txt2raw.pl: HP-42S program listing to "raw" conversion

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As every HP-42S user finds out eventually, entering long programs into the calculator using the keyboard can be a pain. Many commands require a lot of keystrokes to enter, so even comparatively short programs, of 100-200 lines, say, can be a chore to key in.
Users of HP-42S emulators like Free42 have the advantage that at least they never have to enter a program more than once: once it's keyed in, they can save it to a "raw" format program file, and from then on, re-loading the program is a simple matter of importing the "raw" file.

There is still room for improvement, though. The "raw" format is relatively new in the HP-42S emulation scene, as Emu42 adopted it in late 2004 and Free42 in early 2005 -- and so there are still many program collections where the programs are in text form... And again, users are faced with the unpleasant chore of keying in those programs keystroke by keystroke. Wouldn't it be nice to be able to convert listings from text form to "raw" format automatically?

Enter txt2raw.pl, written by Vini Matangrano, and reproduced here for the benefit of HP-42S emulator users. txt2raw.pl is a Perl script that converts HP-42S listings to "raw" files, essentially the inverse of what the HP-42S does when you issue the PRP or LIST command.

An Example

The following is an actual HP-42S program listing:

00 { 488-Byte Prgm }
01>LBL "DPLOT"
02 MVAR "YMIN"
03 MVAR "YMAX"
04 MVAR "AXIS"
05 MVAR "XMIN"
06 MVAR "XMAX"
07 VARMENU "DPLOT"
08 "Enter limits; t"
09 |-"hen R/S"
10 PROMPT
11>LBL 00
12 "FCN=?"
13 SF 25
14 RCL "PFCN"
15 FC?C 25
16 GTO 01
17 |-" <"
18 ARCL ST X
19 |-">"
20>LBL 01
21 AVIEW
22 CLA
23 SF 25
24 ARCL "PFCN"
25 CF 25
26 AON
27 STOP
28 AOFF
29 ALENG
30 X=0?
31 GTO 00
32 ASTO "PFCN"
33 SF 25
34 VARMENU IND "PFCN"
35 FS?C 25
36 GTO 02
37 CLA
38 ASTO "PIND"

39 GTO 05
40>LBL 02
41 "Set vars; selec"
42 |-"t 'x'"
43 PROMPT
44 ASTO "PIND"
45 ALENG
46 X=0?
47 GTO 02
48 CLMENU
49 "EVAL"
50 KEY 1 GTO 03
51 "SOLVE"
52 KEY 2 GTO 04
53 MENU
54 "Evaluate or sol"
55 |-"ve?"
56 PROMPT
57>LBL 03
58 CLA
59 ASTO "PDEP"
60 GTO 05
61>LBL 04
62 VARMENU IND "PFCN"
63 "Select 'y'"
64 PROMPT
65 ASTO "PDEP"
66>LBL 05
67 EXITALL
68 CLLCD
69 RCL "YMAX"
70 RCL- "AXIS"
71 LASTX
72 RCL- "YMIN"
73 ÷
74 X<0?
75 GTO 06
76 1
77 X<>Y

78 X>Y?
79 GTO 06
80 15
81 ×
82 1
83 +
84 +/-
85 1
86 PIXEL
87>LBL 06
88 RCL "XMAX"
89 RCL "XMIN"
90 STO 00
91 -
92 130
93 ÷
94 STO 01
95 1.131
96 STO 02
97 RCL "YMIN"
98 RCL- "YMAX"
99 STO 03
100 CLA
101 ARCL "PIND"
102 ALENG
103 X!=0?
104 GTO 14
105 8
106 STO 04
107 GTO 08
108>LBL 14
109 CLA
110 ARCL "PDEP"
111 ALENG
112 X!=0?
113 GTO 14
114 9
115 STO 04
116 GTO 09

117>LBL 14
118 10
119 STO 04
120 PGMSLV IND "PFCN"
121 GTO 10
122>LBL 08
123 RCL 00
124 XEQ IND "PFCN"
125 GTO 11
126>LBL 09
127 RCL 00
128 STO IND "PIND"
129 XEQ IND "PFCN"
130 GTO 11
131>LBL 10
132 RCL 00
133 STO IND "PIND"
134 RCL "YMIN"
135 STO IND "PDEP"
136 RCL "YMAX"
137 SOLVE IND "PDEP"
138>LBL 11
139 RCL- "YMAX"
140 RCL÷ 03
141 15
142 ×
143 1
144 +
145 X<0?
146 GTO 14
147 RCL 02
148 PIXEL
149>LBL 14
150 RCL 01
151 STO+ 00
152 ISG 02
153 GTO IND 04
154 END

With this listing in a file named dplot.txt, run

txt2raw.pl dplot.txt

and a file named dplot.txt.raw will be created.
This is the hex dump of the "raw" file generated from the above listing by txt2raw.pl:

00000000  C0 00 F6 00 44 50 4C 4F  54 F5 90 59 4D 49 4E F5      DPLOT  YMIN 
00000010  90 59 4D 41 58 F5 90 41  58 49 53 F5 90 58 4D 49   YMAX  AXIS  XMI
00000020  4E F5 90 58 4D 41 58 F6  C1 44 50 4C 4F 54 FF 45  N  XMAX  DPLOT E
00000030  6E 74 65 72 20 6C 69 6D  69 74 73 3B 20 74 F8 7F  nter limits; t  
00000040  68 65 6E 20 52 2F 53 8E  01 F5 46 43 4E 3D 3F A8  hen R/S   FCN=? 
00000050  19 F5 91 50 46 43 4E AB  19 B2 00 F3 7F 20 3C 9B     PFCN       < 
00000060  73 F2 7F 3E 02 7E 87 A8  19 F5 B3 50 46 43 4E A9  s  > ~     PFCN 
00000070  19 8C 84 8B A6 41 67 B1  00 F5 B2 50 46 43 4E A8       Ag    PFCN 
00000080  19 F5 C9 50 46 43 4E AA  19 B3 00 87 F5 B2 50 49     PFCN       PI
00000090  4E 44 B6 00 03 FF 53 65  74 20 76 61 72 73 3B 20  ND    Set vars; 
000000A0  73 65 6C 65 63 F6 7F 74  20 27 78 27 8E F5 B2 50  selec  t 'x'   P
000000B0  49 4E 44 A6 41 67 B3 00  A2 6D F4 45 56 41 4C F3  IND Ag   m EVAL 
000000C0  E3 01 03 F5 53 4F 4C 56  45 F3 E3 02 04 A2 5E FF      SOLVE     ^ 
000000D0  45 76 61 6C 75 61 74 65  20 6F 72 20 73 6F 6C F4  Evaluate or sol 
000000E0  7F 76 65 3F 8E 04 87 F5  B2 50 44 45 50 B6 00 05   ve?     PDEP   
000000F0  F5 C9 50 46 43 4E FA 53  65 6C 65 63 74 20 27 79    PFCN Select 'y
00000100  27 8E F5 B2 50 44 45 50  06 A2 6C A7 63 F5 91 59  '   PDEP  l c  Y
00000110  4D 41 58 F5 93 41 58 49  53 76 F5 93 59 4D 49 4E  MAX  AXISv  YMIN
00000120  43 66 B7 00 11 00 71 45  B7 00 11 15 00 42 11 00  Cf    qE     B  
00000130  40 54 11 00 A7 65 07 F5  91 58 4D 41 58 F5 91 58  @T   e   XMAX  X
00000140  4D 49 4E 30 41 11 13 10  00 43 31 11 1A 11 13 11  MIN0A    C1     
00000150  00 32 F5 91 59 4D 49 4E  F5 93 59 4D 41 58 33 87   2  YMIN  YMAX3 
00000160  F5 B3 50 49 4E 44 A6 41  63 BF 00 18 00 34 B9 00    PIND Ac    4  
00000170  0F 87 F5 B3 50 44 45 50  A6 41 63 BF 00 19 00 34      PDEP Ac    4
00000180  BA 00 0F 11 10 00 34 F5  BD 50 46 43 4E BB 00 09        4  PFCN   
00000190  20 F5 AF 50 46 43 4E BC  00 0A 20 F5 89 50 49 4E     PFCN      PIN
000001A0  44 F5 AF 50 46 43 4E BC  00 0B 20 F5 89 50 49 4E  D  PFCN      PIN
000001B0  44 F5 91 59 4D 49 4E F5  89 50 44 45 50 F5 91 59  D  YMIN  PDEP  Y
000001C0  4D 41 58 F5 BF 50 44 45  50 0C F5 93 59 4D 41 58  MAX  PDEP   YMAX
000001D0  F2 D4 03 11 15 00 42 11  00 40 66 BF 00 22 A7 65        B  @f  " e
000001E0  0F 21 92 00 96 02 AE 04  C0 00 0D                  !

A few things are worthy of note in this example:

txt2raw.pl ignores the line numbers at the beginning of each line. Between the line number and the instruction, there may be a space, or an > character; the > character occurs in print-outs created by Free42; it represents the triangular "right arrow" character that is used to highlight LBL instructions in program listings made with an original HP-42S and HP-82240A printer.
Since txt2raw.pl ignores line numbers, it is possible to edit program listings using a plain text editor; you can rearrange, insert, or delete instructions at will, without worrying about the numbers. Only the sequence of instructions in the file matters.
Not all HP-42S characters can be represented in ASCII. For example, on line 09 in the example above, the line starts with |- (pipe, dash), which is used to represent the HP-42S "append" character; and on line 112, the sequence != is used to represent the HP-42S "not equals" character.

Character translations

txt2raw.pl performs two different kinds of character translation, one for commands and one for strings.

The command translations include converting / to ÷, Rv to R plus "down arrow" (the "roll down" command), etc. For details on which conversions are performed, run txt2raw.pl without parameters, and you will receive a brief summary of the script's operation.

The string translations are controlled by the txt2raw.prm file, which txt2raw.pl looks for in the current directory. This file contains pattern/replacement pairs, one pair per line; the pattern and replacement are separated by tab characters. The txt2raw.prm file provided here contains many mappings that are the inverse of mappings performed by Free42 when it performs PRP or LIST, e.g. -> for "right arrow", \Sigma for "Greek Sigma", etc.
Note: txt2raw.pl will ignore lines in txt2raw.prm that start with a # character, allowing you to enter comments in the configuration file, or to temporarily avoid translating a particular character if necessary.

Note that some of the translations performed by Free42 cannot be reversed reliably: the small-caps E ("exponent") is converted to a plain uppercase E, but when translating the other way, there is no way to tell whether an uppercase E should be translated back to "exponent", or left alone. This is also true of several other translations, but the ones provided in the sample txt2raw.prm are the ones that seem relatively safe -- e.g., it is much more likely that -> was originally a "right arrow" than that it was originally "dash, greater than".

When using txt2raw.pl on program listings from sources other than Free42's PRP and LIST commands, it may be necessary to tweak the txt2raw.prm file to match the conventions used in those listings.

One interesting use of txt2raw.pl is to allow you to edit programs using a text editor. To edit programs that you have in "raw" format already, you can load those programs into Free42, convert them to text files by using the PRP or LIST commands while "print to text file" is enabled (see the Preferences dialog), edit the resulting text file using a plain text editor (Notepad, vi, etc.), and finally use txt2raw.pl to convert the programs back to "raw" format.
When using txt2raw.pl in this manner, you may have to take extra care to make sure that the string translations don't cause unintended changes to your programs. In order to gain total control over those conversions, you can use "raw text" mode in Free42, which disables all character conversions and sends pure HP-42S character codes to the output file; you may then use any tool of your own devising to perform any translations that you may need before being able to edit your files, and you can then customize txt2raw.prm to make txt2raw.pl perform the inverse translation.

Download

A zip file containing txt2raw.pl and txt2raw.prm.
For Windows users who don't have Perl, there is also a native executable with a simple GUI. Download: txt2raw_win.zip.

Credits

txt2raw.pl is (C) 2005 by Vini Matangrano; reproduced here by permission.
You can contact the author at