Section 2: Card Reader Operations - HP 82104A Owner's Handbook Manual

Section 2
Card Reader Operations
Most of the capabilities of the card reader are available through
the use of small magnetic cards that store information in a greatly
condensed form. Information stored in the calculator can be
magnetically recorded on the small cards and then read back into
the calculator again at a later time. This gives you almost limitless
capacity for storing programs and data that you use in you
HP-41C* system.
The remaining card reader capabilities involve expanded software com-
patibility. With a few exceptions, all software that can be executed and
recorded on an HP-67 or HP-97 can be read into the HP-41C system
through the HP 82104A Card Reader, and then executed by the HP-41C.
The HP 82104A Card Reader actually contains a sophisticated translator
that changes operations on HP-67/HP-97 cards to special HP-41C-
compatible functions. All of the capabilities of the card reader are
available only when the card reader is plugged into the HP-41C.
Magnetic Cards
Depending upon the kind of information magnetically stored on cards,
they are placed in one of four categories: program cards, data cards,
status cards, and ''write all'' cards.
Each magnetic card has two sides or tracks. Each track on a card can
belong to one of these four categories. A card can hold up to 32 registers
of information, 16 registers on each track.
Magnetic Card
Track 1 ——
¢ . 4.:; a— Track 2
o
Sip A A A
View showing how information is stored on a card (not normally visible).
Upto e
16 registerS / ll"_'Illel.l':l.l'..lflm'"-T:l"lul.l'l\'"h LT Up to
16 registers
* The HP-41C and HP-41CV model calculators differ only in their initial Continuous Memory
capacities. The term "HP-41C" is used throughout the rest of this manual to refer to both
calculators.
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