A complete system for barcode generation on the HP-41CX hand-held computer using a standard thermal printer.
One of the unique features of the HP-41C hand-held computer is its ability to read program code and alphanumeric data in the form of printed barcode. This greatly facilitates the dissemination of medical software and data used by this system. Initially, the ability to generate HP-41 barcode was restricted to a few centers in possession of specialized microcomputer equipment, and more recently to users able to either obtain a plotter read-only memory (ROM) module and HP7400 series plotter, or a dot-matrix impact printer, for which a special interface was then required. This paper presents a set of twenty programs which allows all nine types of HP-41C barcode to be generated using an HP-41CX, the commonly encountered 82162A thermal printer, an HP-IL ROM, and the plotter ROM. The package includes a number of input/output routines which are of general utility. Complete barcode listings, generated by the system itself, allow complete installation of the system without use of the keyboard. 'Synthetic programming' code permits the use of helpful non-standard characters in the display and allows that part of the system which is concerned with generating program barcode to run in extended memory, freeing main memory (RAM) to hold a large program. This system should make the generation of barcode much more widely available.
D000043:Abstracting and Indexing; D002965:Classification; D003201:Computers; D010209:Paper; D012984:Software