Other Bible Programs

Users have gotten other Bible programs to work on the HP 100/200LX. Here are excerpts from some CompuServe discussions on Bible programs that have been used on the 100/200LX. Thanks to the following CompuServe users for their comments: Tom Hoover, Roger H. Howe, Bob Hughes, Robert Jung, Robert Kreisler, Tomm F. Larsen, and Joe Tomasone. (Contact information for the products mentioned is found in the Product Index on page 55 of this issue.)

E-Text of the King James Version of the New Testament -- You can download the King James version of the New Testament from CompuServe HP Handheld Forum, library 13. This is a deposit of a Project Gutenberg ASCII text, and works well with Vertical Reader (VR). VR allows you to drop bookmarks then return to your previous location so you never lose your place. We received contradictory reports on VR's search capabilities.

InfoBase Bible -- Reported to work well on the 100/200LX. One reader installed InfoBase Bible from 5.25" disks to his desktop, laplinked it to an Ace DoubleFlash card, and it worked on his 100LX the first time! He added HELV100.COM to his AUTOEXEC.BAT file and now reads fonts in all three font sizes (40, 65 and 80 column). He has the program set to display 40 columns by default and can change it to 80 columns by toggling (CTRL)-(Z).

The InfoBase Bible provides topical guide lookups and the Joseph Smith translation of the Bible. The program saves blocked text to a file and will append several items of text called up, to the last saved file.

Online Bible (OLB) -- Compatibility with the 100/200LX has so far been limited, but is still being worked on. OLB requires less than 500K of disk space. The current version includes the "1769 Authorized Version with 1833 Webster Update, combined with the 1890 Darby Bible and 1898 Young's Literal Translation, Strong's Numbers from Englishman's Greek and Hebrew Concordances, and Verb Parsings."

One individual used Vertical Reader (VR ) to read the Bible text found in Online Bible's OLB/MASTERS/TEXTS directory. VR is a shareware program that allows you to read text on the Palmtop vertically like a book, rather than horizontally. The user said that VR didn't give tremendous search capabilities, but he preferred the fonts VR uses to display the text. He made some changes to Vertical Reader's configuration file (VR.CFG) file to make each verse starts on a new line, rather than having VR wrap everything together in one paragraph. Specifically, he modified the TEXTEXT and WRAP lines in the [TEXT] section at the end of the file to read as follows:

TextExt = *.txt;*.doc;*.c;*.msg;*.kjv

Wrap.KJV = '1|2|3|4|5|6|7|8|9'

PC Bible Card -- PCMCIA flash card with Quickverse 2.0 preinstalled. (See description of Quickverse below.)

Quickverse -- Quickverse 2.0 is a commercial Bible program that supports multiple translations including transliterated Hebrew and Greek. It allows complex searches and permits viewing of multiple windows, which lets you look at two different translations at the same time. Results of searches can be downloaded into ASCII text files in a number of formats. It uses a lot of disk space (3.3MB for one translation, 2.5MB each for additional translation. You have to terminate System Manager completely and run it from the DOS prompt.

Version 2.0 is discontinued, but may still be available from some software dealers. It is reported to run well on the 100/200LX. The latest version, 3.0, was reported by one user to run on the 100/200LX, but very slowly.

SeedMaster (SM) -- SeedMaster/DOS Bible study software is reported to run well on the 100/200LX, but requires you to exit System Manager due to memory requirements. One reader reports that "the speed of SM is not bad even on an ACE DoubleFlash+ 20MB with compression." His SM directory is made up of the following files: AV-DBY; CXREF; BIBLE.DCT; BIBLE.EXE; LEX.DAT; LEX.NDX; MESSAGES.BBV; MESSAGES.TXT; MESSAGES.$BB; MODE.SMI; OPTIONS.DAT; SM.EXE.

Deleting OPTIONS.DAT sometimes helps the program to run. And don't forget to run D:\BIN\MONO8025.COM (in the 100/200LX's built-in ROM) before you start or you will have difficulty reading the screen. Running D:\BIN\MONO8025.COM may render the underline feature in mono option useless. (Note: White Harvest Software, the company who markets SeedMaster, also carries other Bible software products including French and Spanish translations.)

WordSearch 2.2 -- Older version of WordSearch designed to run on 8088 PCs. Reported to run well from a flashcard on the 100/200LX. Newest version runs on Windows. One reader reports "it runs like a jackrabbit on the HP 100LX. A full Bible search for one word takes less than TWO seconds! The screen I/O is character oriented, so it takes two to four seconds to display a page of text." Options include: Strong's Word Numbers, Greek/Hebrew lexicon, NAVE's Topics, various translations, and more. Since it is an older version, you may find it at discounted prices.

WordSearch 2.2 takes up a minimum of 3MB for the .EXE, .HLP, and the .KJV text version. On a stacked flashcard, the KJV text compresses at only a 1.2 ratio. Additional modules (NIV, LIV, NAB, NKJV, NRSV) take about 2.5MB each. The Strong's Greek/Hebrew module takes about 2.5MB. I use a stacked 10MB HP Flashcard to hold the Bible and some other programs.

The Windows version of Word Search for PC's options include Bible Map, Life Application Bible Notes, Greek/Hebrew lexicon, Thompson's Chain References, and Nave's Topics.