RSLOAD

Two weeks ago I .ago I added RSSAVE to the Simulator and I am sure you all are awaiting the the opposite operations RSLOAD. Well it is finished and will be released soon.

RSLOAD is even more interesting then RSSAVE as it allows you to easily transfer programs from the original FX-603P to the Simulator. With emphasis on easy.

You could transfer them before but it was everything but easy. You had to digitize the original cassette into a WAV or similar sound file. Then you had to find a program which could analyse Kansas City Standard sound files and convert them into a binary file. A very time consuming and error prone process.

But now you won't need that any more. All you need now is an RS-232C interface. Yes they are quite rare. But remember you have two options open:

1. If you have a working FA-6 interface then get a USB to a RS-232C interface. They are quite cheap and powered by the USB and not bigger then just an RS-232C cable.
2. If you, like me, could not lay your hands on a real FA-6 then get a “USB interface for the Casio FX-850P/FX-880P and the PC”. It has the size of a large postage stamp, is USB powered, connects right to your FX-603P and Works with Windows, Mac OS X and probably Linux as well.

The following video shows how quickly you can transfer a file from the original calculator to the simulator:

There is one other interesting aspect of the RSLOAD and RSSAVE command: They use plain text files. You can open them with any editor like Notepad or vi, edit them,. merge several program into one file and then load the result back into the calculator. Or post them on a blog or Forum. Here for example the little program I transferred in the Video.

All Program List P0 MinF FRAC / .6 = M+00 MRF INT M+00 MR00 FRAC * 60 = FIX3 MinF MR00 INT "#h[ARF]m" END

Note that the original calculator did not offer much help when there were any syntax errors in the program. Just an Op Error. The simulator allows you to activate additional error informations which are printed on the simulated FB-40. If you edit programs on your PC you should activate those error message.