HP-IL keyboard for 71B?

[Arne Helme]

Hi, I am looking for an external keyboard solution for a HP-71B. Which HP-IL keyboards were recommended for the 71B? Any suggestions on where to find one?

Regards,

Arne

[Howard Owen]

What I do is to use hpillink with Cristoph Klug's ISA HP-IL card for the PC. That gives me an 80-column by 40 line display, and use of my PC keyboard to control the 71.You can also upload and download files to the handheld, and single-step 71B BASIC programs. It's a very nice package, although it has its quirks. I run it under DOSEMU on Linux, but it should run in a DOS box in Windows.

If you don't have any ISA slots to put an HP-IL interface into, you can get the HP-IL/Serial interface. Then load the KEYBOARD lex file (or either the FORTH or HP-41 emulator ROM) and you can do KEYBOARD IS RS232: and DISPLAY IS RS232: . The trick there is getting the keycode mappings of a typical ANSI or VT100 PC terminal application to work with the ESC codes on the 71B. I got basic communication going with Linux terminal software, but I hadn't cracked the last problem before I found the hpillink solution.

Regards,

Howard