I received my PILBox (http://www.jeffcalc.hp41.eu/hpil/index.html) yesterday and assembled it using the solderless instructions. Essentially it does work as advertised. I was able to use ILPer as an HP9114B drive and as an HP83163 32 column video adapter with my 41CX via HP-IL. Sweet! The PILBox really opens up the possibility for PCs to emulate any HP-IL device.
I write all my 41CX programs on my laptop and compile with HP41UC and test with Nonpareil. To get into a physical 41CX I print barcodes and wand it in. This is faster than booting up my 200Mhz PC so that I can do electronic transfers with my HP-IL ISA adapter. With the PILBox I now use HP41UC to create a disk image and then use that with ILPer. That's laptop -> PILBox -> 41CX. Nice!
Given that I am an OS/X user I had to do all of this with VMware. No problems, the USB pass-through worked just fine.
Presently I am unable to use the PILBox as an ISA HP-IL replacement with EMU41. This support is experimental and still being worked on. A better solution would be for modern emulators to use the PILBox directly. I'll be attempting to get Nonpareil to do this (when I find time). 99% of the work is already done (http://pagesperso-orange.fr/kdntl/hp41/nonpareil-patch-doc.html).
HP-IL Lives!
Edited: 12 July 2009, 3:44 p.m.
