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From: frechett@spot.Colorado.EDU (-=Runaway Daemon=-)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.handhelds
Subject: Re: Interesting effect (HP48)
Message-ID: <1991Feb14.044350.11473@csn.org>
Date: 14 Feb 91 04:43:50 GMT
References: <59716@eerie.acsu.Buffalo.EDU>
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I don't want to quote this whole article, but you said that you were led to
believe that the reset button didn't trash memory.  I don't think it does.  
It sounds to me like the memory was trashed before you hit the button.  If you
consider that they calc was already locked up and nothing else was working, I
would have to think that your memory wasn't in very good shape.  Try hitting
the reset button when the calc is working fine.  It seems to be analgous to the
hp28s's ON-ENTER-BACKSPACE sequence which just turns the calc off.  You will
notice that the reset button always does turn the calc off.  

As for the actual process of locking up the machine, it is easy to do.  I have
crashed my memory many times.  The last time, was while beta-testing NRTS0.1
and seemed to have something to do with the input buffer, as everything was 
hunky dory when I left it and a few minutes later it was displying 
Try to recover Memory?    I have locked it up bad enough to have to hit the
button about 4 times and in about 3 out of 4, the memory loss was total.  
If you think about it, other machines do it too.  I used to freak out Apples 
many years ago.  Ever play with screwed up binaries on a Mac?  Wasn't it
something like "Fatal System error" and it shows a little bomb.... 
I have locked up my share of PCs and the best was when in the time span of
about an hour, I managed to crash 5 DECstation 3100s 3 or 4 times each.  
Our big DEC 5500 and SEQUENT machines freak and die about once a week.  

The main difference between them and the hp48sx is that the hp48sx just doesn't
come back up as easily.  It doesn't have a drive.  I am getting a second 128K
card so I should be able to use this one for all myu backups.  Will make
hacking a much safer proposition.  Fun little machine.  

	ian