View source for Stacking the HP 95LX Palmtop Computer

Tech029 - 3/06/92
 
The HP 95LX is palmtop computer that runs under MS-DOS 3.2.  It has 1mb of 
on-board RAM that is configurable between RAM and disk drive.  An example 
would be configuring 256k of this on-board RAM as system RAM and the 
Remaining 768k as the C: drive. There are RAM cards available which vary in 
size from 512k to 1.5mb.  These have their own battery to maintain the data 
and are treated just like floppies.  There is a slot on the left side of the 
HP 95LX which  accepts the cards and is referenced as drive A:. This Note
presents a procedure for "Stacking" this A: RAM card. 

The 95LX Filer/File Transfer Utility allows file copies, deletes etc.  
It allows you to run applications, gives a shell to the DOS prompt, and 
allows connection between the HP 95LX and serial port on a desktop machine 
which runs a package called the Connectivity Pack.  The Connectivity Pack 
allows you to copy files between the two machines.  This procedure involves 
the use of the Filer and Connectivity Pack, but does not give detailed 
instruction on their use.  Please refer to the 95LX documentation.  

Note:
There is an external drive made by PAMCO  that can connect to a desktop 
machine via the parallel port that allows a desktop machine to directly 
access the RAM cards for the HP 95LX.  The current device driver for 
these drives is NOT compatible with Stacker.  PAMCO is currently looking 
into this situation.


PROCEDURE:

Due to the lack of RAM on the HP 95LX the Stacker Install will not run.
Therefore, a desktop machine is required for part of this procedure.  

1. On the desktop machine, run Stacker's Install program to personalize the files and copy them to the hard drive.  After this is done, escape out of Install without creating a drive.

2. Use the following command to build an empty Stacker drive on the desktop machine.

     SCREATE C:\STACVOL.DSK /S=1.5 /R=4.0

This will create a 1.5mb Stacvol file with an anticipated compression ratio
of 4.0 to 1 to accomodate the high compression ratio of Lotus 1-2-3 files.
(The /S= specifies the size of the RAM card in MBytes. The size may vary
depending on the size of the RAM card. 

3. Use Sattrib to remove the hidden, system and read-only attributes of the Stacvol file with the following command:

       SATTRIB -R -H -S C:\STACVOL.DSK

4. On the HP 95LX, while in the Filer utility, choose SYSTEM to get to a DOS prompt.

5. Make certain there is no data on the RAM card which should be in drive A:

6. At the root directory of drive C: on the HP 95LX add the following line to the CONFIG.SYS file: (If a Config.sys does not exist, create one by typing:  Copy con Config.sys <Enter>...then add the device line <Enter>...then press <ctrl z> to save the file)

   DEVICE=C:\STACKER.COM @

9. Using the Connectivity Pack on the desktop machine and the Filer/File transfer utility on the 95 LX, transfer STACKER.COM and SCHECK.EXE to the Root directory of the 95LX.  

10. Transfer STACVOL.DSK from the desktop machine to the RAM card in drive A: 

11. Re-boot the HP 95LX to load the Stacker device driver.

12. Mount the A: Stacker drive by typing  STACKER A   at the DOS prompt.  Conversely, you may unmount by typing STACKER -A . You may want to create batch files including these commands so the Stacker drives may be mounted and unmounted directly from the Filer.
    

1992 STAC ELECTRONICS


[[Category:How-To]]