Use HP serial interface to save/restore programs?

[Harry Jacobson]

I searched the forum for this without success, so:

Can the HP serial interface cable be used to save/restore programs on the HP 30b without harming the existing firmware?

Thank you in advance,

Harry

[Marcus von Cube, Germany]

No, you can only do this with the 34S firmware in place, not the original from HP.

There are provisions for supporting the serial I/O port in the firmware but this is not documented for the general user. It's more of a testing environment for HP. I'm pretty sure you cannot get to the programs or registers from the outside this way.

Once you press the Erase button on the cable the firmware is toast. Sam-Ba.exe has the nasty habit of clearing the RAM, too, so all your data is lost if you use this button.

Edited: 1 Oct 2011, 4:45 p.m.

[bill platt]

So then you really want to turn a 30b into a 34s as soon as you get one? Then you can do all the cool stuff?

[Marcus von Cube, Germany]

Cool stuff indeed. :-)

[Walter B]

That was the reason why we made it :-)

[Harry Jacobson]

Cool stuff aside, for the original 30b firmware there's the desire to offload programs to maintain a program library greater than the amount of memory available. That is, without having to continually erase and tediously key in.

If the 30b had a USB port or an SD slot...... but it doesn't.