x11-calc - Another RPN (Reverse Polish) calculator.

Simulators for the HP 35, HP 80, HP 45, HP 70, HP 21, HP 22, HP25, HP 25C, HP 27, HP 29C, HP 31E, HP 32E, HP 33E, HP 33C, HP 34C, HP 37E, HP 38C, HP 38E, HP 67, HP 10C, HP 11C, HP 12C, HP 15C, and HP 16C.

All written in C using X11.

Use of any language extensions or non standard language features has been avoided in order to try to make the code as portable as possible.

The aim is to have the same source code compile without modification on as many systems and architectures as possible including Linux, VAX/VMS and Tru64 Unix.

• Latest News

• What will it run on

• How to get it

• Using it

• Known issues

• Acknowledgements

• Submitting a problem report

• More screenshots

Latest News ^{Back to Top}

04 May 24

• Fixed a bug that affected some simulators when compiled on MacOS.
• Updated this README with more details of the keyboard shortcuts.
• Added some much needed acknowledgements.

14 Apr 24

• Allows the size of the window to be adjusted using the --zoom n option where n can be between 0 and 4.
• Added an install option to the makefile (by default the installer will use $HOME/.local if it exists, but it is possible to specify another directory by setting the directory prefix).
• Embedded missing firmware.

24 Feb 24

• By default the application will attempt to use the X11 base fonts. But if these are not available it will try to select an suitable alternate font instead from a predefined list.

  For all the fonts to be rendered as intended users should ensure that the X11 base fonts are installed (see prerequisites).

16 Feb 24

• For UNIX based systems the default location used to store the state of the machine when it is powered off has changed. If the data file already exists in $HOME then this will always be used by default, but if it does not exist then if $XDG_DATA_HOME is defined the program will create a sub directory in this location for the data files or in or $HOME/.local/share/ if $XDG_DATA_HOME is not defined or does not exist. If $HOME/.local/share/ does not exist then the program will use $HOME as before.

01 Nov 23

• Updated DCL make script.

14 Oct 23

• Updated build instructions.
• Uses a simpler display on ARM (excluding Apple).

22 Sep 23

• Added ability to build using make on MacOS.

Tested platforms ^{Back to Top}

The simulator has been successfully compiled and tested on:

• Alpine 3.20, gcc 13.2.1, x64 + arm64

• Alpine 3.19, gcc 13.2.1, x64 + arm64

• Debian 12 (Bookworm), clang 14.0.6, x64 + arm64

• Debian 12 (Bookworm), tcc 0.9.27, x64 + arm64

• Debian 12 (Bookworm), gcc 12.2.0, x64 + arm64

• Debian 11 (Bullseye), clang 11.0.1-2, x64

• Debian 11 (Bullseye), gcc 10.2.1, x64

• Debian 11 (Bullseye), tcc 0.9.27, x64

• Debian 10 (Buster), gcc 8.3.0, x64 + arm

• Debian 10 (Buster), clang 7.0.1, x64

• Debian 9 (Stretch), gcc 6.3.0, arm

• Debian 5 (Lenny), gcc 4.2.4, alpha

• Fedora 34, gcc 11.2.1, x64

• Fedora 35, gcc 11.3.1, x64

• Fedora 35, clang 13.0.1, x64

• Fedora 39, gcc 13.2.1, x64

• FreeBSD 14.0, clang 16.0.6, x64

• Gentoo, gcc 11.2.0, x64

• MacOS 10 (Catalina), clang 12.0.0, x64

• MacOS 13.4.1 (Ventura), clang 14.0.3, arm64

• MacOS 14.4.1 (Sonoma), clang 15.0.0, arm46

• NetBSD 9.2, gcc 7.5.0, x64

• SUSE 15.4, clang 13. 0.1, x64

• SUSE 15.4, gcc 7.5.0, x64

• Ubuntu 20.04, gcc 9.4.0, x64

• Ubuntu 20.04, clang 10.0.0, x64

• Ubuntu 20.04, tcc 0.9.27, x64

• VAX/VMS 5.4-3, VAX C 3.2, VAX (simh)

• OpenVMS 9.2-1, VSI C 7.4-726, x64

• Windows 11 + WSL2, gcc 12.2.0, x64 + arm64

How to get it ^{Back to Top}

You can either download the source code from GitHub and compile it yourself or you can use a pre-compiled package.

• Building from the source

• Using binary package

Using the simulator ^{Back to Top}

If you install the simulator on most modern desktops it should create a new menu entry that will start the launcher script by default. When invoked for the first time this will prompt you to select the default simulator as well as any additional command line options. These selections will be saved and the selected simulator will become the new default.

When using some desktop environments (like GNOME and KDE) it is possible to access a sub-menu that will allow you to select a specific model as well as change the default settings by right clicking on the menu icon.

Keyboard Shortcuts

The following keyboard shortcuts should work on Linux:

'0' - '9', '+'. '-'. '*'. '/' and 'Enter' should do what you expect them to (when using numeric key pad you need to use numlock as usual).

'f' and where applicable 'g' and 'h' correspond to the shift keys.

'Esc' or 'Backspace' corresponds to 'Clx', 'c' to CHS, 'e' to 'EEX', and on financial models 'n' and 'i' correspond to 'n' and 'i' if not shifted.

'A' - 'E' , 'A' - 'F' , or 'A' - 'B' correspond to program labels (whether shifted or not).

'Space' maps to 'SST' (if not shifted.

The following control keys can also be used.

'Ctrl-Z' Exists the simulator. For models with continuous memory 'Ctrl-Z' saves the current memory contents.

'Ctrl-C' Resets the simulator to its initial state.

'Ctrl-T' Toggles tracing of the simulator code execution.

'Ctrl-S' Enable tracing and executes a single instruction.

'Ctrl-Q' Resumes execution (does not disable trace).

Loading and saving

For models with continuous memory the contents of program memory and data registers are saved automatically when the calculator is switched off or the window is closed. The current state of the simulator will be saved in either $HOME/.local/share/x11-calc/ or in a hidden file in the user's HOME directory if $HOME/.local/ does not exist.

Resetting the simulator using 'Ctrl-C' will reload the saved state.

~/.x11-calc-nn.dat

When starting the simulator the name of the data file used to restore the saved state can be specified on the command line allowing previously saved copies of programs to be loaded automatically when the simulator starts or the simulator is reset using 'Ctrl-C'. However, any changes will be saved in the hidden data file.

Exiting

For models with a 'sliding' On/Off switch clicking on the switch will turn the simulator on or off, but if when switching off you hold down the switch down for two seconds the program will exit.

Window Size

The size of the simulator window can be adjusted from the command line with the --zoom ZOOM option, where the value for ZOOM can be in the range zero to four (0-4).

Debugging

You can start the simulation in trace mode using '-t', or in single step mode using '-s', and set a break-point using '-b <octal address>'.

'Ctrl-T' also toggles trace mode when running, 'Ctrl-S' executes the next instruction, 'Ctrl-Q' resumes execution, and 'Ctrl-R' displays the contents of the CPU registers.

When in trace mode a jump to the same instruction produces no output.

ROM Images

The '-r ' command line option provides the ability to use the ROM contents from a separate file. The contents of the ROM are stored as pairs values separated by a colon containing the memory address and the opcode.

Anything appearing after a semi colon on each line is ignored.

For the HP10C, HP11C, HP12C, HP15C and HP16C the ROM file contains pairs of hexadecimal values.

0000:107
0001:04e
0002:270
0003:238
0004:2ee
0005:13f

For other models the ROM file contains pairs of octal values.

00000:00255
00001:01420
00002:00451
00003:01456
00004:01746
00005:00472

When loading a ROM from file any gaps between the memory addresses will not be filled with zeros, and the existing ROM contents will be left unchanged.

ROM files can therefore be used to load alternative version of the firmware for a particular model or apply a patch to the existing firmware.

Building from the source ^{Back to Top}

Prerequisites

If you want to compile the simulator from the source code yourself then the following packages must be installed.

• Debian : gcc | clang | tcc make libc6-dev libx11-dev xfonts-base

• Fedora : gcc | clang make glibc-devel libX11-devel xorg-x11-fonts-base | xorg-x11-fonts-misc

• Gentoo : gcc make libc6-dev libx11-dev font-misc-misc

• MacOS : clang pmake xquartz

• NetBSD : clang | gcc pmake

• SUSE : gcc | clang make libX11-devel

• Ubuntu : gcc make libc6-dev libx11-dev xfonts-base

• Windows 11 + WSL2 : gcc make libc6-dev libx11-dev xfonts-base

When all the prerequisites are available, you should be able to compile the program using make if it is in the list of tested platforms.

Compiling

To build the simulator check that you have all the prerequisites installed then download the source code from github and unzip it (this will created a new directory automatically).

e.g:

$ wget https://github.com/mike632t/x11-calc/archive/refs/heads/stable.zip
$ unzip x11-calc-stable.zip

Then change directory to the new folder.

$ cd x11-calc-stable

The to compile all the simulators you just need to invoke make.

$ make clean; make all

You can also compile a single simulator by specifying the model number.

$ make hp29c

By default the executable files will be created in the bin directory.

$ ./bin/x11-calc-29c
x11-calc-29c: Version 0.10 [Commit ID: 399d546] 01 Nov 23 23:53:00 (Build: 0114)
ROM Size : 4096 words

OR

$ bin/x11-calc

If more than one C compiler is installed or if gcc is not available you can specify which one to use from the command line.

$ make CC=clang hp11c

$ make CC=tcc

VMS

On VMS unzip the source code archive, change the default directory and then run make.com.

e.g:

$ unzip x11-calc-stable.zip
$ set def [.x11-calc-stable.src]
$ @make all

$ mc [-.bin]x11-calc-29c
x11-calc-29c: Version 0.10 [Commit ID: 399d546] 02 Nov 23 23:52:11 (Build: 0114)
ROM Size : 4096 words

Installing

On Linux systems after the compilation is complete you can use the makefile to install the simulators locally.

By default the installer will use $HOME/.local if it exists, but it is possible to specify another directory by setting the directory prefix.

$ make install

OR

$ make install prefix=/usr

The makefile also supports staged installs in a custom directory defined by DESTDIR.

make DESTDIR=/tmp/staging install

Using a pre-compiled package ^{Back to Top}

If you don't want to download an compile the sources yourself you can use a pre-compiled binary package compatible with most distros from Flathub using Flatpak.

A native binary package is also available on Alpine Linux 3.20 release.
If x11 is not already installed, add it as standalone (setup-xorg-base) or together with a standard desktop (setup-desktop).
Make sure community repo is enabled and then install with apk add x11-calc.
To leverage GUI for setup, install apk add zenity. Optional program saves may be installed with apk add x11-calc-prg.

Known Issues ^{Back to Top}

General issues

• A 24 bit colour display is required.
• Keyboard shortcuts are not available on all systems.
• For best results you need to have the X windows core fonts installed.
• Parallel make only works on Linux, NetBSD and FreeBSD.

HP 11C + HP 12C + HP 15C + HP 16C

• Keyboard test is successful but these models do not pass the self-test.

HP 37E

• Fails self-test.

HP 67

• Cannot read or write to magnetic cards.
• Has continuous memory (which allows saved programs to be loaded from the command line).

Raspberry Pi Specific Issues

• The code uses a simplified display on Arm based systems (except Apple) to avoid the display refresh issues seen on the Raspberry Pi if either FKMS or KMS overlays are enabled. (Note- Do not disable KMS on the latest Raspberry Pi OS release).

Wayland specific Issues

• Updating the display under Xwayland is very slow and even though all the simulators work well on a Raspberry Pi3 using X11, on a Raspberry Pi4 with Xwayland it cannot redraw the display quickly enough to allow the display segments to be drawn with a shaded background. As a result the display has been simplified to make it work.
• The simulator window is supposed to be a fixed size. However when running on Xwayland the window manager does not handle this correctly.

VMS Specific Issues

• Colour palette assumes a black and white display.
• Not all text is visible due to the limited colour palette.
• Not all key legends are shown as the font is missing some characters.

Acknowledgements ^{Back to Top}

There are almost certainly some names I've missed off this list but without the help and encouragement from several members of the calculator community it is unlikely that this project would have happened at all or that I would have managed to get as far as I have.

• Teenix for convincing me that it was possible in the first place.

• Teenix and Panamatik for their excellent simulators from which I was able to figure out most of what should happen when each instruction is executed.

• Agarza for providing the details of the voyager displays.

• Macmpi for completely rewriting the makefiles and packaging the simulator for Flatpak.

• Macmpi for packaging and testing the simulators on Alpine Linux

• Agarza and Martin HEPPERLE for translating the help text.

• Brouhaha for taking the time to explain the workings of various models.

• Thomas KLEMM for his testing and debugging efforts on MacOS.

• Mark SHIN for testing on MacOS.

• Jonakeys for getting the simulators working on FreeBSD.

Problem Reports ^{Back to Top}

If you find problems or have suggestions relating to these simulators, then please create a new issue.

Your problem report should contain:

• Architecture (and VM host if applicable);

• Operating System and version;

• Desktop Environment and version;

• Window Manager and version;

• Compiler and version used;

• Commit ID;

• A description of the problem.

Thank you.