PIL-Box arrives.

Edited: 10 May 2012, 5:30 p.m. after one or more responses were posted

[M. Joury]

The PIL-Box is also on my short want list. I just ordered a NoV-64 from Diego and next, I believe, will be the PIL-Box.

Cheers,

-Marwan

[Howard Owen]

EMU41 has given me hours of pleasure. His EMU71 is also wonderful.

JF's HP/IL emulation was unique, as far as I know, for many years. His collaboration with Christoph Klug to enable access to the old ISA HP-IL PC card made it the only game in town for directly accessing HP-IL peripherals from an (old style) PC. JF's PIL-Box has brought that support into the 21st century.

If that weren't enough, JF did the community a huge favor in opening up his source code. Christoph Giesselink used that code in his EMU71 gui emulator of the HP71B. That emulator will also talk to the PIL-Box. (It's Windows only, but the source is under the GPL.)

Cristoph has also used JF's code to write an ILPer, an HP-IL device emulator. Beside device emulation, it also offers an HP-IL scope that can dump the HP-IL protocol symbolically in real time. Finally, ILPer can connect to real HP-IL hardware, emulated devices on the PC, including those hosted by EMU41/EMU71, and another ILPer on a remote PC using TCP-IP. That ought to be a great way to swap FOCAL and BASIC programs across oceans. All this code is GPL.

The HP-IL enthusiast community owes a lot to JF Garnier. Christoph Giesselink has done yeoman's work on our behalf too.

[Christoph Klug]

Dear EMU41 enthusiasts,

...and of course EMU41 is a powerfully tool when working with the new 41CL...

For example transfering ROM image files between 41CL and EMU41....

Detailled and helpfully programm routines for the bidirectional transfer of ROM images, program code and any tpye of data file you fine in my 700 page HP-41 Input/Output Board & IL2000 System Interface manual :-)

With best regards - Christoph Klug

Edited: 9 May 2012, 3:29 p.m.