Another query about programming the HP41CX

[Bill Lafferty]

I have a tape of large number of interactive surveying programs. I am trying to transfer them, one at a time, to a new tape. I am trying to match the original tape exactly.

Several of the files are data files. That's ok.

I'm about half way through. When printing out a directory of the files I have saved to date on the new tape, I have somehow accidentally hit a few keys when I thought I was in Alpha mode, and the tape now has a data file on it, of 20 registers, which has absolutely no name. I can't purge it, because I can't enter a name to purge.

Is there any way of purging this unnamed file from the tape.

[Dan Grelinger]

When I have my HP-41 HP-IL setup in front of me, I'll do some playing around to see what I can come up with.

One thing you may try is to stop the DIR(ectory) command on the offending file, by pressing R/S when it is shown in the display, then go to the Alpha register, press 2nd/Append on the keyboard to edit the directory listing, backspace until there are seven characters left (they may be just spaces), exit Alpha, and then execute Purge. May not work, but it would be the first thing I would try.

Dan

[Bill Lafferty]

Many thanks for your suggestion, Dan.

My wife has actually come up with the answer overnight!!!! She suggested I rename the blank data file (with just a comma, then the new name in the alpha register). It worked. The file now has a name, and I can purge it.

If I had two cassette drives on the IL loop (or a cassette drive and a disc drive, etc), do you know if I could transfer an entire tape from one medium to another in one go, or even one file at a time, without loading the program into the HP41 then transferring it to the new medium?

[Dan Grelinger]

The Extended I/O ROM module provides a function to copy a file from one medium to another. The Autostart/Cassette Duplication ROM provides for duplication of the who media at one time.