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ThePortablePaperV6N5_36pages_Sep-Oct

1. AN EXTRA DISK DRIVE COMES IN HANDY AND NOW IT S AFFORDABLE Keep one at the office and at home and travel lighter with less hassle Take advantage of our liquidation sale to grab one or two of these drives We have battery powered and AC powered drives The AC pow ered drives are ideal for use at home or in your office The battery powered 9114s travel well and are a must if you intend to access floppy disks while on the go HP 9114 Disk Drive HP9114A Disk Drive 175 Battery powered Prod DD11UC HP9114B Disk Drive 199 Battery powered Prod DD12UC HP9114B Disk Drive 225 AC powered Prod DJ11UX HP 9114 Empowerer 59 AC Power supply for the 9114 Prod EMI3NH Deduct 25 if you wish to receive an HP 9114B with minor chips or cracks in the case insides fine these units never used PUBLISHER S MESSAGE m I finally did it After B six years writing about HP Corvallis Oregon BT Portable computers I ER made my first pilgrim age to Corvallis By ZEE the way unless you ME pronounce the state A OreGUN they know you re a foreigner In T Corvallis I attended an independently spon Beceem sored HP 48SX 95LX handheld hackers conference At the HP site I saw the assembly line for turning out HP 95LX s as well as the museum of calculators produced by the Corvallis division Conspicuously absent were any mention or signs that the HP110 HP Portable Plu
2. 59 Prod EMIANH Webster s Spelling Checker 39 Rated Editor s Choice by PC magazine Webster s 110 word dictionary shows you incorrect spellings and suggests corrections orks with MemoMaker The Editor and WordStar Also with ASCII files de by MS Word and ordPerfect Webster s Spelling Checker 39 Prod WB11NS SquishPlus 49 SEA Ka h ll A must for every Plus Increase your Edisk storage capacity by 50 or more SquishPlus operates automati in the background compressing an uncompressing your files a m i a SquishPlus 49 Prod SQ11NS Norton Utilities Adv Edition 59 Y for Jt gt 3 Recover deleted files repair corrupted files and organize your Edisc and floppies with this best selling utilities program Norton Utilities Adv 59 Prod NU12NS MS Spell 49 ATTENTION MS Word ROM users We just uncovered an inventory of MS Spell the spelling checker designed to work with your MS Word documents MS Spell on ROM 49 Prod MS12UC HPduette 39 HPduette Transfer files both ways between your Portable Plus and your desktop computer via serial cable HPduette 39 Prod DU11NS Condor 3 129 NOOR Powerful easy to use relational database lets you enter data sort search manage files and print adddress labels and reports with ease
3. Deduct 25 if you wish to accept an HP9114B with minor chips and cracks in case insides fine units never used MEMORY SOFTWARE DRAWERS Portable Plus 1M8 HP RAM Drawer MM11UC LLLL Luuu lluleeeeeee 595 00 384K HP RAM Drawer MMI2UC esee s 175 00 256K HP RAM Drawer MM19UC slleeeeee nn n 99 00 128K HP RAM Drawer MMI3UC ccc eee eee eee 45 00 128K HP Memory Card MMI4UC 2 ccc cee nnne 75 00 HP ROM Software Draw SWTIUR cece ee ec eee m 35 00 ROM BURNING Portable Plus ROM Buming kit EPIONH oorr EE ReLHE LESS NRA 475 00 ROM bumer amp eraser cable 2 128K EPROMs software manual 128K byte EPROM EPIINR S acc eMe IDEM 45 00 4 128K byte EPROMs EP12NX cece ce eee ee eee eens 169 00 128K PROM no erase EP18NR ee eeeeeeee 36 00 4 128K PROMs no erase JEPA9NX 2 cece cece cee eect eens 129 00 INTERFACE CARDS HP IL Card For IBM PC ILT1UC 2 c cece cece nee 79 00 HP IL Serial Interface Eus oM Ur Made dre 39 00 SOFTWARE ON ROM for the Portable Plus lf the product number ends with UR it is a ROM originally manufactured by HP If it ends with NK it is a new Personalized Software disk plus ROM backup DESCRIPTION PRODUCT LIQUIDATION PRICE Combined ROMs COMBO ROM ROVING oodd sore daa ERES 159 00 2 ROMs AsEasyAs HP Duette TermPlus Sidewinder and TetPlus SuperROM SUNK i a
4. Condor 3 129 Prod CR11NS Condor Jr 59 Flat file database for the HP110 Prod CR13NS As Easy As 59 Easy to use spreadsheet program compatible with Lotus 1 2 3 version 2 0 at a great price As Easy As 59 Prod AS11NS SafeSkin 19 This clear flexible cover perma nently protects the HP Portables or the UltraLite keyboards from dust and liquid spills specify which computer you have when ordering HP110 Portable Plus 19 Prod SA11INM LS 12 19 Prod SA12NM HP 75Ds 35 With extra memory and an excellent verions of BASIC Do not have batteries HP IL cords manuals or chargers HP75Ds 35 LIQUIDATION SALE Prices on HP Portable and HP150 Computers and accessories good through October 11 or while supplies last inventory will not be replenished eHP110 s at 199 95 eMost software priced at 39 512K Portable Pluses as eGreat Deals on Memory low as 350 Drawers ThinkJets and eMost ROM Packages Disk Drives riced at 79 eMore oRDER BY p i Order Now Supplies very limited HP150 Users Call for liquidation pricing on HP150 equipment and accessories PERSONALIZED SOFTWARE BULK RATE A Division of Thaddeus Computing Inc Dp P O BOX 869 7 FAIRFIELD IA FAIRFIELD IOWA 52556 BN MENT SUBSCRIETTONPNE 2 PERMIT 218 1240 ME E ST NNETKA IL 60093
5. SEPTEMBER OCTOBER 19931 15 HP Portable Products Available only until OCTOBER 11 1991 HP110 PORTABLE PLUS COMPUTERS DESCRIPTION PRODUCT LIQUIDATION PRICE Never used Portable Plus PP36UC 450 00 In factory packaging If originally European unit US keys manuals substituted Used Portable Plus PP16UC 375 00 HP 110 PQ11UC 199 95 Includes Time Manager and Productivity Disk Deduct 25 if you do not require a manual OPTIONS ONLY WITH PORTABLE PLUS PURCHASE These reduced priced options are available only with each purchase of a Portable Plus ROM Drawer with ROM purchase FastPlus upgrade Memory drawer 128K Memory drawer 256K Memory drawer 384K PERIPHERALS MODEMS Used 1200 baud Internal BM11UC ccc cece eee ee eee 295 00 Acoustic coupler _ CTMNC n EmM 39 00 WorldPort 1200 2400 MNP portable modems and accessories CALL HP IL PRINTERS PLOTTER ThinkJet Battery Power TJMUC 1 ec cee cee ee eee eee 150 00 ThinkJet AC Powered TJUX eee eee eee eee eee 175 00 Empowerer ll ThinkJet EM14NH 00 2 0 cece cee cece eee 59 00 7470A Plotter PL11UM eee eee 195 00 DISK DRIVES Bp HP9114A Disk Drive DDIIUS oo dadas tour Sauer Id eene 175 00 HP9114B Disk Drive DD12UC peti MEE 199 00 HP9114B AC Powered DJMUX cece cece mme 225 00 Empowerer Il HP9114 EM13NH 2 kee eee cee IR 59 00
6. Pv game too obtuse to master So instead I managed to convert several game programs to run on the 95 The games include GoMoku Reversi Petals Around the Rose and Fox n Hounds I ll have to rewrite Tetris real soon now No portable computer is complete without P that particular battery waster THE HP 95LX IS ADDICTIVE It s all too easy to become psychologically dependent on this computer It can go anywhere you go To paraphrase a TV commercial It s your computer don t leave home without it I ve already keyed in all my appointments birth day reminders class schedules and To Do lists for the rest of this year and most of next year I guess I better keep this computer What would happen if I lost it I may have to write a program that will sound an alarm at full volume in case I ever leave the 95 behind HP BULLETIN BOARD Much of what I had to show Hal came from the Hewlett Packard electronic bulletin board in Corvallis OR This seems to be the main source for exchanging information about the HP 48SX and the 95LX Palmtop PC It is a most unusual BBS not at all user friendly hard to get onto and subject to occasional crashes If you re in the market for a great math scientific calculator or you re thinking about getting an HP 95LX you ll probably want to explore this BBS However be forewarned that you re in for several hours of frustra tion until you get used to the vagaries and idio
7. Using the 95LX with a Portable Plus Using the 95LX with a WorldPort Modem Crosstalk on the 95LX 95LX HP Calculator e 9 9 o e 9 o 9 9 6 8 o 9 9 o o oo 9 9 o 9 e e 9 9 9 9 0 o 9 959 9 9 A great gift a great buy How many people do you know family members business associates friends yourself that can benefit from using an HP Portable Dear HP Portable User You know how practical these HP Por table computers are Couldn t you use a second or third one Couldn t your son or daughter use one in school How about your spouse your business associates At these prices won t these machines pay for themselves in no time Now is the time to buy because these offers are good only until October Il Look at these prices then call us right away because we will operate on a first come first served basis we will not replenish our inventory Prices good only while supplies last Buy the most practical long battery life rugged HP Portable available TODAY Sincerely Hak epe Hal Goldstein P S In the unlikely event that your HP Portable needs repair Larry Baldozier our technician will continue to service your maintainence needs HP110s for 199 95 LIGHT WEIGHT 12 20 HOURS OF BATTERY LIFE COMES WITH A BUILT IN WORD PROCESSOR LOTUS 1 23 AND INTERNAL MODEM This 8 Ib wonder was far ahead of its time when introduced by Hewle
8. cated and hides a computer s basic filing system It makes it almost impossible for any but the most sophisticated computer users to organize and customize their machines for maximum benefit We are attempting to learn about Windows because it appears to be the wave of the future Windows may be the program of the Pepsi generation but for slacking thirst Pepsi is not an improvement over water from the kitchen faucet Tom works for a natural gas pipeline company in Houston Texas and was one of the first to use PCs in the natural gas industry His excellent contributions to The Portable Paper have proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that he is truly The Savvy User d aN i I J ye P rofessiona SUBSCRIPTION APPLICATION REQUEST YES I d like a FREE subscription to HP Professional Send a subscription application to Name Company Address City Telephone RIPTION OFFER If you re a Hewlett Packard computer user and buyer of HP related hardware software or peripherals HP Professional the monthly magazine for Hewlett Packard commercial and technical computing is for you It s a free source of valuable information that will help you do your job It s Informative It s Monthly It s Read by over 35 000 Professionals Like You It s FREE Read HP Professional for information and insights on the latest hardware software trends and developments Start your free
9. flat bladed screwdriver or a number 8 TORX screwdriver A Remove the Software Drawer Not the Portable Plus Memory Drawer After you have backed up your Edisk Temove the Software Drawer as follows 1 TURN OFF THE PORTABLE PLUS Press f8 from the main PAM screen close the comput er and turn it over ae REMOVE THE TWO SCREWS ON OUTSIDE EDGE OF SOFTWARE DRAWER Use a small flat bladed screwdriver or a number 8 TORX driver to unscrew counterclockwise and remove these screws completely DISENGAGE THE CONNECTOR PINS Place computer face down on a table with the Software Drawer furthest away from you Place your palms on the drawer with fingers over the edge Push down and away from you until the connector pins are disengaged and the restraining tabs on either side of the drawer are free LIFT THE DRAWER UP AND OUT OF THE RECEPTACLE Be careful the connector pins are delicate and bend easily ij B Insert the ROM in a ROM Drawer Socket 1 For Personalized Software 128K ROMs and EPROMs only REINSTALL THE TWO SHUNTS REMOVED WHEN YOU CON NECTED THE ID MODULE TO THE 128K ROM ASSEMBLY There are five pins on the top of the 128K ROM Assembly that the ID Module cable connects to The outer two left hand pins are connected when covered by one shunt and the outer two right hand pins are connected when covered by the other shunt 2 THE PORTABLE PAPER or eo Use two shu
10. which results in reduced charges The user selects a preset configuration prior to message transfer SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS The Portable Plus version of AdvanceMail needs 384K of RAM to run The Portable Plus must also have a software drawer the AdvanceMail ROMs the Reflec tion 1 application ROM and a datacom connection The datacom connection to the HP 3000 can be made via modem or by direct connection via a serial cable INSTALLATION Installation requires site specific customization The same work is required whether there are 1000 users or just one AdvanceMail must be customized to fit the particular HP 3000 configuration dial in procedures intermediary data switches security programs etc The customization is done in the Command and Configuration files which are then distributed to the users of AdvanceMail After these files are created AdvanceMail can be installed on the individual Portable Pluses SEPTEMBER OCTOBER 19931 21 VEEN THE PORTABLE PAPER The AdvanceMail transfer mechanism can be used to automatically transfer information without user inter vention n example situation may better explain some of AdvanceMail s capabilities A sales force for a chemical distributor has been outfitted with portable computers During the day each sales representative uses the Portable Plus to record sales call activities on a template When the sales representatives get home at night they compose addi tional me
11. Plus is now almost 4 and 1 2 times faster than the old XT I would say not given the results of the other tests The program is widely available and included here so you can test your own machine and compare your results with mine The tests shown in Table 2 were an afterthought I did not do any tests of either the HP IL or the serial port before the upgrade It was during my integrity testing of the upgrade that I realized that I did have benchmarks The Portable Paper Vol2 No 6 Pg 28 contains my review of HPduette the serial port file transfer utility Since these tests were run on the same machines I compared the FastPlus upgrade to the results in that article To my amazement the through put of both ports has improved with the faster proces sor Apparently the improvement comes from the fact that interrupts can be serviced sooner by the faster processor in the upgraded Plus SEPTEMBER OCTOBER 1991 23 THE PORTABLE PAPER Table 1 CPU Benchmarks Test ee aE ma mx eee m 98 mmm m mo memes qu aa s FC aR Table 2 Portable Plus to IBM File Transfer Benchmark Tests single 124K file transferred ee es wm o 9 mew 7 BATTERY LIFE NOT AFFECTED When Hal and I first discussed a review of the FastPlus upgrade he suggested a test of battery consumption We thought that the faster CPU would deplete the batteries more quickly I can only report that I cannot detect a measurable difference in batt
12. Portable Plus and the HP 95LX please see the Savoy User column this issue page 28 Rich Wants an HP notebook computer As a frequent traveler in the engineering profession I rely on laptops notebooks to do a lot of my away from home work Since I tote a briefcase with me necessary for the files reports etc that I must carry anyway I have been wait ing patiently for the day Hewlett Packard would respond to the fact that so many professionals travel this way Imagine my disappointment when I heard that they have been pouring their research and development into some thing with an undersized keyboard and less than a full 80 column by 25 line screen vast market may respond to this new Palmtop but I m not one I m going to sit back and wait for a slightly larger machine with the same features as the Palmtop but with a full size keyboard and screen hopefully for nearly the same price I have no doubt that Hewlett Packard is capable of it What do you think Hal The question is has Hewlett Packard done their mar ket research on folks like me I would like to see HP produce a notebook computer in the tradition of superior HP quality R C Smith 7404 Petris Avenue Bakersfield CA 93308 Sam Elter San Francisco CA Comment from Rich Hall Managing Editor HP did its research and came to the conclusion that they needed to focus on the palmtop niche It appears that the market is validating the
13. RET RR 69 95 Link110 EK IONS 236 ecu Dues bates colle kis RUE CE d a DIR 69 00 LinkPlus EKTINS ooa cues see eR e ene rij M 69 00 Integrated Package T Master IMIONS 21 cadet eo vaca Ca etse ew aie 39 00 Learning Material for HP110 P Plus How to Use the HP Portables Video Tapes VPTINM Luuuuuleeeee eee 39 00 Productivity Boosting Utilites Games BacTools BOLING euo ERR AENA 39 00 DOS Tools DTfTINS s aono sanae e EEA E 39 00 FilePlus FEI2NS wines ccd AE aX EN VYX E Ea 39 00 GamesPlus a SGATING Lacie si law S ESTE edv eT 39 00 HP110 Utilities Disk UDITNS oues oatru Elec a drei des 20 00 HP110 Productivity Disk SB11NS LLuuluuuuleeeeeeeeeeeeee 29 00 eefe Kollection 12v MOMS i Norton Uitilities Adv NUNS alot iterate iue acude deb LIE 59 00 Norton Utilities NUIINS 2 Giles cade oEROLL CUR deR E or Eus 49 00 PrintMaster PRINS occ oe mme ue eee eee ea Deere 39 00 Shelp SINS Loc nonoui etu eU MO LENA 39 00 Squish Plus P Plus SONS oovcerearihe ix erbscrs MEME NE 49 00 Tiger Fox 2i m rrceU 19 00 Time Manager Included in HP110 Productivity Pack above Typing Whiz TWINS enr 29 00 Programming Compiled BASIC oe MS I3UC osa Sa ree aa ee 79 00 MS BASIC US MSIIUD esceszoibetaeobisixc umb Qe s ds 79 00 MS GW A USED GW TUO o ib seaacwe TOC Cbr Eae eroe 79 00 T Pascal 3 0 Optimizer TP17NS bd ec ei RA A 25 00 Project Management Milestone MLI INS decernira Ru ERUNT EU 59 00 SpreadSheet and Statisti
14. VPIINM 39 00 Term110 TEINS HP IL Card For IBM PC IL11UC 79 00 The Editor II EDIINS HP110 Productivity Disk SB11NS 29 00 Tiger Fox TFMNS HP110 Utilities Disk UDIINS 20 00 Time dado a Included in HP110 Link110 LKI2NS 69 00 Productivity Pack above Norton Utilities NUIINS 49 00 Typing Whiz TWIINS All tems under ACCESSORIES SUPPLIES except Portable Plus ERNE All tems under SOFTWARE ON DISK Programming The Palmtop Paper 1 year subscription 2 year subscription HP95LX Palmtop PC Comes with 128K RAM Card 512K RAM Card PTRAM Expands 95LX file storage Connectivity Pack Connect 95LX to PC compatibles Serial Interface Cable PTSIC1 Serial Cable Adapter Kit PTSAK1 Voltage Adapter PTVOL1 For U S Canada conserve batteries THE PORTABLE PAPER the PC compatibles The HP IL adapter card for the PC compatibles fits in any of the PC s internal expan sion slots and provides HP IL ports for any PC compatible computer _ The HP IL interface adapter for the Atari attaches to the Portfolio s side slot The adapter card for Toshiba portables models T1100 T1200F FB H amp HB T1600 3100 3200SX 5100 amp 5200 fits in the dedicated modem slot The adapter card for the Toshiba 1000 provides the option of an additional port for the HP Smart Wand These adapters allow for 23 to 30 HP IL devices on a loop and transmit data at up to 7 000 bytes second 3 000 bytes second typical The Po
15. appear to be functionally different from the 3 02 version Apparently there have been some bug fixes and upgrades to the program but they are none that I would notice If you want a copy of Kermit version 3 10 look for it in the HP Forum on Compuserve Be sure to order a copy of LISING MS DOS KERMIT Connecting Your PC to the Electronic World by Christine M Giannone published by Digital Press You might want to wait a couple of months for the latest edition of this book It is the official documentation for the Kermit program and is an excellent guide for using it The only problem that I encountered with Kermit other than relearning how to use it has been with the Remote Host command The Remote Host command is supposed to run one computer from another I wanted to run the HP 48SX handheld from the keyboard of the Portable Plus I even wrote a recipe showing how to do this The recipe appeared in the May June 1991 issue of The Portable Paper Much to my consternation the recipe worked only until that issue of the Paper went to press After that it failed repeatedly All I could get was an error message Error failed to create file CON Several calls to Hewlett Packard and to the folks at Kermit Central proved fruitless Finally John Nyenhuis was able to solve the problem The trick is to run Kermit from the PAM program on the Portable Plus That seems to work best and I can close the books on that one Thanks John The p
16. calculator Having used the HP 48SX for several months I d like to share some of the things I ve learned Of the hundred or so programs that I looked at only two were worth the effort to rewrite for the HP 48SX All the other programs for the 41C could be done on the 48SX at the push of a couple of keys For example one of the programs that I wrote for the HP 41CV turned that calculator into a financial calculator The financial analysis program took me several weeks to write on the 41C It featured inter changeable solutions and was completely automated To get the same thing to happen on the 485X I simply had to look up the text book formula for compound interest I then keyed the formula into the Equation Writer on the calculator pressed the Solve key and waited a couple of seconds Up popped a running program that would let me key in interest principal values payments future value and compounding and payment frequencies I could enter some values and solve for others at the touch of a few menu keys All the programming was done by the calculator itself I took a look at the calculator generated program and found that it was full of commands like DUP DUP2 PICK ROLL ROT CASE WHILE REPEAT If you have ever played with the Forth programming language these computer commands should look familiar to you The 48SX is a programmer s delight The computer has a new and different programming language dubbed Reverse Polish
17. directly relevant to the three HP Portables are denoted in this issue as follows 110 Portable Il Portable Plus f Portable Vectra A Vectra LS 12 When items are partly or indirectly relevant they are denoted as It turns out to properly conduct a business selling and supporting the hundreds of items related to the HP150 and HP Portable requires an incredibly large sized staff We need sales mar keting repair accounting shipping MIS R amp D and desktop publishing people to do the job properly We could not come up with a reason able way to do it half way What that means is that by the end of October we will have reduced our permanent staff from 18 to 5 We will cease the mail order part of our operation in October and focus on publishing the last issue of The Portable Paper and the first issues of The Palmtop Paper We probably will not sell Palmtop products at least for the first six months of The Palmtop Paper We still have an inventory Portable Pluses never opened in the original packaging HP110 s ThinkJets Disk Drives We also have memory drawers and software on ROM and disk For those thinking of purchasing ROMBO s and extra 128K EPROMs do it now By the time you receive the last Portable Paper the plan is to have closed down the mail order part of the business If we have some inventory left there may be no one to talk to and no one to ship them If we have inventory left it is possible that we may l
18. expertise All this dismal news for Porta ble Plus users should not be a problem for 95LX users since the 95LX screen follows the IBM mono chrome adapter standard Since I don t have a 95LX I can t check this out So is this the end for the Force compiler on the Portable Plus I hope not While I can t be sure of the work involved a screen output routine should not be difficult to write if one is familiar with the Portable Plus screen memory So how about it Is there a Portable Plus guru out there reading the last issues of The Portable Paper who would like to work on this If you want more information on Force on the Portable Plus or would just like to talk about HP portables in general contact me on the HPSystems or FUSE Forum on CompuServe My PIN is 76702 1654 If you d like a copy of my To Do list program with its source code I can upload it to CompuServe Jim s article is based on Force version 1 0 Sophco Force s developer is currently shipping version 2 le Rich 14 SEPTEMBER OCTOBER 1991 What is an Xbase program dBASE is Ashton Tate s trademark for its popu lar micro computer database program Over the last two years Ashton Tate has sued competi tors who have produced compatible database programs for copyright infringement To avoid legal hassles with Ashton Tate the press has adopted the name Xbase to indicate the col lection of language dialects based on the origi nal dBASE II and dBA
19. oorr reine CER 79 00 1 ROM Editor Format110 AE Shelp Side Winder WordPerfect Speller HOI3NK oae iir RE DU ONE 175 00 3 ROMs Also including HPDuette Seb FilePlus Tetplus Writer s ROM WRIINK 12 coser eh a oie I RC ERES 159 00 2 ROMs Editor Il Webster s FP FilePlus Shelp Writer s ROM Il WRIONK asa ca eters wee E EEESSKRS 159 00 2 ROMs RightWriter and Outline TM Communications Advanced Mail ADI UR cos ezs baee EO ER LR 50 00 Reflection RBEHUM cia ss oa decree ue Lendl 79 00 TermPlus TEISNK coe esL e Ede Ee eee 79 00 Productivity Boosters Games DOS Tools DTI2NK sede he Sa eee 79 00 GamesPlus GATINK seo beens e esu E AER EX 79 00 HP Duette DUISNK espresse dant uxDNLTEA 79 00 Norton Utilities Adv NUTONK LL eso aioe a RARE E 79 00 Squish Plus erp GERNE NAM AR 79 00 Typing Whiz JWIONK 1 os orco px wears 79 00 Programming Languages MSBasic MS21UR uou edi ERLEXREXG 79 00 Spreadsheets and Database COMBO ROM ROMNK seo Sasa Maas 159 00 2 ROMs AsEasyAs HP Duette TermPlus Sidewinder and TetPius Exec Card Mgr EGHUB Gres ta sexe iur E AIO Ra 79 00 Lotus 123 1A no manual LINGUA ose deer pedes Vets 249 00 Lotus 123 2 01 no manual LHSUR vos enda ione x x bae e xA RSS 395 00 SideWinder SWIONK ooo exuere aes 79 00 Word Processors Editor Il ED12NK oyster S T bx 79 00 MemoMkr TimeMgr MMOIUR osse EI I as Pere 49 00 MSWord MSODUR cuca Sih wdesidde eve ahaa
20. player in the palmtop game Once this is done I think Hewlett Packard could leverage the acclaim generated by the 95LX along with HP s general reputation for quality and very successfully market a light weight notebook computer The HP notebook I d like to see would incorporate the 95LX advances but have a higher power word processor with spell checker and thesaurus and database pro gram It would of course have a bigger screen and keyboard but not too large a keyboard please I found the Poget PC s keyboard only a little too small but I loved the fact that I didn t have to reach very far for the keys With a good set of built in applications I don t need a 20MB hard drive And I would gladly sacrifice a floppy drive for a RAM card slot if it means I can get the kind of battery life the 95LX gives Besides with no hard or floppy drive it shouldn t be difficult for HP to keep the weight of the notebook under 3 lbs and that is important to me I completely agree with you on the subject of pricing I don t see why a 95LX type notebook would have to cost much THE PORTABLE PAPER Volume six Number five September October 1991 Editor Publisher Hal Goldstein omm Editor Richard Hall Department Editors Tom Page Ed Kee Contributing Editors Jim Scheef Marcus Otto Rita Goldstein Copy Editor Glen Frank Art Consultant George Foster Circulation Rick Finnell Suzanne Ward Executive Advisor Rita Goldste
21. real value for the Portable Plus perhaps even the HP 95LX user While Force i is another Xbase compatible compiler THE PORTABLE PAPER in an already crowded market it is not an Xbase clone by any means Force offers significant enhancements to the Xbase language while offering features of interest to the Portable Plus user The thing that first got my attention was Force s ability to use either DOS or the BIOS for screen output in addition to the direct screen writes that make most programs incompatible with the Portable Plus Using DOS or BIOS should result in a well behaved program that will run on the Portable Plus as well as a PC compatible Does this work Well yes and no It is possible to write a program using Force that is completely compatible with the Portable Plus If screen I O is limited to TTY output through DOS or the BIOS everything is fine Unfortunately the standard Xbase formatted screen command the SAY GET syntax does not presently work on the Portable Plus This limits screen formatting to Esc sequences in simple TTY output On the Portable Plus simple I O using the lt string gt syntax can be directed through DOS or the BIOS While BIOS should be faster it does not allow using Esc sequences to control the screen This type of output is sufficient to display reports but is almost unworkable for serious data input More on screen I O later To test Force on the Portable Plus I wrote a small program
22. subscription today send us the coupon below You ll receive a subscription application in the mail Fill out and mail the application to qualify for your free subscription Title State Zip Mail to HP Professional P O Box 616 Neha PA 19044 0616 Or call Lori Ulbrich at m 957 1500 or FAX e 957 1050 Extraordinary Prices See also price list many software packages for 39 and ROM software for 79 Dear HP Portable Customer There are many reasons for some of the extraordinary values offered on this page and on the price list In the case of Webster s Spelling Checker The Norton Utilities Condor and HPduette we had to inventory hundreds of copies because the manufacturer was going to stop producing the version that HP Portable users could use Other times Empowerers and ROM chips we made a large custom order right before we decided we had to quit selling products Remember we need to liquidate our inventory by October 11 and that means you get a great deal Sincerely v Hal Goldstein as in the case of Now is the time to stock up on extra batteries for pone HP Portable Resource Material to make the most amp of your Portable Plus i Tap the collective wisdom and vay or six years of The Portable Paper and Subscribers Disks The Portable Paper is packed with information you won t find anywhere else on how to use your HP110 or Portable Plu
23. the MOVE command It uses fewer keystrokes and becomes very useful when working with large worksheets with FROM TO ranges separated by many cells Is the Force Xbase Compiler for the Portable Plus By Jim Scheef One of my frequent frustrations about the Portable f Plus is my inability to move small database applica tions between the Portable Plus and my desktop computers I would like to be able to write small applications in a quick and productive language like dBASE III and then use the same programs on both computers The problem has been the old bugaboos of size and compatibility Over the past couple of years there have been short notes in The Portable Paper about people who have been successful in running Xbase applications on the Portable Plus see side bar on Xbase While these work the size of the resulting programs or the disk space required for the interpret er have resulted in the Portable Plus being dedicated to that one application What has been needed is a compiler that produces program files that are sufficiently small to be of real use on the limited resources of the Portable Plus yet is easy enough to use that mere mortals can write programs that get the job done The Force Compiler from Sophco Inc has the potential to be that tool The key word here is potential As it stands the Force compiler is an excellent product that produces execut able files sufficiently small to be of
24. to an empty column create one if you have to press End and DownArrow to move to the bottom of the spreadsheet move back to the desired column and press End UpArrow to move the pointer to the bottom of that column ADD UP A COLUMN USING SUM Move pointer to the first empty cell after the col umn of numbers you wish to add up and type SUM Then press the Up Arrow type a period press End Up Arrow enter a closing parenthesis and press Return With this procedure you don t have to type a range into your SUM formula or move your pointer to a cell to point to a range 3 Copying and moving with the Backspace key it is common to position the pointer in the upper left cell of the range you wish to copy from and issue the COPY command The status line will then display a prompt asking for the FROM range However using the Backspace key can be more convenient in some cases First position the pointer on the cell that will be the upper left corner of the TO range Then issue the Copy command press the Backspace key move the pointer to the upper left corner of the range that you want to copy from and press the period Then use the ArrowKeys to expand the FROM range and press Return to select this range The pointer automatically moves to the cell in the upper left corner of the TO range Press Return and the data from the FROM range will appear This procedure also works with
25. to list the TimeManager ToDo file I chose this project because it demonstrates the generalized file I O possible with Force In other words Force can read and write files other than standard Xbase data bases Of course you must do more of the work yourself when reading from or writing to a non Xbase format For example the ToDo list program must parse each record by looking for the spaces between fields If the file were in Xbase format all of the fields would be available based on the database declaration and the header that is part of the Xbase file format Those familiar with the Xbase language know that it is fairly freeform Force on the other hand requires a Pascal like block structure that makes the code very modular In addition everything must be declared in Force before it can be used in a program This in cludes variables memory variables in Xbase parlance and database structures The result is that Force code does not look much like typical Xbase at first glance but most of the familiar commands are there All this structure is what enables the Force compiler to output such compact executable files In other words by declaring variables and database structures in these special blocks the programmer is doing some of the work a compiler would need to do to optimize the resulting code It took some time for a typical Xbase programmer like myself to get used to this syntax but once over the initial hurdle Force becomes a
26. what is left and what is vid anode to il order Disk drives for example are something we will not sell because they are expensive for us to process They require proper testing cleaning battery installation an AC adapter an HP IL cable professional packing and a warranty 22 SEPTEMBER OCTOBER 1991 not have to mail the sales call report each day A permanent receive specification has also been created that will automatically update the price list spreadsheet on the Portable Plus If a message with PRICE UP DATE in the subject field is found in the HPDesk Mailroom this message is automatically received and stored in the DOS file PRICE WKS for reading by Lotus 123 These advanced capabilities provide a mechanism for controlling file transfers and automati cally performing tasks that could be forgotten ORDERING INFORMATION Available through Personalized Software on ROM for a limited time while in stock Subscriber price is 50 for AdvanceMail without Reflection and 99 for Advance Mail with Reflection HP PORTABLE PLUS HP110 BARGAINS If Pis are reading this you know that HP Portables offer a number of features keyed to portability still not matched in the marketplace In particular 1 Long battery life You can be on an airplane or in the woods ne not have to worry about the system shutting off 2 Ruggedness The HP Portables are virtually inde structible which means you don t have to worry a
27. 79 00 MultiMate MM20UR ifsc 5h chee os Oise eO E 79 00 WordPerfect 5 0 WDHNK cora s ee e ilc en 495 00 WordPerfect Speller ROISNK 425r eocsezeei ed wt onbbx en vs 175 00 3 ROMs Also including HPDuelte M FilePlus Tetplus WordPerf Thesaurus 3 ROMs RO12NR ee en nr 129 00 Writer s ROM RI xum dd ccce a e c 159 00 2 ROMs Editor Il Webster s FormatPius FilePlus Sheip Word Processing Utilities HPrint HPI2NK ots cc hard oUU o v soda 79 00 OutlinePlus OUTING ero CCE ER E Be oes 79 00 RightWriter RWIANK E nes 129 00 Writer s ROM II WRI2NK o osse ee eine rooted eus 159 00 2 ROMs RightWriter and Outline Pius First come first served liquidation rices good ONLY WHILE SUP LIES LAST SOFTWARE ON DISK DESCRIPTION PRODUCT LIQUIDATION PRICE Communications Kermit KEHNS oce aue suc E ELUUR Vd SEE 19 00 Relay Gold Plus RGTING Ceci een ev queo eicit Sa esas s 79 00 TermPlus TEIZNS a connexa E ESEPSKDLON I C PRA 39 00 Term110 TEMNS beau pu CE 39 00 YTERM YTG a r A A ON aE 29 00 Database Accounting Software Condor 3 CRIINS ooreen rea edi Pdaw dd rude Ra 129 00 Condor Jr CRISNS xoc eec denti ues m dui E RM EP 59 00 Dac Easy Accounting OCTING sess ee senate Ern 79 00 Used dBase Il DBIIUO 24550 ute cele cache aD ere ree EI 79 00 File Transfer HPDuette for P Plus DUTINS Loco EA D dei2UEeikR rn re 39 00 ReadHP HDIINS ziocouaeev sch cw debe sila e ee
28. 991 1 INSERT ROM DRAWER IN PORTABLE PLUS Align the drawer s side tabs with those on the case of the Plus and carefully lower the drawer into the receptacle Using the palms of both hands push down and slide the ROM drawer towards you careful ly until the ROM Drawer pin connector is fully engaged 2 INSERT AND TIGHTEN THE TWO SCREWS ON SOFIWARE DRAWER Tighten the screws clockwise being careful not to over tighten or you will strip the threads in the case RESTORING THE PORTABLE PLUS AND TESTING THE ROM CHIP TURN ON AND RESTORE PORTABLE PLUS turn the Plus over and open its lid Press the contrast key to awaken the Plus from the deep sleep mode it goes into when a drawer is removed When installing a drawer the Plus checks the memory before resetting and therefore may appear to take a long time to start up It may take 60 seconds before the computer re sponds Re pressing the CONTRAST KEY may speed up the process You will probably receive a MEMO RY LOST message If so you need to reformat the Edisk or you will run into difficulties accessing data f A Reformat the Edisk press f1 after the MEMO RY LOST message appears B Restore and Configure the Portable Plus Turn the Portable Plus on and restore the following m RESTORESETTINGS TO THE SYSTEM CON FIGURATION MENU press f6 from PAM Make sure you reset the Main Edisk memory partition along with other s
29. Connectivity Pack Files are transferred in a fashion similar to HPduette or Laplink tagged and then sent 3 Users can transfer files by making the HP 95LX a slave to the PC compatible similar to the way a PC HP IL card works This is accom plished by running a file transfer program on the 95LX and a slightly different one on the PC programs included in the Connectivity Pack For example if these programs were run the A drive of the HP 95LX might become the D drive of the PC and its files would be accessible CONTENTS OF CONNECTIVITY PACK The HP 95LX Connectivity Pack comes with a 4 pin to 9 pin serial cable and a 9 pin to 25 pin serial adapter included to connect the 95LX to a serial port on the desktop Connectivity Pack software documentation and a registration form are also included Duplicate copies of the software are on one 3 5 floppy and two 5 25 floppy disks The software includes desktop PC versions of the following 95LX applications Filer Appointment Book Phone Book Memo Editor Setup Utility Financial Calculator SEPTEMBER OCTOBER 19931 9 THE PORTABLE PAPER m Merge Utility ment or phone books into one m Translate Utility for converting files of other popular appointment and phone book software between their formats and the 95LX format m DOS Connect for accessing 95LX files from your desktop PC USING THE CONNECTIVITY PACK E The computer you will communicate with must
30. E which will put Run Length Encoded pictures on the screen of the Portable Plus The screen grabber from Personalized Software s Sketch program lets me save the picture as a Sketch file I then use a home brew program to convert the Sketch file to an 48SX GROB file It is all rather complicated but so far l ve been able to put the face of Albert Einstein and a map of the US on the display of the 485X If you re at all interested in this procedure please download all of my work from the HP Forum on Compuserve It s currently available in Data Library 13 The file s name is SK2GR2 ZIP The 48SX is also a computer gamester s plaything I ve written a version of MasterMind for the HP 485X The game is called FMD48 It too is available on the HP Forum of Compuserve However the program that wastes batteries more than anything else is a very fast and difficult version of you guessed it Tetris How about that When you get tired of using the 48SX to solve your toughest bound ary value problem you can turn the machine into a Nintendo Game Boy The particular version of Tetris contains no fancy stuff It doesn t preview the next game piece nor keep scores It s just brute strength Tetris The game is every bit as addictive as it is on a desk top computer The Tetris program is available from the HP Corvallis Electronic Bulletin Board THE HP 95LX I ve been using the HP 95LX for about two weeks I d like to share some of my early impres
31. Lisp RPL It is more than a new language It is a new approach to handheld programming object oriented programming No longer is a programmer limited to writing programs in keystroke notation RPL programs can become quite elaborate And if RPL is not fast enough SEPTEMBER OCTOBER 1991 25 Shoe THE PORTABLE PAPER registered developers can order an assembler program ming language for the machine RLP is very much like Forth However the typical Forth stack which can only contain whole numbers has been replaced in the HP 48SX with a stack that can hold anything This includes strings of characters lists of programs and even entire graphics screens that can be made to pop up at the push of a key In a sense the stack in the HP 48SX could best be compared to a HyperCard program on a Macintosh computer HP also offers a complete desktop programming environment for this machine All the programming can be done using a full screen display and standard keyboard The final results can be transferred to the 48SX for testing and debugging The 48SX can even be operated remotely from a desktop computer The 48SX can display graphic objects The 48SX produces its own graphs and charts by way of the mathematical plotting function l ve managed to come up with a method of producing pictures on the Portable Plus and porting them to the handheld Without going into all the details the method involves using a program called PPRL
32. SE III Products in this category include Clipper from Nantucket FoxBase and FoxPro from Fox QuickSilver and dBXL from Wordtech Systems and A T s own dBASE IV Each of these products has enhanced the Xbase language in some unique way but none have changed the syntax in the same way as Force Recently Ashton Tate was purchased by Borland International For more on these Xbase databases check the following back issues of The Portable Paper CLIP PER Vol 3 No 6 Pg 32 33 Vol 4 No 2 Pg 27 aBXL Vol 3 No 1 Pg 12 39 Vol 3 No 2 Pg 12 14 Vol 3 No 5 Pg 3 30 Vol 3 No 6 Pg 33 Vol 4 No 6 Pg 25 26 Vol 5 No 1 Pg 4 dBase Vol 2 No 2 Pg 22 23 Vol 3 No 1 Pg 8 12 Vol 3 No 2 Pg 4 Vol 3 No 6 P9 32 41 Vol 4 No 2 Pg 8 Vol 5 No 6 Pg 28 FoxBase amp FoxPro Vol 3 No 6 Pg 17 QuickSilver Vol 3 No 1 Pg 39 Vol 3 No 2 Pg 14 ORDERING INFORMATION Force 2 1e lists for 495 However Sophco is running a special promotion and is discounting Force to 199 for the time being A Sophco emphasized that the special promotion may end soon For more informa tion contact Sophco directly at Sophco P O Box 7430 Boulder CO 80306 7430 800 922 3001 or 303 444 1542 Analog to Digital Conversion and the Portable Plus By Marcus Otto and Richard Hall A working prototype of the Analog to Digital Con verter ADC for the Portable Plus see Vol 6 No2 Pg 23 has been succ
33. Subscribers Disks only available with purchase of 1986 90 and 1986 91 issues ACCESSORIES SUPPLIES BATTERIES HP110 Batt BING oon o2s Eres dup esed de 39 00 Portable arator j BT11HC prd dual dd de 59 95 Refurb ThinkJet Battery BINGO suse tea ta ODD HORE PORTS 59 00 Refurb 9114 Battery BEING oi oe oer kd vean e es dex 59 00 Includes instructions torx screwdriver nut driver nit CABLES amp KEYBOARD ACCESSORIES Serial modem for 110 Plus WMTINM 2ifeccancueeidentateeeus ones wu 25 00 pect vel li for 110 Plus SC13NM PE ipa omnia quet S 25 00 SATINM KW EC gehen 19 00 Sa Specify HP1 10 Portable Plus LS 12 or UltraLite POWER SUPPLIES RECHARGERS Eu EHTING 52630 ique DRE We Diki RAS 25 00 for Pino P Pis 110 9114 Think Empower il HP9114 EMTONH onere Nan au 6s esas 59 00 erer Il ThinkJet EM14NH V sped d ERNE FPE 59 00 M ile Recharger PRIINM eoin e AEE 39 00 Power Cube PRION icc osnce N rnnr ASEA E vh Te 59 95 UPGRADES REPAIRS FastPlus P Plus CPU Upgrade PAVING oc os lin testi RR ERU 150 00 Repairs CALL ECME CALL HP 75D COMPUTERS HP 75D HPTEOX GEM 35 00 As is with expansion pod and extra memory and an excellent version of BASIC programming language Does not include batteries HP IL cords manuals or chargers CR13NS 59 00 PrinterTaK Formati10 PT12NS DT11NS 39 00 ReadHP RDIINS SideWinder amp Utilities SW13NS apes
34. T generate an HPGL file The Turbo Pascal 5 5 routine measures 512 data points but can be modified so that more are measured and then writes them into an array The values are then transformed to 480 screen addresses The V30 CPU causes the acquisition loop to be too fast to read one value after the other A wait loop was included to slow down the procedure The counter minimum for this wait loop is 4 Increasing this counter will increase the TIME BASE FOR FURTHER INFORMATION Further development depends upon user interest For more information contact the developer directly Marcus Otto HERON Computer Lepsiusstr 81 W 1000 Berlin 41 GERMANY Tel 0049 30 7912073 Fax 0049 30 7919957 HP IL Interface Adapters These adapters expand the capabilities of your com puter by making it a part of an HP IL system This m allows your Poget Portfolio Toshiba or other PC compatible to interact with a wide variety of devices with HP IL interfaces The interface adapter similar to HP s portable to desktop Link HP IL card will allow your computer to operate as an HP IL controller or as an HP IL device In addition the adapter will enable loop use of PC storage and display systems The Interface Adapters will help facilitate communication between the HP110 or Portable Plus and any other computer outfitted with the device Interloop of San Jose California markets the HP IL adapters for the Atari Portfolio the Toshiba and
35. Vol 6 No 5 The HP Portable Portable Plus Portable Vectra Users Newsletter September October 1991 THE Port Publisher s Message 6 Poo RM OLI 7 Communicate between the Portable Plus the HP9SLX and Poget PC 7 Wants an HP notebook computer 7 Running Turbo Pascal 6 0 on the Portable Plus 8 95LX Wizard Expense of publishing 8 110 More on the HP 95LX Palmtop be Ried 8 Five Ways to Restart Your Portable Plus 10 Using Lotus 1 2 3 as a Calculator 11 Frequently Asked Questions about HP Portables LL 11 LOTUS I23 oot wage em ee fade hue as 11 PERIPHERALS 32 6 RETE IDEE 12 PAM MS DOS 2414 20 eed E ES ERE E 12 Quick Maneuvers in 1 2 3 L 12 Is the Force Xbase Compiler for the Portable Plus 13 able Paper Analog to Digital Conversion and the Portable Plus idee d HP IL Interface Adapters HP IL Adapter for the HP 95LX Installing ROMs and EPROMs AdvanceMail on the Portable Plus News from Personalized Software Liquidating our Inventory Portable Plus HP110 Bargains FastPlus Upgrade an Independent Review Through The Looking Glass The HP 95LX and the HP 48SX HP Bulletin Board e 9 9 99 o o 9 KERMIT 1323529 a bac ie xe ew tee Cb eene The Savvy User
36. X Palmtops have become available we have been able to lower our prices for the HP 95LX to 579 That price includes a subscription to The Palmtop Paper and Subscribers Disk worth 39 so the effective price becomes 540 Personalized Software s prices are as follows 10 SEPTEMBER OCTOBER 1991 for combining two appoint P m 1 Year Subscription to The Palmtop Paper Part 4 PTPAOI Retail 39 00 Subscriber price ee 3900 m 2 Year Subscription to The Palmtop Piper a Part PTPAO2 Retail 69 00 Subscriber price 69 00 HP 95LX Palmtop PC Comes with Lotus 1 2 3 version 2 2 Includes free subscription to The Palmtop Paper worth 39 Part 4 PTCOM1 Retail 699 00 Subscriber price 579 00 m 128K RAM Card Expands 95LX file storage capabilities Part PTRAMI Retail 199 95 Subscriber price 179 95 512K RAM Card Expands 95LX file storage capabilities Part PTRAMS Retail 399 95 Subscriber price 359 95 i m Connectivity Pack Lets you connect 95LX to PC compatibles Part PTCONI Retail 99 95 Subscriber price 89 95 m Serial Interface Cable Connects between 95LX and serial printers like the LaserJet Part PTSIC1 Retail 35 Subscriber price 35 00 m AC Adapter For U S Canada lets you conserve battery life Part 4 PTVOLI Retail 15 Subscriber price 15 00 m Serial Cable Adapter Kit Lets you adapt the serial cable to serial print
37. and reformatted the whole document Then I sent the outline to the HP 95LX using Kermit on both machines During the actual training session the 95LX helped me keep track of where I was The display is very readable I used a combination the 95LX s MEMO program and Appointment Book set to 15 minute intervals to keep on schedule A side benefit to using the HP 95LX during the presentation was that the Little Black Box did a lot to establish my credibility as a Computer Guru There s nothing like being the first kid on the block with a new toy to arouse interest in what you have to say The HP 95LX is not entirely glitch free there is at least one anomaly that I have found Every time I try to quit using Kermit the screen of the 95LX goes blank It s easy to recover from the glitch Just press the Menu button and the computer is restored to normal opera tion Other than that I have not been able to crash the machine Believe me I ve tried The HP 95LX is not all business it can be fun to play with too When you press the ON button the 95LX shows an opening screen with your name and address However I ve managed to get the display to present a mock Windows 3 0 screen or a fake Macin tosh screen complete with the trash can That causes a few raised eyebrows Having discovered that the TigerFox game is just as difficult to beat on the 95LX as it was on the HP110 I tried the hidden game Hearts and Bones I found that
38. be an A IBM PC compatible with a hard disk and a floppy drive either 3 5 or 5 25 The computer s operating system must be MS DOS 3 1 or higher and the com puter must have a serial port Installation of the Connectivity Pack software is relatively straightforward you just run the install program which uncompresses Connectivity Pack software and puts them on your PC hard disk DOS 5 0 users may need to use the following command to work around a bug in the decompression software C DOS LOADFIX A INSTALL IMPRESSIONS The product is not as clean as one might expect The PC version does not take advantage of the larger normal screen It simply runs on a 16 line by 40 character partial screen on the PC With the exception of HPCalc the software is adequate but no more In addition there are a few annoying unnecessary glitches there is a limit to the size of the length of the path name where the Connectivity Pack can be installed you cannot change the default drive from C to another drive name Still if you have a PC The Connectivity Pack is the only transfer package available for the HP 95LX The file transfer software itself runs smoothly In addition it is convenient to be able to have the HP 95LX applications accessible on your PC The Connec tivity Pack is definitely a worthwhile investment if you plan to transfer many files between desktop PC A compatible and the HP 95LX ORDERING INFORMATION As more HP 95L
39. bout bumping or dropping a unit inevitable events when you travel with it 3 Built in ROM based software and RAM based storage Portable users are self sufficient wherever they may be without worrying about floppy disks You more than anybody know the value of the machines and what we are offering Look into purchas ing a second or third machine for yourself or a family member Tell you associates and friends See our advertisements this issue and in the accom ing flier for our reduced pricing acces if you really pacha areal consider our never used Portable Pluses These Portable Pluses come in the original packag ing they have never been used they are among the last units that came off the assembly line Some of these units came to us with European language keyboards and manuals We reconfigure these systems so that the unit acts just like a U S Portable Plus We move the keys in the keyboard to the proper U S location and replace the uniquely European language keys with U S keys We supply an English language manual We ll deduct 25 if you do not need a manual What makes these Portable Pluses an exceptional bargain is that they have never been used they come packaged as they were when HP produced them only we made the changes described above and we warran ty the product Se FastPlus Upgrade By Jim Scheef While preparing to write this article I realized that my Portable Pl
40. control the modem from the 95LX s terminal program and had no trouble dialing and connecting with CompuServe Since I am some what hard headed and would just as soon control the modem with AT commands I did not test the 95LX s dialing feature After I connected with CompuServe I went to the HP forum and tried downloading some files from the 95LX library I tried several times but I was unable to download any files using the XMODEM protocol Later I called back and tried to download using Kermit Again I was not successful but I must admit that I have no experience with Kermit After reading the manual I had no difficulty capturing data that displayed on the computer s screen to a file CROSSTALK ON THE 95LX I then decided to run a standard communications program on the 95LX and see how it would work My choice for this was Crosstalk XVI version 3 61 To THE PORTABLE PAPER minimize its size I processed the program with LZEXE before transferring it to 95LX This reduced its size from 80 308 bytes to 41 735 bytes The standard Crosstalk configuration file STD XTK added an additional 1196 bytes I did not even think about transferring Cross talk s very large help file Although Crosstalk expects a 25 line by 80 column display I had little difficulty using Crosstalk on the 95LX Crosstalk is my favorite PC communications program and I have been using it for over seven years I avoided changing communications parameters by presett
41. cs 101 Macros MCTINS oe cai Sdedasdceecced Aci sda 39 00 As Easy As CASTING sist bbs cer ta Ted eR dex iege dh ied 59 00 SideWinder and Utilities SW13NS ecw ee eee 39 00 Statistix 2 0 SITINS a o coe Awe beatae esol ewe QA 79 00 Word Processors The Editor II EDITING oon tad cata beue pP MEL 39 00 Editor Pack EMIGNX 255 Se cc vacorac eodd adc RE eC EAE 99 00 Editor Il FormaiPlus Webster Speller PlusPerfect WO TANS scot vinnie duret cer Os o edicto motes 59 00 VI Unix like editor VEINS T ode Tos Sidus ca EE E 39 00 WordPerfect 5 0 P Plus WD17NS eeer err n RR IRR 375 00 Includes PlusPerfect Word Processing Utilities FormatPlus FPHMNS leeeeeeeeee ene 39 00 rint HPHNS subse cris eee E exa Gneci vias 59 00 MS Spell MSIDUC eie ils vox RET skeen Pur PE 49 00 X OutlinePlus OUTING 335 45505 4 20 ER PM RXGUAM ect ULM 39 00 PrinterTalk Formato PTI2NS cc cece cece cece ene 39 00 RightWords Dict Ext RWIZNS neds ove etis PEAS ad ces a 10 00 RightWriter Webster s Speller WBIINS Medus aded MEAE 39 00 THE POR TABLE PAPER DESCRIPTION PRODUCT LIQUIDATION PRICE All 1986 91 issues disks PEDES uy op heen be 99 95 All 1986 90 issues disks PLI4PB eee eee eee en 79 00 Individual back issue PP99PB bea ETTE ers se50 20 PP Binder Vol 6 PBIGNM leeren nt n hte nn 7 00 PP Binder Vol 1 6 PBISNM ioe Se e rene RETE Er VE 19 00 1
42. e Paper is going to end I personally have learned a great deal from it over the past four years and will miss it I do hope to remain on your mailing list as I intend to purchase a ROMBO unit in November I would also be interested in a 1MB RAM 4MB Flash EPROM Drawer if and when they become available at a price below 1 500 I have a long wish list but those are two of my top priorities I just wanted to let you know that Turbo Pascal 6 0 is up and running on my Portable Plus a 512K unit with 386K RAM FastPlus upgrade and an HP ROM board In fact Ed Keefe s Turbo Integrator from Personalized Software worked with it right out of the box I didn t have to change any of Ed s configurations Stereo Shell works fine etc Furthermore I found the TP 6 system to work with a mini mum of 208K RAM partition but only for very small programs m I must admit even though the TP PV 6 system works great NOW I had almost given up trying to run it Sev eral times I had dumped everything from the Plus onto a backup disk and loaded TP 6 from the Personalized Software disk trying different memory configurations re reading the on disk instructions and printed information etc All to no avail While I could get the Turbo Inte grator to run create and edit a pro gram use Stero Shell for file manipu lation and everything else I couldn t get it to compile and run a program LS I kept getting an error message but couldn
43. e its predecessor the HP110 is one of the most rugged portable comput ers ever built These computers use RAM and ROM memory for program file storage instead of a fragile mechanical hard disk The only moving parts in a Portable Plus are its keys This means that there is almost nothing to wear out and you should be able to expect years of trouble free computing from these portables All our Portable Pluses come with 512K of internal RAM expandable to 1 5 MB All come with a new battery and manuals Each comes ready to accept a RAM expansion drawer and or a ROM software drawer A free ROM drawer is included if you buy a ROM with your Portable Plus purchase during this liquidation sale i Deduct 25 if you don t need manuals providas fila cperstions et Mauc Seve Fame ett provides text block operations Cut Bler Cops Bleck etc JH ones pggrj es sereen farast operations Left margin Set Tabs provides printer coerstions Page Break Print Mere etc disc replacing the ene currently if pode a decent fron r the current Line bateeap the nargine Never Used Portable Plus 450 In factory packaging If originally a European unit U S keys and manual substituted Prod PP46UC Used Portable Plus 375 Prod PQ11UC ROMs ROMs ROMs ROMs Cheap Cheap Cheap Cheap Dear Portable Plus User Make your software a perma nent part of your Portable Plus by putting your appli cat
44. eets beep me when it s time for an appoint ment and keep my to do list wherever I happen to be It is always with me I am not alone in my enthusiasm HP 95LX users 8 SEPTEMBER OCTOBER 1991 flood the HP CompuServe forum with activity people sharing tips and wondering how a piece of software or peripheral works with the 95LX The HP 95LX is unique enough so that The Palmtop Paper just like The Portable Paper will serve a real need for users In the past weeks I ve had an opportunity to talk with a number of third party 95LX vendors Vendors are going to town with creative ways to use the infrared port the 4 pin serial port and the RAM ROM card slot mo E In addition a number of System Compliant software products are being planned for the HP 95LX A product is System Compliant if it runs with HP 95LX built in software For example I have talked with Ed Gilbert about getting The Editor II to run in System Compliant mode on the HP 95LX Since the HP 95LX is IBM compatible The Editor II will run without modifica tion on the HP 95LX However currently to use The Editor II I have to exit from all built in System Compliant applications including Lotus 2 2 HP Calc my Appointment and Phone books before I can enter DOS to start The Editor II From DOS I cannot call any of the built in System Compliant applications such as Lotus HP Calc Memo or my Phone or Appointment book Normally the n
45. ers and modems Part 4 PTSAKI Retail 15 Subscriber price 15 00 m Dictionary Thesaurus Card Adds 116 000 word dictionary 500 000 thesaurus to your 95LX Can be used with the Memo Editor Part PTDTCI Available in late 1991 Five Ways to Restart Your Portable Plus or HP110 In the unfortunate event your computer hangs up no matter what you do nothing happens there are five ways to reset it The gentlest thing you can try is pressing the Shift key with the Break key This is identical to pressing the Ctrl key and the letter C If you re very lucky you lose no data and things go back to normal Otherwise either nothing happens or PAM reappears and you lose the work you have done since your last SAVE If nothing happens using Break you must issue a hard reset which means you lose your work since your last SAVE For a hard reset hold down the CTRL Shift and Break keys and PAM reappears If that reset fails holding the contrast key half moon key down for 15 seconds resets your computer This key is wired directly to the Portable hardware r v SHAE All other keys are be controlled by software If you create a CONFIG SYS file you can get into trouble Normally when you reset your Portable the system looks to the A drive first for a CONFIG SYS file A bad CONFIG SYS file can cause the computer to hang up The way out of this jam is to press CTRL Shift Extend char with the Break key The s
46. ery life under normal computing Logic says that with everything flying around in the Portable Plus 50 faster it should use more juice While I can t say that it doesn t I can t say that it does either By checking the battery voltage before and after a long compute intensive test 10 iterations of the Dhrystone test lasting over 30 minutes I was hoping I could document battery consumption under controlled conditions Unfortunately or fortu nately depending on your outlook I could not mea sure the change in battery voltage I made this check before and after the upgrade and the result was not affected Perhaps with a more sensitive voltmeter I might find something So after all this is the FastPlus worth the expense For me the answer is an unqualified YES The upgrade extends my Portable Plus useful life for years to come ORDERING INFORMATION The FastPlus upgrade is available through Personalized Software for 199 which includes regular return shipping overnight return shipping 35 extra Give us a call at 515 472 6330 and ask for the FastPlus up 24 SEPTEMBER OCTOBER 1991 grade You ll receive a Service Number and instructions on where to ship your Portable Plus Tim has been in systems development for a Fortune 100 company for 13 years during which time he s developed systems running on mainframes and PCs Recently he helped start a forum on CompuServe that supports FOCUS a fourth generation la
47. essfully developed This device is designed to allow the Portable Plus to collect external analog information Real world events are usually collected as analog information A liquid thermometer a spring operated bathroom scale the speedometer on your car all measure what s going on in a continuous manner that is analogous to the real event For example the pointer on a bathroom scale an old spring operated model rotates in a circle when you step on it and sweeps out an arc of say 210 degrees You don t weigh 210 degrees you weigh say 180 Ibs But the 210 degrees is analogous to your true weight hence the bathroom scale is an analog measuring device On the same bathroom scale the manufacturer has painted numbers around the circle to indicate weight You stand on the scale look at where the pointer is resting and translate that into digital information I weigh 180 this morning You have become an Analog to Digital Converter The Portable Plus and most other computers are digital devices They store data as discrete bits of information and cannot handle analog input Analog data must be converted to digital data before it can be stored on or used and input for a computer ADC PROTOTYPE The Analog to Digital Converter is a working proto type that would require refinements to be used in specific applications The analog to digital conversion is done by a MAXIM AD163 integrated ci
48. et you mail in your requests but it would be wise not to count on that Larry Baldozier our R amp D manager will continue to service your units for the foreseeable future Larry will honor all warranties we have made and continue to repair your units at a reasonable price I wish we could continue offering products and supporting our wonderful customers but there does not seem to be a way to make the numbers work without jeopardizing the Palmtop part of the business Subscribe to The Palmtop Paper and watch us start all over again Hoal rri 119 110 Portable P Portable Plus Pv Portable Vectra 3j Vectra LS 12 v ESEBBHE THE PORTABLE PAPER Communicate between the Portable Plus the HP 95LX and Poqet PC I was wondering how I go about trans _ ferring files between the Portable Plus and the Poqet PC computers as well as the Plus and the HP 95LX The Poqet has a proprietary port and communications cable but the cable ends in two standard female connectors one 25 pin and one 9 pin You should be able to use our serial modem cable part CA13HC or have Radio Shack make you an adapter to connect the Portable Plus to the Poget Then you need to run the Poqet s built in commu nications program and one of the Portable Plus communications programs available Kermit TermPlus or Reflection Note we have not tested this i For information on how to communicate between the
49. ettings you wish to change Be sure to allow enough Main Memory You will most likely have to in crease the Main Memory from its present setting of 80 The Plus defaulted to a Main Menu setting of 80 when you reformatted the disk after installing the new ROM chip m RESTORE SETTINGS TO DATACOM CON FIGURATION MENU press f5 from PAM m RESTORE DESIRED FILES TO THE EDISK C Test the Newly Installed ROM Chip All files on your ROM will be located on the B drive The subdirectory containing the ROM files will auto matically be in the DOS path unless you made the subdirectory name too long and outgrew your environmental space Test newly installed programs as follows FROM DOS OR PAM TYPE THE NAME OF AN EXE COM OR BAT FILE LOCATED ON THE new ROM CHIP that program should execute FROM DOS TYPE DIR B AND LOOK FOR THE SUBDIRECTORY NAME SELECT THE APPLICATION FROM THE PAM MENU SCREEN if you created and installed a PAM MNU file on the ROM the program files on your ROM should appear on the PAM menu screen Move the pointer to the appropriate box and press return AdvanceMaiil on the Portable Plus AdvanceMail for the Portable Plus is an electronic mail application the ties the Portable Plus to HP Desk Manager HPDesk HP s electronic mail package for the HP 3000 AdvanceMail provides the user with the ability to send and receive electronic mail messages with the Portable Plus AdvanceMail sends
50. get interface adapter a small box with the two HP IL ports connects to the Poget s proprietary port via a special cable that is included HP IL ADAPTER FOR THE HP 95LX Lew Thomas the developer of the HP IL Adapter for the Poget PC is working on one for the HP 95LX HP IL adapters for the Atari 275 Toshiba 200 300 and PC compatible computers 200 are available directly from Interloop 706 Charcot Avenue San Jose CA 95131 Phone 408 922 0520 Fax 408 0545 Installing ROMs and EPROMs By Richard Hall The big advance the Portable Plus made over the HP110 was the inclu sion of RAM ROM software drawers This made it possible to expand the Portable Plus RAM memory and add new software on ROM saving Edisk space The installation of ROM chips into the ROM drawer is a relatively simple procedure but some care must be taken 18 SEPTEMBER OCTOBER 1991 SOME IMPORTANT PRELIMINARY NOTES m ROM EPROM chips are sensitive to static elec tricity in the environment Ground your body before touching any ROM chip Your body or any object in the environment has a natural static electric charge on it If the charge on your body is greater than the charge on the ROM chip you are working with then the electric charge will flow from your body to the ROM chip possibly damaging the ROM chip Neutralize the difference in electrical potential by first touching a metal object on the table that the ROM chip
51. hat the Menu key is for Another effective feature is the manner most programs display function key menus at the bottom of the screen I was concerned about 95LX s size when I first read about it Now that I have one I find that the 95LX fits quite well in the inner breast pocket of my suit coats and without much difficulty in most of my side pants pockets I don t want to come down too hard on any 95LX application at this time since some of the things I am finding wrong may just be my failure to adjust to a different concept rather than a flawed concept Non standard concepts can be especially effective when applied to miniature equipment For example I own an old HP 38E calculator that has the operator keys multiply and divide on the left side of the keyboard rather than the traditional right side The left side is SEPTEMBER OCTOBER 1991 29 S EIEEI THE PORTABLE PAPER where they belong since it makes 10 key touch opera tion possible The small operator keys are easily pressed with the strong index finger Touch key operation with the operator keys on the right requires attempting to access them with the little finger which I find much less effective 95LX HP CALCULATOR The 95LX s implementation of an HP calculator is quite good At least it does nothing stupid like displaying a calculator keyboard on the screen Most sensibly it uses the screen to display values in the calculator s various
52. ice feature about the built in System Compliant software is that I can switch from one program to another and back from Lotus to my Phone directory back to Lotus without losing my place in any of the applications I have opened By making The Editor II System Compliant the HP 95LX would be able to switch back and forth between The Editor II and any built in application One unfortunate discovery is that Everett Kaser TigerFox author and HP engineer snuck in an undoc umented highly addictive game of logic called Hearts and Bones into the HP 95LX We reveal the secret of how to install this System Compliant game in our first mailing to all those requesting a free issue of The Palmtop Paper The game is really elegant in its sim plicity and its test of logical thinking HP 95LX CONNECTIVITY PACK Most HP 95LX users will want the Connectivity Pack for their Desktop PC The Connectivity Pack gives you all the built in HP 95LX software on your PC exclud ing Lotus 123 which needs to be purchased separate ly The simplicity and power of the HP Calculator make it almost worth the 99 95 price of the Connec tivity Pack alone In addition you get for your PC the simple HP 95LX Editor phone book appointment book and filer described in more detail in last month s issue You could for example type in or translate your phone book on the PC and then transfer it to your HP 95LX The PC Connectivity pack merge program eliminates the da
53. in The Portable Paper ISSN 0886 9138 is published bimonthly by Personalized Software at 57 East Broadway Avenue Fairfield IA 52556 ceca tae rates one year U S and U S possessions 55 Canada Mexico add 3 surface mail 6 air other countries add 6 surface mail 18 air Please allow four to six weeks for receipt of first issue Executive Editorial Circu lation and Advertising Offices P O Box 869 FairfieldIA 52556 Tele hone 515 472 6330 FAX 215 472 1879 c Copyright 1991 Personalized Software all rights reserved No part of this publica tion may be reproduced without written permission Reasonable efforts are made to provide accurate and useful information but the reader must make his or her own investigations and decisions the Publisher and Editorial Staff cannot assume any responsibility or liabili ty for the use of information con tained herein POSTMASTER Please send any address changes to Personalized Software Attn The Portable Paper P O Box 869 Fairfield IA 52556 more than the 95LX say 1 000 tops Interestingly enough Fujitsu who now owns about 85 of Poget Computers is planning to introduce a 2 3 lb notebook based on the technology developed by Poget It will be interesting to see how that fares Will HP do it I think so Rich SEPTEMBER OCTOBER 1991 7 THE PORTABLE PAPER Running Turbo Pascal 6 0 on the Portable Plus I am sorry to hear that The Portabl
54. ing them with the default configuration file When it became necessary to enter a Crosstalk com mand I simply pressed Shift Alt and UpArrow to display the Crosstalk command line Using Crosstalk I had no difficulty establishing a connection with CompuServe and downloading files To provide maximum control rather than depending on Crosstalk s built in automation I placed Crosstalk in its local mode and directly controlled the modem by typing the AT command After this fortunate experience I took another look at my modem manual and discovered a recommenda tion that the modem be configured to ignore DTR if DTR is not being used for power on This is accom plished by sending the command AT amp DO amp W to the modem I tried this and then again tried using the 95LX _ terminal program with the modem on battery power I achieved no better results It looks like the 95LX terminal program either needs improving or there is something more to learn about it It seems to me that if a 5 year old version of Crosstalk will work on the 95LX a program designed especially for the 95LX should be just about perfect I have discovered a number of 95LX features I find extremely commendable The best of these is the Menu key that causes the command menu to display in all programs As long a I have used computers I have wondered why no one has created a key in an easily accessible position for this purpose I hope future developers will remember w
55. ions on ROM chips Fortunately for you we purchased many hundreds of our custom manufactured Portable Plus ROMs right before we realized that we could no longer make a profit supporting HP Por table and HP150 users That means we are very motivated to sell ROMs In order to sell them quickly we have done two noe 1 Greatly reduced the price of ROM software many complete ROM pack ages are priced at only 79 2 Greatly reduced the price of ROMBO units and associated EPROMS Enjoy Sincerely pall Ee Hal Goldstein ROM BO Portable Plus users Now you can easily put programs and data on ROM yourself up to 1 5 megabytes per ROM drawer Now you can easily put any program and important data on ROM chips and store them in your Portable Plus s ROM drawer Burning your own eraseable ROMS is easy even for a computer novice with our Portable Plus ROM Burner All you do is connect the ROM burner to your Plus and follow the simple instructions we provide for using the software that comes with ROMBO HERE S WHAT YOU GET A m for every Portable Plus user ROMBO our ROM Buming package includes 1 Personalized Software ROM Burner for the Portable Plus with serial cable Burns commercially available 64K byte ROMs or special Personalized Software 128K byte ROMs Ultraviolet eraser Erases 64K or 128K EPROMs for reburn All necessary software Two Personalized Software 128K byte EPROMs eraseab
56. ir decision The 95LX is sell ing two to three times faster than they thought it would They are having to put on extra shifts in Corvallis to meet the demand On the other hand I agree with you completely I m an editor and writer and 1 can t won t do it on the 95LX But it s sure a nice computer and in my opinion the perfect personal business organizer That s the niche HP identified and they created something very nice to fill it On the political side of things Corvallis is HP s calculator division They are charged with developing calculators not notebook computers Perhaps it was easier for them to justify producing a calculator sized computer Another factor that may have weighed on HP s mind is the already flooded note book market On my recent trip to the COMDEX in Atlanta I saw hundreds of 6 7 lb notebook computers all nearly identical HP could certainly compete with any of them in terms of quality and uniqueness A small notebook with the built in applications and other features of the 95LX would I think be very attractive to many people But again people perceive the market to be flooded with notebooks and it might be diffi cult for HP to differentiate another notebook computer in the minds of the consumer HP may be smart in holding off a while longer SPECULATION Will HP introduce a light weight notebook based on the 95LX advances It seems silly not to The 95LX will establish HP as the premier
57. is lying on Then pick up the ROM chip carefully not touching the metal pins This step by step procedure neutralizes any difference in electrical charge between you and the chip When you put the ROM chip in the ROM Drawer of the Portable Plus follow a similar procedure Hold the ROM chip carefully in one hand and touch the ROM Drawer with the other hand BEFORE inserting the ROM EPROM chip in the ROM socket Install burned programmed ROMs and EPROMs in the ROM drawer immediately or store them in a dark place EPROMS are erasable by exposure to ultraviolet light and a certain amount of this light occurs naturally in sun or room light Avoid exposing an EPROM to light after burning W Be very careful when inserting ROM and EPROM assemblies into the ROM drawer do not use excessive force The ROM and EPROM assemblies should be treated carefully Make sure all the pins are aligned properly before pushing down Also it s better to push down on the edge of the assembly gt _ Tum the Portable PLUS computer upside down and locate the ROM Drawer Removal Damage can result if pressure is applied to the top of the chip ROM EPROM INSTALLATION STEPS Removing the ROM drawer for ROM chip installation will probably cause the loss of anything stored on the Edisk Be sure and back up your Edisk before pro ceeding any further To insert or remove a drawer you will need one of the following A small
58. is not yet a file translation utility I hope some hacker will soon do this for us USING THE 95LX WITH A PORTABLE PLUS The 95LX Connective Pack provides an effective meth od for transferring files between the palmtop and an IBM compatible but it doesn t do much for transferring files between the palmtop and a Portable Plus since it will not run on the Portable Plus My first thought was to solve this problem by using HPduette and its fast file transfer capability To save critical disk space I com pressed using LZEXE the IBM version of the file and transferred it to my Palmtop Unfortunately HPduette IBM did not run correctly on the 95LX so I had to M come up with another idea My solution was to do XMODEM file transfers using the 95LX s built in terminal program and my Portable s Reflection terminal program The two computers were connected by installing the 10 pin to 25 pin adapter on the 95LX serial cable and connecting it to the 9122M modem cable attached to the Portable Plus I loaded Reflection and the 95LX terminal program Typing a few characters on each computer verified that I had a connection I then pressed the Menu key on the 95LX and executed the commands needed to receive a file using the XMODEM protocol Menu XRfilename _ I then pressed f6 on the Portable Plus and entered the command to transmit a file using XMODEM f6 XS filename After a few retries the computers locked together and the file was
59. ith the EVEN bytes is named FILENAME EVN and must go in the ROM socket marked L SEPTEMBER OCTOBER 1991 19 THE PORTABLE PAPER JUMPER A tiny pin switch located between a pair of H and L sockets There are 6 Jumpers in the drawer BANK One bank consists of two adjacent H and L sockets There are 6 banks in the drawer Portable Plus Software Drawer m The ROM with the ODD bytes is named FILENAME ODD and must go in the ROM socket marked H ALIGN THE ROM CHIP PINS WITH THE SOCKET You may need to bend the rows of the ROM chip pins slightly to insure that they align with the pin holes in the sockets These pins are very delicate so don t do this very often or they may break m EXTRACTING A ROM CHIP Use a small insulated screwdriver Gently pry one end of the ROM chip out a little and then the other Alternate this process until the chip is com pletely out Don t rock the chip back and forth too much It can bend or break the pins and damage the ROM socket Do not use a commercially available ROM chip extractor on the Personalized Software 128K EPROM assembly It doesn t work and it can damage the EPROM GET A SECOND ROM SOFTWARE DRAWER If most of the sockets in your ROM Drawer are full you might consider getting a second ROM Drawer C REINSTALL THE ROM DRAWER IN THE PORTABLE PLUS Reverse the procedure described in point A above by following these steps 20 SEPTEMBER OCTOBER 1
60. le programmable ROMs Complete user manual Ww PWN ROMBO 475 Personalized Software ROM Burner Package for the Portable Plus includes ROM burner serial cable ultraviolet eraser software two 128K byte EPROMs and user manual Prod EP10NH One 128K EPROM 45 Set of four 128K EPROMs 169 Personalized Software 128K byte erasable programmable ROMs for the Portable Plus 1 EPROM Prod EP11NR Set of 4 EPROMs Prod EP12NX One 128K non eraseable Programmable ROM 36 Set of four non eraseable Programmable ROMs 129 Personalized Software 128K byte non eraseable ROMs for the Portable Plus Ideal for making multiple copies of ROMs 1 ROM Prod EP18NR Set of 4 ROMs Prod EP19NX Call 800 373 6114 before October 11 Build your software into your Por table Plus with ROM Chips HT Spass TETAS ATEEN as ROM Combo ROM Writer s ROM The Editor II The Editor HPduette SuperROM provides one of the best values of any ROM backup AS EASY AS a ILI prog ram compatible with 1 2 3 version o em on 2 01 If you already use another spreadsheet you have very little new to learn If your new to spreadsheets you ll find As Easy As powerful yet easy to learn This two ROM set transforms your Portable Plus into a dedicated word processor The Editor Easy to use yet ral word The Editor II easy to use word powerful word processor process
61. ll allow you to have a full 512K of system RAM available and an Edisc for file storage DECREASE SIZE OF THE SPREADSHEET The other way to deal with the problem is to minimize the size of the spreadsheet you are working with Create your worksheet by arranging data that begins in cell A1 and avoids blank rows and columns between the data this will maximize available memory Because blank cells use memo ry minimizing blank cells where possible will increase memory availability In addition keep in mind that blank formatted cells also use memory To determine where blank formatted cells are located in the worksheet press the Select key and the home cursor key diagonal arrow key this will place the cursor at the outer most cell where data is entered values labels formulas or formats If the outermost cell does not have a value formula or a label then you have determined that there are formatted blank cells To eliminate these cells use the File eXtract command to extract only the portion of the spreadsheet containing data This creates a new worksheet containing only data and no blank formatted cells thereby increasing memory avail able for the worksheet SEPTEMBER OCTOBER 1991 11 O 4 THE PORTABLE PAPER PERIPHERALS Q I have a ThinkJet Printer connected to my Portable When I try to print I get the massage Printer Not Ready What s wrong A Check your cables to make sure they are properly connected
62. messages from the user to HPDesk via modem or direct computer connection and receives messages to the user from THE PORTABLE PAPER HPDesk HPDesk acts like a central post office routing messages and files between different users The main features of AdvanceMail are as follows In Tray which contains messages received from other HPDesk users They are received from HP Desk during previous transfers and will stay in the In Tray until they are deleted by the user Out Tray which contains messages which the user has written on the Portable Plus and wants to send to other users They are sent to HPDesk at the next transfer Mail Room which lists all of the user s HPDesk messages both those that AdvanceMail received during the last transfer and those that were not transferred Messages may not be transferred due to user requests or errors during the transfer m Message transfers these take place between AdvanceMail and HPDesk when the user specifies They can be done while the user is away or sleep ing A transfer moves any messages waiting in the Out Tray to HPDesk for distribution to the people to whom the user addressed the messages In addition any messages waiting for the user in HPDesk are moved to the AdvanceMail In Tray to read later at the user s convenience m Saving money the reading and creation of messages can be done off line at the user s con venience The actual transfers can be batched
63. nger of duplicates Or if you keep an appointment book on your office PC you could copy your current schedule to the 95LX and take it with you on a business trip While away you could make changes to the schedule on the 95LX and your assistant back in the office could also add new ap pointments to your desktop s scheduler When you return you can connect up and merge the two now different appointment schedules to make a new updated version or your appointment book THE PORTABLE PAPER TRANSFERRING FILES BETWEEN THE PC AND AN HP 95LX Connecting the HP 95LX to a PC requires the HP 82222A serial cable for the HP 95LX This cable is included with the Connectivity Pack or can be pur chased separately from it There are three ways of directly transferring files between a PC compatible and an HP 95LX These ways all use the serial cable to physically connect the HP 95LX and the PC 1 If the PC does not have the Connectivity Pack software a communications package like ProComm for an IBM compatible TermPlus for a Portable Plus Terminal for the HP110 or SoftPC on a Mac can be used to transfer files To do the transfer built in COMM needs to be run on the HP 95LX with the communications program running on the other computer Files are transferred in the same way that they would be transferred if a modem was used 2 Users can transfer files by using the Filer pro gram both on the HP 95LX and on the PC compatible part of The
64. nguage and database management system Jim frequents the HP forum on CompuServe and his ID number is 76702 1654 Rich by Ed Keefe THE HP 95LX AND THE HP 485X Charles Dickens story The Tale of Two Cities begins with the line It was the best of times It was the worst of times For users of the HP 110 and Portable Plus this could be the worst of times The final issue of The Portable Paper sounds the knell for the end of an era From a different perspective this is the best of times for Hewlett Packard devotees The folks at HP Corvallis the designers of the HP110 and Portable Plus have reentered the computer marketplace with two handheld computers that are sure to be around for another five to ten years at least A TALE OF TWO HANDHELDS Even as one era ends a new era is beginning The era of the handheld a k a palmtop computer is upon us Support is already growing for the HP 48SX SX for Scientific Expandable and the HP 95LX LX for Lotus Expandable Sales of these machines are so brisk that HP has held off mass advertising until the supply matches the demand THE HP 48SX Over the past several weeks I ve been exploring the capabilities of the HP 48SX calculator This is Hewlett Packard s latest handheld scientific calculator computer The more I dig into this machine the more difficult it becomes to describe it Learning about all the features in this machine reminds me of
65. nts one for each of the outer two pins The central pin is alway left empty POSITION ROM DRAWER WITH CONNEC TOR POINTED TOWARDS YOU Position the ROM above the socket with the notched end pointing left The Personalized Software 128K ROM should have the shunts pointing left Carefully line the ROM chip pins up with the socket s pin holes and gently press chip into the socket The pins are delicate so it is best not to repeatedly insert and remove chips Chips are also very sensitive to static electricity as described above CAREFULLY ALIGN THE ROM PINS WITH _ THE SOCKET HOLES GENTLY INSERT THE ROM CHIP IN THE ROM DRAWER SOCKET MORE IMPORTANT m The ROM Drawer is laid out in six pairs or BANKS of ROM sockets total of 12 individual sockets available The BANKS are numbered 0 1 4 5 6 and 7 Each BANK has two ROM sockets labeled H and L and can accept two ROMs see diagram below In addition JUMPERS SHOULD BE SET IN POSITION A The jumpers are tiny pin switches located between the sockets in each bank of the ROM Drawer please see jumper illustration next page They are used to configure the ROM banks and are set in the A position at the factory Double check to see that they are still in the A position AN INDIVIDUAL ROM CHIP can go in any of the ROM Software Drawer s 12 sockets A LINKED PAIR OF ROM CHIPS MUST GO IN THE SAME BANK i e adjacent sockets in the ROM Drawer The ROM w
66. o effort was made to separate wheat from chaff Our intention is to review a number of programs and games including DOS 5 0 which was installed by the manufacturer We ll also review Micro soft Windows included as standard equipment al though we had to install it Readers of this column will recognize that this is antithetical to my philosophy of managing memory on computers It is certainly not the way to use the 95LX which has only 512K of memory including about 256K that is reserved as a RAM disk Of course when the hard disk is so big there is little incentive to practice conservation Perhaps deep inside I am no different than the typical unimaginative PC user who doesn t take the time to learn about his programs to figure a way to better use his resources I have not had the 95LX long enough to make any definitive comments about its effectiveness or to recommend much about how to use it However I think its Personal Information Manager PIM functions to be of greatest interest Since the file formats are not compatible with the Time Manger formats used by my Portable Plus and since I have not been interested in keying large amounts of data that already exist I have done very little with these programs HP has developed utilities to translate data between common PIM pro grams and the 95LX PIM programs Unfortunately Time Manager although developed by HP is not a popular 28 SEPTEMBER OCTOBER 1991 PIM format and there
67. or that lets youedittwofiles at once PrinterTalk and Formatl10 Lets you contol the format Meememesideweysim HP minam Webster s Spelling Checker of your word processing docu y p easy to use spell checker with a ments Porm Plas for sending files be 100 000 word dictionary SideWinder prints your word tween computers via modem FormatPlus formats your word processing or spreadsheet files HPduette for P Plusto PC compat processing documents e to the ThinkJet ible PC file transfer via serial port TetPlus aclone of Tetris the popu Shelp Lets you pop up a 29 calculator notepad and use lar Russian game of falling blocks FilePlus a great file manager Shelp see SuperRom system wide macros Writer s ROM 159 Combo ROM 159 2 ROMs include Editor II Webster s SuperROM 79 2 ROMs include As Easy As Speller FormatPlus FilePlus and Editor I Format 10 PrinterTalk SideWinder TermPlus HPduette Shelp Shelp Sidewinder on 1 ROM TetPlus Part SUI DET Prod RO11NK Prod WR11NK Norton Utilities Advanced Edition Recover deleted files and organize your electronic and external disks with this top selling utilities program Norton Utilities Adv 79 Prod NU12NR Executive Card Manager Easy to use ROLODEX type database lets you organize and locate contact inforrhation print letters mailing labels quickly Exec Ca
68. rcuit The ADC is connected to the Portable Plus via two LS245 8 BUS Drivers one NAND and a single Invertor IC Other IC chips resistors EPI ang a power Supp are used in the ADC SPECIFICATIONS A D resolution 12 bit Sampling rate 71 300 50 Hz max 120 000 Hz Analog input 5V to 5V Power Consumption a lot it s just a prototype Software needs to be written depending on the application you want to use the ADC for The devel oper tested Turbo Pascal and MS Macro Assembler with the ADC and developed a simple Turbo Pascal 5 9 routine for it The maximum sampling rate was about 10 Khz although MASM allows sampling rates up to 71 Khz The Turbo Pascal 5 5 routine developed by Marcus Otto has the following available features CONTINUOUS MODE writes data to screen as pixels TIME BASE AMPLIFICATION OFFSET DEFAULT sets default values SHOW to keep current pixel on screen THE PORTABLE PAPER TRIGGER triggers at the value that was measured when the trigger key was hit HOLD MODE actual data displayed lines drawn between pixels REGULATION of AMPlification OFFSET DEFAULT GRID draw a grid over data point CURSOR displays current position and relative move ment from last position INF displays x time in seconds y ampl in millivolts offset in millivolts at current cursor position SAVE save 512 data points with information in a 1 048 byte data file LOAD load a data file PLO
69. rd Manager 79 Prod EC11UR MemoMaker TimeManager Squish Plus Tem em 2m EZ li A must for every Plus user increasing Edisk storage by 50 or more SquishPlus operates automatically in the back ground compressing uncompressing your files Squish Plus 79 Prod SQ11NK MemoMaker HP s simple word processor providing the basic functions of a full featured program TimeManager HP s acclaimed Personal Information Manager including appointments calendar and to do list MemoMaker Time Manager 49 Prod MM21UR Make your HP Portable more usable for little money Only you must order by October 11 Prices good only while supplies last Dear HP Portable Customer Print your letter report or spreadsheet on the ThinkJet printer Back up your files with an HP 9114 Disk drive Use the HP 9114 to transfer files between your PC com patible and your Portable Plus Store more files on your Portable Plus using a memory drawer The disk drive the printer and memory drawers are all available at liquidation prices But act now since last Sincerely Hal ar lle Hal Goldstein ThinkJet Printer QUIET HIGH QUALITY INKJET PRINTER FOR A SONG Thousands of these tough little inkjet printers are in use in offices factories and labs throughout the world HP s rugged construction along with the ThinkJet s few moving parts insures that this printer will perform flawlessl
70. refer to section 3 2 of Using the HP110 manual or 6 3 or 6 6 in the Portable Plus Owner s Documentation In the SYSTEM CONFIG menu set PRINTER INTERFACE to HP IL Q How do I change the print pitch for the ES Printer A You can change the print pitch by choosing one of the values supplied in the PRINT PITCH field of PAM s f6 SYSTEM CONFIG menu The choice of pitches is Normal Expanded Compressed or Expanded Compressed Save this file as A CONFIG SYS Then pes Ctrl Shift Break to activate the file I have a program that takes up 100K of RAM memory to run When I try to load it the system just locks up and doesn t load the program Why is this happening If you run your program from PAM you not only need enough memory for your application you also need to account for the system overhead of 4K for PAM and 27K for MS DOS Therefore you will need a minimum of 121K available in RAM to run your program i Quick Maneuvers in 1 2 3 IL As the story goes the salesman was lost somewhere Q What is required for using the DeskJet or LaserJet A in Vermont He stopped to ask a local resident direc Printer with the Portable tions and was told ya can t get there from here a And so it sometimes seems while maneuvering inside A If you re using The Portable built in serial port you gM a large Lotus spreadsheet but not so There are some will need an HP92221P cable or a Personalized Soft g
71. registers Unfortunately the program is not without flaws Erasing the X register the keyboard data entry register requires pressing three keys Menu E and C Erasing this register should be a one key operation because so many errors are made entering data Fortu nately the backspace works just like it should to delete entries in the X register One press of the backspace key _ completely deletes a completed entry and removes the last character keyed of an entry in process It seems that the calculator is missing a round off key Pressing the Menu Options Format sequence is too many keys to change the round off of a number but again acis I am missing something I have tried using the 95LX Memo program but have been unable to warm up to it at all I am looking forward to replacing it with The Editor Adding new software via RAM ROM cards should be easy but I am curious about opportunities for soldering iron programming As fine as the 95LX is I see it as a prototype for a line of job specialized computers And don t expect these computers to be built into the same 95LX case Some ideas that occur to me are navigation surveying sales and nursing Having the two new computers around has made me appreciate even more some the Portable Plus features I have taken for granted such as the block cursor 60 line back scrollable DOS display bottom of screen function key display dedicated editing keys that work wi
72. roblem with the Remote Host command does not occur with the HP 95LX HP has replaced the Remote Host command on the palmtop with a TSR program for a desktop PC along with a 65K byte program for the 95LX When both programs are run ning and the computers are connected the desktop computer can run the 95LX in much the same way that we ve been able to use HP IL on the Portable Plus Nice going HP As always until next time happy porting Ed Keefe is an author programmer computer science instructor and long time contributor to The Portable Paper He is the president of the Fast Aid Company 314 SW Logan Ankeney IA 50021 Ed s CompuServe ID is 73277 1064 SEPTEMBER OCTOBER 1991 27 E THE PORTABLE PAPER By Tom Page This has been an interesting summer for PCs at my p house My roommate purchased a 386 33 Mhz Super M VGA scream machine with 4 MB of RAM memory and a 200 MB hard disk while I bought a little bitty HP A ISLX palmtop The contrast between these machines became apparent the day I set up the 95LX Connectiv ity Pack programs on the 386 and experimented with transferring files between the two computers The 95LX appeared so tiny sitting next to the super extended keyboard of the larger 386 machine that I could not help laughing Unbelievably within about three weeks of acquir ing the big computer we installed on it enough soft ware to almost half fill the 200 meg disk of the big computer Of course n
73. rsonalized Software for the FastPlus upgrade When the machine was returned I restored my files and re ran the tests All of the tests were run with the exact same configura tion The battery was recharged prior to all of the tests More on this later The table of results on the next page gives the average of all the tests run The Dhrystone test turned out to be the best standard benchmark program I could find This test is intended to represent a typical program to a computer The algorithm was one of the earlier attempts at creating a standard benchmark for computers In addition this version has the overwhelm ing advantage that it runs on the Portable Plus Dhry stone results are given in Dhrystones per second and this is what the numbers shown represent The second benchmark is a 1 2 3 spreadsheet written using trigonometric functions to make it as compute intensive as possible The spreadsheet is quite simple so to make the test measurable I enlarged the spreadsheet until I could time the recalculation with a stopwatch The variation between individual tests was less than 1 2 second so I m satisfied that the compari sons are accurate The last program is the SI diagnostic from the Norton Utilities This was a widely quoted benchmark in PC advertising until 386 machines ran the numbers up to meaningless heights The number given is an index based on the original IBM XT as 1 0 Does a rating of 4 4 mean that the Portable
74. s and HP Vectra CS were produced in Corvallis I met a number of HP people I renewed my respect for the caliber of people at HP involved in the various phases of design production marketing and support At the conference I found out that I am not alone in my addiction to the HP 95LX Palmtop My wife teases me I am inseparable from my HP 95LX It turns out the others at the conference are the same way as are the users that write about their experiences on the HP CompuServe forum The combination notepad phone and appoint ment book calculator and spreadsheet in one package with a few built in games on the side make the HP 95LX my constant companion Is that a computer in your pocket or are your glad couldn t resist The response to our offering of the HP 95LX newsletter has been overwhelming We expect to have as many as twice the number of PALMTOP PAPER subscribers as PORTABLE PAPER sub scribers by the time the first PALMTOP PAPER reaches its readers in October I do hope that most of you will stay with us and subscribe Finally as you probably have noticed by our advertisements this issue we must get out of the HP Portable HP150 business as soon as possi ble This is not an easy decision to make I have wonderful people working for me and it will mean letting most of them go We also have great customers whom we would like to continue to support 6 SEPTEMBER OCTOBER 1991 FOR HANDY REFERENCE Items
75. s more creatively and productively The 36 1986 1991 issues total more than 1500 pages and include more than 200 product reviews and well over 1800 valuable tps to increase your productivity You ll find over 100 software programs and utilities in the Subscribers Disks designed to make you more produc tive on your HP Portable All 1986 91 issues disks 99 95 Includes 36 issues and 5 subscribers disks Prod PLIIPK All 1986 90 issues disks 79 Includes 30 issues and 4 subscribers disks Prod PL14PB VIDEOTAPE How to Use the HP Portables Come up to speed quickly on your HP110 and Portable Plus This 5 hour tape for new and intermediate users cuts training time and helps you get the most our of your HP Portable How to Use the HP Portables Video 39 Prod VP11NM Stock Up On Batteries Now Plus HP110 9114 Disk Drive and ThinkJet Prin HP110 Battery BT12HC 39 Portable Plus Battery BT11HC 59 95 Refurbished 9114 Battery BT12NG 59 Refurbished ThinkJet Battry BT11NG 59 Includes installation instructions torx screwdriver and nut driver The Empowerer Il 59 Power your HP9114 Disk Drive or your ThinkJet printer directly from AC current Just remove your battery pack slip the Empowerer II into the battery slot and plug it into your wall outlet It s that simple HP9114 Empowerer II 59 Prod EMI3NH ThinkJet Empowerer II
76. sions of this machine 26 SEPTEMBER OCTOBER 1991 First of all the HP 95LX is not a hacker s tool I ll never be able to run Turbo Pascal 6 0 nor Borland C on it For one thing l d need lots more memory and a bigger display On the other hand there is a full desktop emulator for the HP 95LX for those who are serious about writing programs for this computer The kicker is that the emulator program costs about 600 and runs only on an 80386 or 80486 computer The HP 95LX reminds me of an updated HP110 that has been given the Honey I Shrunk The Comput er treatment The HP 95LX is about one eighth the size of an HP110 Not only will it fit in a brief case it could also fit in some shirt pockets My advice don t put it in your shirt pocket The first time you bend over you ll find out just how tough this machine really is You ll also find out how sttong your heart is The HP 95LX could be called an AT class machine Actually the 95 has the speed and capabilities of an early IBM XT computer However for me it s an AT computer because when I use it I hold it in both hands and press the keys with my thumbs It s an All Thumbs computer Ouch While exploring some of the HP 95LX s capabilities I was also in the process of preparing a four day training seminar for a local engineering firm I used the Outliner program on the Portable Plus to develop the course When I was ready I set the Outliner s right margin to 40 columns
77. ssages using AdvanceMail Prior to going to bed they connect the phone line to the Portable Plus and set a transfer time for the Portable Plus to wake up and initiate the transfer At this transfer time prior to logging on to the HP 3000 special preprocessing will occur unbeknownst to the user An MS DOS program will be executed that appends a time and date stamp to the sales call report A permanent send specification has been stored during the installation of AdvanceMail that will always send the sales call report file to the sales representative s manager The sales representative does k gt i n um d o d Personalized Software INC T Se ie Sens Products that make HP Portables smarter PO Box 869 Fairfield lowa 52556 515 472 6330 Liquidating our Inventory As explained in the Publisher s Message and adver tisments we will soon no longer stock and sell HP Portable items We are at least for the time being getting out of the mail order business Our plan is to sell all items by October 11 We will probably not be open for sales after that date That means that if you are going to n any HP Portable equipment now is the time The reason is threefold am By Hal Goldstein 1 There probably will not be any other opportunity 2 We ve reduced most of the prices to liquidate the equipment as soon as possible 3 Even if we continue to sell a few products after October 11 we will only sell
78. syncra sies of the HP BBS The 95LX section in the CompuServe HP forum is incredibly active over 100 messages a day and climbing GO HP HP Systems section 14 If you have a 95LX join this forum Corvallis BBS phone is 1 503 750 4448 Hal GAMES FOR THE HP 150 Last time I was at Personalized Software I met Larry Baldozier the man in charge of R amp D He s the person to turn to if you have questions about Flash ROM drawers Larry is also the person to turn to if you are trying to get the infamous Stereo Shell file manager to work on the Portable Plus Larry managed to get the program to work on the first try Nice going Larry Larry showed me his latest creation a disk full of games for the HP150 desktop I recalled my failing effort to put together such a games disk for this cantan kerous machine Larry has managed to get about eight different games to work on the HP150 The best of them in my estimation is the one called Artillery Attaboy Larry THE PORTABLE PAPER KERMIT Let me make one product announcement and one correction to a procedure in a previous column The newest version of the Kermit telecommunications program is now available for the HP110 the HP150 and the Portable Plus Thanks to John Nyenhuis of Purdue University for a fine job of making the Kermit program work on the HP machines Version 3 10 of Kermit is several thousand bytes larger than the previous version 3 02 However it does not
79. t down on HP too much However it does seem to take them several generations to really address the real and changing needs of the user One of my pet peeves is that the people who review hardware and software are too much into the intrica cies of things and fail to communicate to the common users point of view I would say though that The Portable Paper has been of enormous help to me and I do wish you well on your new ventures I ll continue to send the remaining issues of The Portable Paper to my friend and should I purchase a 95LX I would certainly subscribe to your new publication One comment to Mr Pidgeon is in order however see Letters Vol 6 No 4 Pg 5 The expense of publishing a limited or not so limited circula tion magazine is very high Most who read them never know of the cost in dollars or time that is needed If one wants a scholarly magazine with no advertising then be prepared to pay a lot more unless of course it is subsidized by some governmental agency or university I think you have done a fine job and have been of service to many Now it is time to move on The world does change and the needs of com puter users do as well Thanks L Reafsnyder Sanindo Budokan P O Box 8733 Albuquerque NM 87108 Ed EI FI EI More on the HP 95LX Palmtop By Hal Goldstein My enthusiasm for the HP 95LX continues to grow I use it daily to take notes perform calculations do spreadsh
80. t find the error Finally it dawned on me to copy the TPC EXE file command line compiler from my Borland disk into the Plus That s all it took Boy do I feel like an idiot It s obvious when you think about it but still I wish the instructions with the Personalized Software disk had start ed with a comment regarding the need to load the command line com piler from the IBM Borland disk It would have saved me a lot of grief I only hope this note can keep someone else from repeating my mistake William J Pinnick Chem micro Metrics 1689 Scarborough Road Greenville NC 27858 95LX Wizard Expense of publishing Recently I found that I had to move up to a full fledged desktop comput er and though I had found the HP110 useful in the past the lack of IBM compatibility was a major hindrance I have given it to a friend who lives in a rural area in the hope that he will be able to make some use of it I have seen the HP 95LX and while impressed as always with HP s quality I was not impressed with the 95LX s limitations It has a poor keyboard layout and size lacks memory and has a poor display Why did they not use the new DOS 5 0 There are spreadsheets other than Lotus And the schedule function is rather poor as well The Sharp Wizard 8200 fits my needs 80 of the time Now that they have a fax modem for it I will be able to do 95 of all I need when I travel Having been an HP user from the old HP35 days I am no
81. th almost all applications and an ESC key 30 SEPTEMBER OCTOBER 1991 placed near the primary keys I don t know what direction computing is taking for me today The 95LX is certainly not a replacement for my Portable Plus but then neither is a powerful desktop computer I have not seen a notebook comput er that makes me want to abandon my Plus even though it is now one of the heaviest laptops around Unfortunately some of the 1 2 3 jobs I started on my Portable Plus have grown so large that it can no longer load them This is no real problem since I have been promoted and although I retain supervisory responsi bility Iam no longer directly responsible for these jobs I am doing more writing now and I have not found an editing tool I like nearly as much as The Editor Although I would like to have a pop up thesaurus and dictionary I arh not significantly troubled by having to exit The Editor to check my spelling and even the old version of Webster s spelling checker still seems pretty effective to me Although grammar checking programs such as RightWriter can be helpful I am not convinced it is a tool I would use every day even if I had the latest version on my Portable Plus My roommate and I have experimented with Microsoft Windows on her computer and neither of us have found that it has much to offer other than a pretty display Certainly the perception that it makes a computer easy to use is not true Windows is compli
82. the 80C86 This makes a machine using the V30 from 10 to 20 percent faster without any other changes The second modification increases the clock rate of the Portable Plus This is the speed at which the computer executes instructions and moves data within the computer Since compute speed is directly related to clock speed the performance improvement should be proportional A check of Table 1 next page shows that when I switched my XT from 4 88 Mhz its original speed to 7 37 Mhz I received a 34 increase in speed according to the Dhrystone test see sidebar on next page for more on selecting benchmark tests Looking at the Portable Plus column we see that the combina tion of both processor and clock speed resulted in an 83 increase in the Dhrystone test But I m getting ahead of myself Since the changes made in the FastPlus upgrade are permanent the before tests had to be run before I sent my Plus to Personalized Software for the modifi _ THE PORTABLE PAPER cations This made picking the suite of tests more difficult To be sure I had a valid test I looked for a measurable change in results when my home XT was switched from stock to high speed The three pro grams I used are 1 the Dhrystone test 2 a Lotus spreadsheet recalculation and 3 the Norton SI test from the Norton Utilities Once these programs were selected I ran them on the Portable Plus recorded the results and sent them by machine off to Pe
83. the story of the seven blind men who were asked to describe an elephant They all touched different parts of an ele phant and they all came away with their own descrip tion of the animal The 48SX is above all else an analytical engine It has been designed from the processor on up to work with numbers floating point numbers This is some THE PORTABLE PAPER thing the 48SX can do immediately To get a desktop computer to perform the same kind of arithmetic you would have to use a math co processor And I m not even sure that an ordinary math co oa could outperform the 48SX The processor or brain of the 48SX is a proprietary chip from HP It s a descendent of the Saturn chip used in the HP 71 and the HP 28 computer calculators HP has souped it up so that it runs at 2 MHz which is about the same speed as an early Apple computer This is about 20 times faster than the HP 41C calculator However it is still too slow to make the What You Se Is What You Get Equation Writer practical The 48SX is a mathematician s tool It is not limited to numbers It can work with symbolic math as well This is something that a desktop computer can do only with software costing hundreds of dollars One of the first things that I did was to review several notebooks full of programs that I had collected or written for the HP 41CV one of the predecessors of the 485X I was looking for programs that could be made to work on the newer
84. transferred Actually the number of retries indicated by the 95LX seemed excessive In a few attempts the 95LX took a time out before the computers could link I did not experience this problem transferring files from the 95LX to the Portable This tweaked my suspicion that there might be a bug in the 95LX but I figured this difficulty might result from not being able to quickly enter file transfer commands on the 95LX There is certainly room for improvement in the way file trans fers are initiated on the palmtop Perhaps transfer configuration menus on the order of the original HP Portable s terminal program might be appropriate I later decided that knowing how to transfer files between the 95LX and other computers would be wise so I tried some XMODEM file transfers between the 95LX and my roommate s 386 using Crosstalk on the big computer I tried several times but was unable to get the computers to link together to download a file from the big computer I tried uploading some files to the 386 computer and had no difficulty at all This experience convinces me there is likely a bug in the 95LX s terminal program oi es N bU USING THE 95LX WITH THE WORLDPORT MODEM One the greatest powers of a computer is its ability to transfer data over great distances using a modem and the telephone system I was unable to immediately test IL the 95LX with my WorldPort 2400 MNP modem since m I did not have the necessar
85. tricks to get from here to there quickly ware SC13NM cable In SYSTEM CONFIG menu set PRINTER INTERFACE to Serial In the DATA COM CONFIG menu set SERIAL PORT to RS 232 BAUD RATE to 9600 WORD LENGTH to 6 bits STOP BITS to 1 PARITY to Even and XON XOFF PACING to On Set remaining fields in the left column to Ignore For use with HP IL RS 232 C converter set PRINTER INTERFACE to HP82164A and set right column of DATACOM CONFIG menu to the above choices PAM MS DOS Q How can I get the Function Key labels to be dis played on the screen A Press the MENU soft key while in DOS Q Can I have the Portable awakened in DOS in stead of PAM A In order to bypass PAM use Memomaker to create a file that contains the following line Shell b bin command com b win p 12 SEPTEMBER OCTOBER 1991 1 VIEW THE BOTTOM OF A COLUMN Forget the Down Arrow and Page Down keys and don t bother using GOTO Just position the pointer in one of the first occupied cells of the column and press End and DownArrow For End on the HP110 or Portable Plus press Extend Char and Right Arrow The pointer is moved to the occupied cell prior to the next empty cell If there are no empty cells in the column this moves the pointer to the bottom of that column Press End RightArrow to move to the end of a row of non empty cells If there are empty cells in the column you want to view the bottom of move your pointer
86. tt Packard Even now it compares remarkably well to the current crop of fragile short battery lived notebook computers These portables are indestructable and hardly anything ever wears out on them The programs are built in on ROM and there s enough internal RAM memory to store 80 pages of word processing text With most other computers used means worn out But the only moving parts on an HP110 are the keys so we expect many to be in use well into the 21st century Every HP110 we sell is fully tested and guaranteed to work Remember this is a liquidation sale Once we re out of HP110s we won t sell any more The time has come and the price can t be beat The sale ends October 11 or when our limited supplies run out HP110 Portable Computer 199 95 Includes Time Manager Productivity Disk Prod PQ11UC Call 800 373 6114 before October 11 HP Portable Plus never used and in its original packaging Only 450 used 375 GRAB THIS LAST CHANCE TO BY A NEVER USED PORTABLE PLUS AT A VERY AFFORDABLE PRICE These are the last of the unused Portable Pluses produced by Hewlett Packard They are still in their factory packaging They are from the last production run of the Portable Plus and when they are gone there are no more such Pluses Some of these units were originally configured for European use We have substituted U S keys and English documenta tion as necessary The Portable Plus lik
87. us is now almost five years old I purchased it used in early 1987 and have been in love with it ever since However over the last couple of years I ve watched the performance advantages of the Portable Plus disappear The machine s initial speed advantages came from its internal Edisk and the fact that the processor ran slightly faster than that of an IBM XT Now as laptops are introduced that use 386 micropro cessors the wait for TimeManager to process and display each day s appointments and to do list seems longer and longer Certainly the Portable Plus has not become slower but the world is definitely running on a faster clock There have even been times that I have considered moving to another machine Well perish the thought There is a cure for the processor speed blues my friend and it s called the FastPlus upgrade And it s not snake oil either HARDWARE MODIFICATIONS IMPROVE PERFORMANCE The physical changes made to your Portable Plus are simple in concept The 80C86 microprocessor CPU originally installed in the Portable Plus is removed and an NEC V30 is put in its place At the same time the internal clock that controls the movement of data within the Portable Plus is increased from 5 33 Mhz to 8 Mhz The two modifications work together to give a noticeable improvement in performance The NEC V30 is pin compatible with the 80C86 it replaces The V30 however executes several machine code instructions faster than
88. very productive language SEPTEMBER OCTOBER 1991 13 TO SEH THE PORTABLE PAPER Another benefit is the size of the compiler itself My initial tests found that the Force compiler would run in 256K More work revealed that it was happier with more room a little over 300K The complete Force compiler with its library and header files and the DOS linker fits on a single 720K diskette By compiler standards this is quite compact The Microsoft C compiler fills twelve 720K diskettes and some of the files are compressed So Force can easily be used from a 9114 By eliminating the sample files there is enough space left on the diskette for source code files I do my editing on the Portable Plus Edisk and direct all compiler output to the Edisk as well _Ok so if Force is so great what are the problems Well the primary problem has already been men tioned the limitations on screen I O I ve been hoping that Sophco would solve this problem Sophco runs an excellent product support BBS and I have mentioned the I O problem several times Several months back they reported a possible solution This involves replac ing the routine that Force uses to write characters to the screen when formatted output is called for as in the SAY GET command Force provides a way for the programmer to replace this routine although it is not documented in the user manual This involves assembly language programming something that is beyond my
89. worksheet THE PORTABLE PAPER INCREASE SYSTEM RAM When you load a spreadsheet file Lotus loads the E whole file in RAM memory This limits the size of a the spreadsheet you can work with Say for exam ple your Portable Plus has 512K of RAM and you have it configured so that you have the entire 512K available as system RAM Approximately 67K or the RAM is used for the Operating System and the Lotus program About 445K remains and is avail able for the spreadsheet If you tried to load a spreadsheet larger than 445K you would get a memory full message In this case since you have no Edisc you would of course be loading the worksheet file from another source the floppy drive for instance In reality you have your RAM divided between system RAM and Edisc so you have even less system RAM to work with This further limits the size of the spreadsheet you can load There are a number of ways to work around this situation If you consistently use large work sheets and the memory full message is encoun tered the best solution for Portable Plus users is to increase the amount of system RAM available while running Lotus Enter the Portable Plus System Config Menu press f6 and configure your computer for a smaller Edisc This will give you more system RAM to work with If you need more RAM than is physically available you can add an additional memory board to the system and in crease the RAM by as much as 1MB This wi
90. y year after year These refurbished ThinkJets produce high quality printing 500 pages per ink cartridge at a fast 150 characters second The ThinkJet covers less desk space than a piece of letterhead paper and weighs only 6 lbs Great for office or on the road use Battery powered ThinkJet 150 Prod TJ11UC AC powered ThinkJet 175 Prod TJ11UX ThinkJet Empowerer 59 AC Power Supply for the ThinkJet Prod EM14NH Call 800 373 6114 before October 11 RAM DRAWERS ARE THE WAY TO EXPAND THE RAM MEMORY OF YOUR PORTABLE PLUS Add up to 1 megabyte of RAM to increase your Memory Edisc capacity This lets you run larger software application programs and store more files on your Portable Plus With more RAM memory you can work with larger Lotus spreadsheets or store larger word processing docu ments ready to use them when you want More RAM memory means less reliance on the external disk drive of the Portable Plus This means greater portabil ity and fewer hassles on the road or in the office Memory Drawers 128K Memory Drawer 45 Prod MM13UC 128K Memory Card 75 Lets you increase the size of your 128K drawer from 128K or 256K to a maximum of 384K Prod MM14UC E 256K Memory Drawer 99 Prod MM19UC 384K Memory Drawer 175 Prod MMI2UC 1 MB Memory Drawer 595 Prod MM11UC ROM Drawer 35 Prod SW11UR We ll consider trade ins call
91. y adapter to mate the 25 pin female port with the 95LX serial cable A trip to my LZ neighborhood Radio Shack store yielded a 25 pin EA male female null modem and a 25 pin male male gender changer Although not especially elegant these two parts provided a suitable bridge between the end of the 95LX serial cable with 25 pin adapter and the WorldPort Since the 95LX unlike my Portable Plus and most other computers does not provide a DTR signal I had to adjust switch 3 in the modem to cause it to turn on in response to data transmission from the computer Switch 3 is the second from the left as viewed through the battery compartment In my configuration all other switches are down except 3 which is up Although the modem turned on after I moved switch 3 from the down to the up position I spent a number of fruitless sessions attempting to connect with CompuServe before I decided I should try connecting the WorldPort to AC power to eliminate the problem of j turning the modem on Plugging in the WorldPort s battery eliminator causes the modem to turn on and stay on as long as the battery eliminator is connected Unfortunately my WorldPort s battery eliminator had decided to go South for the Winter long before the end of Summer A Saturday morning stroll down to Electrotex my other neighborhood electronics supplier produced a suitable replacement After I connected the battery eliminator I discov ered I could very easily
92. ystem bypasses the A drive and PAM comes up again Then you can delete or modify your bad CONFIG SYS file If all else fails remove the cover in back that protects the battery pack and press the little button This resets your computer and restarts the battery indicator at 99 even though the battery may not be fully charged Use this method as a last resort since IT MAY WIPE OUT THE FILES ON YOUR A DRIVE Also you probably will have to reset your f6 System Config and f5 Datacom Config settings In general exit naturally from any program you are using rather than doing a hard reset otherwise it is possible to lose the data you re working on or even _ destroy files on your disk Using Lotus 123 as a Calculator It is possible to use Lotus 1 2 3 as a calculator without disturbing your current p Just follow these steps 1 Move to an mis cell for safety s sake 2 Press f2 the Edit key 3 Do any legal Lotus mathematical operation with out pressing the Return key 4 Press Calc Shift fl Note the answer which ap pears in the edit line in the upper left hand corner 5 Press the Esc key 6 The unchanged worksheet awaits your MUS ai 05 The Most Frequently Asked _ Questions about HP Portables LOTUS 123 Q What is causing a memory full message in Lotus A A memory full message in 1 2 3 indicates all internal memory of the computer RAM has been used and no additional data may be entered in the current

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