HP 95LX User manual

The Answers You Need
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HP 95LX Palmtop PC

The Answers You Need
for the
HP 95LX Palmtop PC
by
Dan Coffin and Chris Coffin
Grapevine Publications, Inc.
P.O. Box 2449
Corvallis, Oregon 97339-2449

Acknowledgments
HP, HP 95LX and HP 19Bi1 areregistered trademarks of Hewlett-Packard Co. IBM is aregistered
trademark of International Business Machines Corp. Microsoft, MS-DOS, Microsoft Word,
Microsoft Windows, and OS/2 LAN Manager are registered trademarks of Microsoft Corporation.
WordPerfect is a registered trademark of WordPerfect Corporation. Lotus, 1-2-3 and Lotus Metro
are registered trademarks of Lotus Development Corp. DOS Connect is a registered trademark
of Traveling Software, Inc. Kermit software is copyrighted by the Trustees of Columbia University
in the City of New York. CompuServe is a registered trademark of the CompuServe computer
network service. Sidekick is a registered trademark of Borland International Corp. Dow Jones is
a registered trademark of Dow Jones & Co. Macintosh is a registered trademark of Apple Com-
puter Corp. Amiga is a registered trademark of Atari Computer Corp.
© 1991, Grapevine Publications, Inc. All rights reserved. No portion
of this book or its contents, nor any portion of the programs contained
herein, may be reproduced in any form, printed, electronic or mechani-
cal, without written permission from Grapevine Publications, Inc.
Printed in the United States of America
ISBN 0-931011-35-3
First Printing — November, 1991
Notice of Disclaimer: Neither the author nor Grapevine Publications, Inc. makes any express
or implied warranty with regard to the keystroke procedures and program materials herein
offered, nor to their merchantability nor fitness for any particular purpose. These keystroke
procedures and program materials are made available solely on an “as is” basis, and the entire risk
as to their quality and performance is with the user. Should the keystroke procedures and program
materials prove defective, the user (and not Grapevine Publications, Inc., nor the author, nor any
other party) shall bear the entire cost of all necessary correction and all incidental or consequential
damages. Neither the author nor Grapevine Publications, Inc. shall be liable for any incidental or
consequential damages in connection with, or arising out of, the furnishing, use, or performance
of these keystroke procedures or program materials.

Contents
First Thoughts 6
Organizing Information 10
Analyzing Information 38
Sharing Information Between Applications.....ccccceeeeeeees 80
Communicating with Other Devices .....ccccccccsreeeeeeeeeeeeees 90
Optimizing Your Work 104
Running/Controlling Programs 114
Memory Management 126
Troubleshooting 136
Reference 140

0. FIrsT THOUGHTS
About This Book
This book gives you short, clear answers to your questions about the HP 95LX
Palmtop PC. It does not replace the User’s Guide that came with the machine.
Rather, itis a companion book, “a pocket guide.” The User’s Guide documents each
command of the machine—helpful as a reference, but not so much for prioritizing
information. By contrast, this book distills out answers and anticipate your
difficulties, so that, for common topics, you need not search in the User’s Guide.
About Your Palmtop
What It Cannot Do
The HP Palmtop is a real PC—roughly equivalent to an IBM XT with a mono-
chrome display and MS-DOS version 3.22. And just like any such PC, itis limited
by the software available for it. Some programs for a desktop XT-compatible will
not work on the Palmtop—especially if they need a graphic display or extended
memory (see pages 111 and 123).
What It Can Do—If You Really Insist
The Palmtop is not really designed to write books, publish elaborate spreadsheets,
develop software, etc. You can do those things, but you’d be working harder than
necessary; far better to use a desktop PC for such tasks. For example, the Palmtop
has a Memo Editor with some standard word-processing features, but its keyboard
size is not the best for touch-typing a lengthy document. Likewise, the built-in 1-
2-3 program is great for analyzing, but you'll find it more convenient to prepare the
final presentation output of a spreadsheet on a desktop system.
6 0. First THOUGHTS

What It Was Designed to Do
The HP Palmtop isn’t meant to be used for everything that you use a desktop PC
for—just the things you need most often while “on the move:”
* A personal information manager: It offers you a complete address book,
appointment calendar and to-do list capabilities.
e An analytic tool: It gives you the “what-iffing” ability of Lotus 1-2-3 and the
ability to solve for missing variables (HP Solver).
¢ Enough memory capacity to store and manipulate quite a bit of data.
Ithas MS-DOS built-in, too, but that’s mainly so you can add other analytic tools—
and send/receive files to/from a desktop PC for the tasks it’s not so good at.
If You Already Know About PC’s
You'll find that many of the Palmtop’s features behave like those of other PC’s. All
the built-in applications have Lotus-like menus, from which you select any item
by typing the first character of its name. And, at the bottom of most screens is a
list of highlighted items corresponding to the function keys (F1){F©)) on the top of
the keyboard. To execute a listed command, press the corresponding function key.
One big difference between the Palmtop and other PC’s is that you can have
multiple applications open simultaneously in the Palmtop—and switch by press-
ing just one key (although you can’t access the DOS prompt or run a DOS-based
application unless all built-in applications are closed (more about this on p. 114).
If You Already Know About HP Calculators
If you've used any of HP’s recent financial calculators, you'll find that the Palmtop
Calculator feature can do just about everything they can (though it may take you
some time to adjust to how those calculator features look on the Palmtop’s screen).
The big difference between the calculators and the Palmtop is how the Palmtop
uses built-in Lotus 1-2-3 templates to do statistical and cash-flow analyses.
About Your Palmtop 7

Looking at the Keyboard
The HP 95LX keyboard is not the standard PC keyboard, but it’s probably more
convenient. Take a look:
Character Keys
¢ The alphabet keys are arranged in the standard q w e r t y format.
* The gold shift key (©) and the special character key (CHAR) give you access
to special punctuation, international, and symbolic characters (summa-
rized on pages 140-142). These keys are “sticky” keys: once you press (<),,
the next key you press will produce the shifted character. Unlike a
typewriter or standard keyboard, you don’t have to hold down (&) or
while you press other alphabet keys.
* The and (5) characters (bottom row) are given their own keys because of
their common use in Lotus functions and formulae.
Cursor Keys
* Above the numeric pad are the cursor keys: («,(»), (), (a), (HOME), END), DN),
and UP). Use the gold shift key (©) to get the gold-printed, “shifted”
versions of the four arrow keys. The tab ()) and back-tab (4) keys are also
cursor keys, but tab is actually a character that you can insert into text.
Calculator/Numeric Keys
* Thereisaverynormal-looking numeric pad to the right oftheqw erty keys.
* Thebottomrow oflettersontheqwertykeyboard (and theletter(L)) behave
differently when the calculator (&)) application is active. These functions
(),[x),XzY),R¥), (LAST), (STO),[Rc)and are printed in white—not gold like
the shifted functions—because they're active only in one application.
8 0. First THOUGHTS

Application Keys
* The keys marked in blue give you access to the eight built-in applications:
E3,023),3), (2), (@),), 3 and (SET LP) (OI).
Special Keys
e The key is in the upper-right hand corner.
e The and keys are special control keys that give you access to
various commands. These keys work only when pressed simultaneously
with another key, as in [CTRL[Z) or (ALT F1).
There are several keys that will “undo” something you've done:
en allows you to escape from your current menu choice, and will return
you to the previous menu or to the current application, whichever is
appropriate. Whenever you use nothing you’ve done within the
current menu will be saved.
— deletes the character currently underlined by the cursor.
— («) backspaces, deleting the character immediately to the left of the
cursor.
The (MENU) key displays the current menu of a built-in application (whichever
is open and current). Thus, acts like the key does in Lotus 1-2-3
(which is why a slash is printed under the (MENU) key).
Function Keys
In the middle of the top row are the 10 function keys (also called softkeys),
F1}-F0). The labels printed above these keys show their meanings in the
Lotus 1-2-3 application, butin all other applications, the current meaning(s)
of each function key will be listed on the bottom of the display immediately
above each key. For example: [ME or |SEERAS or [REMIZ. Of course, if the
space above a key is blank, it has no current meaning.
Looking at the Keyboard 9

1. ORGANIZING INFORMATION
All About Files
The convenience of the HP 95LX is impressive. But, like any other Information
Manager, you must use it wisely and efficiently to gain its power and convenience.
To use it best, you must start by understanding its filing system.
Naming Files
The basic unit of organization on the Palmtop—as on any PC—is the file. Files
have different structures and formats depending on what kind of data they contain
and what programs use them. The HP 95LX uses the filename extension—the
three character suffix of a filename that follows the period (.)—to classify the
various kinds of files its built-in programs use. Here’s a list of these file extensions:
-ABK:
BAT:
«CHF:
«COM:
CTF:
DAT:
= DCF:
» ENV:
«EGN:
«EXE:
«ExM:
10
An Appointment Book data file that can be opened only from within
the Appointment Book application.
A DOS-based batch file—a kind of “macro for DOS.”
A file containing current settings or data for an added System
Manager application.
A DOS-based program or system command.
A Character Translation Facility file, used to translate characters
when communicating with a system with a different character set.
A file containing reference data used by the System Manager.
A Datacomm Configuration File, containing a particular collection of
settings needed for connecting to an external source via Datacomm.
A collection of the overall System Manager environment settings.
A file contains a list of Solver equations that can be opened only from
within the Calculator.
A DOS-based program which can be run only from DOS.
A System-Manager-based program which can be accessed (once it is
installed) only from within the System Manager.
1. ORGANIZING INFORMATION