50g

Guy Teague wrote:
> his instructions (and very detailed, clear ones they were) did not included
> hitting the store key.
> 
> were you able to follow the example? perhaps you need to do a hard reset
> first and try the example again.

Well, I basically only read this list during weekdays, so I apologize 
for leaving those questions unanswered -- As someone else surmised, the 
problem that Mr. Huntsman was having was due to the system flags 85 and 
92 being set.

> now that i know how to program (!), how do i get my program into the custom
> menu in case i clear out the vars and delete it by mistake? or perhaps copy
> it to the sd card would be better? or both?

The custom menu is held in a variable called 'CST' in the Home 
directory.  So clearing out the wrong variables in the Home directory 
would hose it there, too.  (I'll leave the creating and modification of 
the custom menu until later.)  You are right that making backups to the 
SD card (or just port 2 flash) is a good approach.  There are a lot of 
ways that you can archive data; some of them are built-in to the calc. 
Look up ARCHIVE and RESTORE in the AUR.  Also, look on www.hpcalc.org 
for "archive" to find some helpful utilities to make it easier.  My 
personal favorite method is to install Filer6, by Prof. Wolfgang 
Rautenberg, into the flash memory, and reassign the left-shift APPS key 
to use Filer6 instead of the built-in Filer.  Filer6 has a nice 
backup/restore function that makes standard-format archives to either SD 
or flash.

One thing to note is that the more things you have on your SD card, the 
longer it takes for the calc to turn on.  So I usually just keep the SD 
card tucked in the battery compartment when I'm not using it.

> again, thanks for the great example dave. it shows up just how pitiful the
> documentation is. i've been using hp calcs since the hp55 but i seem to have
> to re-learn simple operations weekly on the 50g.

Yes.  I'd really, really love the same kind of pocket reference the 
HP-41 had.  Of course, the 50G has many, many times the functions that 
the 41 had, which is certainly part of the reason that no such document 
exists.  I have an HP-49G (not a HP-49G+) also, and it has a pocket ref, 
but it fails on many levels, which underscores the difficulty.


-- 
Dave Boyd
"If we hit that bullseye, the rest of the dominoes will fall
  like a house of cards. Checkmate."  -Capt. Zapp Brannigan, D.O.O.P.