Posts: 7
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Joined: Feb 2008
Dear Theo,
Are you talking about the bar disabling USER and PRGM?
If the answer is 'yes', you can easily remove it.
It is sticked, and you can use a slim knife. I did.
I had several Option 001 'Blanknut' HP-41s.
Some had this bar, and some didn't have it.
Yours.
Posts: 489
Threads: 11
Joined: Jan 2005
One of the primary uses for blanknuts was for companies that wanted to run custom applications. With a custom keyboard overlay and ROM module (or a program loaded from magnetic cards), a 41 could be given to a user who knew little or nothing about programmable calculators, but who had been trained to use the custom application. In such a situation the company's support team probably would not want the user turning off USER mode or fooling around with PRGM mode, because that would invite problems. So the USER and PRGM buttons were disabled, and many of the other keys were unlabeled so that users would not be aware that those keys could perform functions other than those labeled on the custom overlay. The calculator always would stay in USER mode and the keys only would perform the functions needed by the company's own special application.