Hey Norm, guys;
a few days ago I mentioned I'd be with two Spices in hands for some "transplantation" experiences. It happens that my brother and I have both an HP38E each. I asked him to bring his unit when comming for the regular weekend's "family meeting" and what I wanted to do. Guess what: he brought it!
He is a lawyer and he seldom uses it, but likes it because of its design. He does not like RPN and cannot understand how come a calculator does not have an [=] key! In fact he knows how to use it, but he prefers an HP14B he has and does not give up on the HP38E anyway! I'm trying to take it but he resists doing business...
His HP38E is a "sandwich" type like mine, but... both of ours have the same behavior: the "2" disease. I was almost sure his HP38E was not "infected".
What good would it be exchanging chips so far? Anyway, I'm just pointint out two situations, one of them is just to remember.
I had two HP31E in hands, one solderless and the other with soldered chips. The solderless one did not have the "2" disease and the soldered one did, opposingly to what is expected. Also I had the chance to test two HP38C, also different in costruction, and both showed the same behavior: no blinking 2's while inputing data.
I am posting this because I do not think solderless Spices are the only ones to show the blinking "2" behavior. I called it the "2" disease for fun, I don't take it as a disease.
If you want to test and verify what I call a strange behavior, find a "revision E" 82104A (HP41's card reader)and plug it in your HP41 as usual. To check if your card reader is one of this type, execute [CAT] 2 and wait till the display shows
[CRD RDR 1x ]where x is the revision. If x is equal to G or superior, this will not happen. If it is anything below E or also if it is F, I cannot say it's true. Well, it's a good time for testing, right?
Now execute any function that asks for three digits, like:
[SIZE] _ _ _
[GTO][.] _ _ _
[DEL] _ _ _
[LIST] _ _ _ (if you have a printer)
Type only two of the three expected digits and press [<-] two times to remove them. Let's say you did this:
[XEQ] [ALPHA] SIZE [ALPHA] [2][3] [<-][<-]
You'll see:
[2 SIZE]
To remove this weirdness from the display you should press any key EXCEPT [<-].
Weird, isn't it? I consider this a bug because the system freezes; it does not crash because there's no need to remove batteries so the calculator resumes normal operation and none of the operations involved is programmable. This is a firmware "disease" that was corrected later.
Well, I think that's all for now. I'd be thanked if someone knows any inforamtion about reader versions with this firmware problem and can share with us all
Best regards.
Luiz C. Vieria - Brazil
Edited: 21 June 2003, 10:41 p.m.