Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!clyde.concordia.ca!uunet!mcsun!sunic!tut!santra!kampi.hut.fi!jmunkki From: jmunkki@kampi.hut.fi (Juri Munkki) Newsgroups: comp.sys.handhelds Subject: Re: Downloads of HP-48SX binary files. Message-ID: <1990Mar24.113627.25468@santra.uucp> Date: 24 Mar 90 11:36:27 GMT References: <1990Mar21.142101.28032@cec1.wustl.edu> <3590@sunspot.UUCP> <1461@uc.msc.umn.edu> <1990Mar21.225133.2561@santra.uucp> <53747@microsoft.UUCP> Sender: news@santra.uucp (Cnews - USENET news system) Reply-To: jmunkki@kampi.hut.fi (Juri Munkki) Organization: Helsinki University of Technology, FINLAND Lines: 74 In <53747@microsoft.UUCP> alonzo@microsoft.UUCP (Alonzo GARIEPY) writes: >jmunkki@kampi.hut.fi (Juri Munkki) writes: >> Creating a machine with 256KB ROM and trusting that it doesn't have >> serious bugs is crazy. Buying such a machine is stupid. I feel stupid >> right now after two days of fighting with the kermit. > >If HP relied on trust for quality assurance, I doubt they would have the >reputation for excellence they do. Your statement might be rephrased: >it is impressive how few bugs remain in such a complex piece of software >as the HP 48. It is impressive. If it is possible to patch the existing ROM with RAM routines, I'll accept the current implementation as good. If the can't patch the bugs, they will have to replace quite a few calculators some day, when more bugs are found. It will take time to find the more subtle bugs. >I don't think you should feel bad for buying this machine. I have had >no trouble with the kermit. Perhaps you should use slightly different >parameters. Bill Wickes has already implied that HP will satisfy any >customer who is having major problems, so do not despair. I don't feel bad. After all, I'm "advertising" it in my signature file. This little computer has great potential once all the internals are known and third party developers will start producing machine coded application ROM cards. RPL is too slow for good interactive control of the display. The bit-8 prefixing bug turned out to be in VersaTerm Pro, which is quite surprising, since a lot of people use that program. It was the bug I described, it just wasn't the HP's fault. The problem is that when 8 bit communication is possible, a 'Y' is sent instead of the normal quote character. Every kermit implementation has to recognize this character as a sign that the quotes aren't used. What VersaTerm didn't do correctly was that it went on to handle the 'Y' characters in a special way: it used the special character (also used to make control characters) quote whenever a 'Y' was found. So instead of sending "Y", it sent "#Y", which is interpreted as ctrl-Y or ASCII code 25. My apologizies to anyone who wants them. This bug was just a theory anyway, since I couldn't get debugging information from VersaTerm. The packet size problem seems to be related to bad send-init handshaking on the part of the HP. We are still looking into this. As to the bad checksums: I'm still getting them and I don't have a clue. It might be that they are also related to this handshake problem. I'll post a more thorough description when more is known. I haven't taken a deeper look at the problems I'm having with MacKermit (which should at least be a good implementation of the protocol, since it comes from Columbia University). At least one problem was that unless I opened the file defaults dialog, MacKermit wouldn't notice that the settings file had binary transfer as the default. Even with this problem corrected, none of the PCLINK binaries are transmitted correctly. Fortunately VersaTerm works, if I use parity checking to get rid of the 'Y' problem. I still wonder what HP distributes with the Macintosh Interface Kit. It's also good to know that White Knight works. I wanted to try an old version of that program (Red Ryder), but since it wouldn't talk to the printer port, where I have the HP connected, I didn't try it after all. One more thing: Even with its bugs, I like the HP48SX very much. It also seems that I'm the only one who is seeing problems, but that might be just because there are so few serial cables out there yet. HP has done some thorough testing with PC kermit, so PC users probably won't see any of the problems that I have. That doesn't mean that PC users are allowed to send me obnoxious mail telling me to "buy a real computer". I'm not attacking HP, I'm just trying to solve some problems. ___________________________________________________________________________ / Juri Munkki / Helsinki University of Technology / Wind / HP S / / jmunkki@hut.fi / Computing Center Macintosh Support / Surf / 48 X / ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~