To All:
Jeff Davis' question got my interest as I too have a 82164 HPIL-RS232 I/F that I've done nothing with because I wasn't sure how I wanted to use it. I hadn't heard of HPILCOM either and if that will allow my Dell XP laptop talk to my 41 through COM 1, so much the better. If this works out, then I won't need the 82973A HPIL I/F card that I have but don't use. It's a hassle to dig out an old PC that has a 5 1/4" drive to read the included floppy and I haven't gotten around to dedicating a day to play with this. I have also been reading about the Lif utilities but I don't understand how they work yet.
Here's what I would like to do if I can find an easy way to do it. I have a lot of HP 41 programs on cards that I would like to transfer over to a PC as a backup and to protect them given my magnetic cards are coming up on being 30 years old. I've had my 82104A Card Reader repaired recently and it works great again. I originally purchased a couple of 82161A Digital Cassette Drives but tapes are hard to find and I have a lot to learn about using HPIL since I couldn't afford it back in the 1980s.
I can easily build a serial cable to get my 82164 HPIL-RS232A to connect to my PC, and I'll send an email to Hans Brueggemann about HPILCOM, but what's next? How does HPILCOM 'see' the HP41 through the HPIL loop and how easy is it to transfer programs to and from the 41 to the PC? I don't expect an interface like the HP 48 software but if someone can give me an idea how this works, I would appreciate it.
Thanks,
Gerry