Philadelphia Area HP Handheld Club Meeting

Wednesday, August 24^th, 1994 - Drexel University

HP200LX Introduced

As of this writing, the newly-introduced HP200LX palmtop computer has been out for approximately three weeks and should be readily available in stores. Although no significant hardware changes (except for a differently-colored case and some rearranged keyboard keys) were made, the internal application software has been increased from 2 to 3 megabytes, primarily from the addition of Pocket Quicken. Also, a handful of existing applications have been tweaked for efficiency. Available in 1-meg RAM and 2-meg RAM versions, the prices either match or undercut those of the now- discontinued HP100LX. Why the model number was so radically changed with no hardware upgrades still puzzles anyone who doesnt work in Corvallis (and perhaps some who do).

HP PDA Not Dead

Rumors still persist about an HP/Geos PDA pen-based product to be released some time in the next twelve months (although this 12-month window seems to slide with the rumors). The latest PC Week article indicates that they intend to keep the price less than half that of current Newton or Zoomer products. Along those lines, it looks like both Motorola and Compaq are getting uneasy about the PDA market. With Moto's decision to hold back on its already-demonstrated Envoy product and Compaq's withdrawal of it's PDA project in the prototype stage, the lackluster sales of Apple and Tandy must be saying something important.

HP48 "R" ROM is Everywhere

Shipments of the ROM version "R" of the HP48GX calculators have finally arrived everywhere. Jim Lawson now has units in stock (at $260.) for anyone who is finally ready to take the GX plunge. (Jim's Handi Calc business may be reached at 908-928-9528.) No new bugs have been publicized for several months, and all the significant ones apparently have been fixed with this release.

HP48GX Featured in Latest HP Journal

Speaking of the HP48, check out the August, 1994 issue of the Hewlett-Packard Journal, which features the HP48GX on the cover. It contains a rather extensive 15-page technical article discussing the changes in hardware and software between the S- and G-series machines. Although nothing has circulated in the recent months, the last word on the street was that there would be still another higher-powered member of the HP48 family. Release date,capabilities, price, etc. are pure speculation at this time. Based on the three-year life of the S-series machines, we shouldn't see anything before 1996. Also, considering that the R & D for calculators is in the process of migrating from Oregon to Singapore, a measurable delay in the schedule could be expected.

HP41 Trade-In Program a Steal

Just two weeks ago, as a result of a conversation about HP's "standard repair charge" for HP48 units which are out of warranty, one of our members investigated trading his HP48SX for a GX. No such program at HP exists. However, he learned from Hewlett-Packard about a trade-in program for HP41 calculators with amazingly cheap prices toward obtaining HP42S, HP48G or HP48GX machines. For instance, the price towards a GX is only $120.00 If you've got an old HP41 gathering dust, this may be a golden opportunity.

Swapping List Elements (HP48)

The EduCalc Newsline (714-582-3976) had an HP48 programming problem last week which was of interest: Create a program which exchanges two elements in a list with the list object in level three of the stack and the two element numbers in stack levels one and two. Joseph Horn's best solution, posted this week is:

<< ROT ROT GET LASTARG SWAP 4 ROLL GET LASTARG 5 ROLL PUT ROT ROT PUT >>

This program is 47.5 bytes with a checksum of DB23 (hex).