Mike,
COMPU-LS is a Land Surveyors COGO (COrdinate GeOmetry) program. HP did considerable business in serving Surveyors with programs and in the case of the 41, a module. HP had their own very capable survey module for the 71.
The Compu-Ls module was written and manufactured by Martin & Company, Alberta. Mathias was kind enough to send me a copy of the manual. I do not have the module. (if you decide to trade or sell yours I might be interested.) Basically a COGO program facilitates calculations in three dimensional rectilinear space. Points are generally described with Northing, Easting, and Elevation, and are given lable numbers or names. Then you can work directly with the point numbers to do circular curve, line, and intersection calculations.
I assume that COMPU-DC is the Data Collector complement to the COGO program, and I dont have a copy of the manual for it.
Like the HP 71 module, this COGO program could work in the field along with the ThinkJet (2225B), or the 2" 82162A printer, the Casette Drive (82161A), the Disk Drive (9114A), and HP or other memory modules, as a totally battery powered system. I assume that there may have been a cable connection from certain Total or Semi Total Station survey instruments, that allowed the surveyor to download shots into the Data Collector module, and to upload points from the Data Collector into the theodolite or Total Station.
Most Total Stations had their own manufactured and dedicated Data Collectors, but even so, there are a lot of Surveyors that preferred HP calculators and used HP95 thru HP200 and HP 48 calculators as data collectors. Some still use those, as you can see by the current cost and business in COGO and Data Collector Cards for the HP48 on the auction site.
forrest
Edited: 16 July 2010, 10:57 p.m.
