Subject: HP 80 Series Software

From: "Peter Brown" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat May 31 13:26:33 2003

Hi all,

I'm not that familiar with 80 series machines.
Can they be interfaced to HPIB HDD's?
Can their tapes be read on HPIB based tape drives?

If so then it may be possible to read/back them up using the HPIB / LIF 
reader software I've been working on.
With the work that I've had to do on command formats I think that I may be 
able to code a PC+HPIB card system that emulates CS80 or AMIGO based disk or 
tape drives.
This would mean that the old HP system could boot from a PC emulating an 
HPIB drive, removing ageing disk / tape drives from the loop.
Are these CS80 / AMIGO command set disks compatible with 80 series machines?

Joe: I have been trying to get hold of you -
How have you got on with the early version of the HPIB drive reader software 
that I sent you? - does it catalog your drives OK?
I still need to get the postage cost on the 3 HP-UX manuals I won from you 
on ebay so that I can close out that transaction.  Let me know and I will 
send you a cheque.

Cheers

Peter Brown

_________________________________________________________________
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From: Joe <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon Jun 2 07:57:39 2003

>Can they be interfaced to HPIB HDD's?

  Yes a FEW of the HP-IB hard drives. The only drives that would work
without specail support were the HP 9133/9134 that had a apecial option
that made the disk look like three HP 9895 8" floppy dirves. There is a
Extended Mass Storage ROM that will allow the HP 8x to handle a FEW of the
othe HP-IB HDDs but I don't remember exactly which ones.

>Can their tapes be read on HPIB based tape drives?

   No, The tapes were DC-100 type tapes and there's no HP-IB tape drive
that handles that size tape except for the very rare HP 9877 External Tape
Memory but it's only designed to work with tapes from the HP 9825 and 9831,
plus no one has one that's still operational. I know some of the bigger
tape drives use CS-80 protocall but I don't know if any use Amigo or SS-80
which are the only things that the HP-8x can handle so there no way that I
know of to operate one the drives that uses the newer larger tapes from a
HP-8x.

>HPIB drive, removing ageing disk / tape drives from the loop.

   The HP-8x boot from ROM, ala C-64, the tapes and drives are used only
for program and data storage.

>Are these CS80 / AMIGO command set disks compatible with 80 series machines?

    It's been a while and I THINK this is correct. They handle Amigo
command set with the Mass Storage ROM (it's built into the 85B but not the
85A). With the Extended Mass Storage ROM they can use some of the SS-80
hard drives. I don't think there is ANY support for CS-80.

>on ebay so that I can close out that transaction.  Let me know and I will 

   Hi Peter,

   I replied to you several times but my messages don't appear to be
getting through. I haven't had time to set up a machine with the HP-IB card
and install your SW. I've been spending a lot of time with the HP 1000s and
with a HP-IB interfaced Speech Synthesizer that I found. (It's  COOL!)
That's taken me deeper into the HP-IB bus operation and I've had to repair
a couple of HP 59401 HP-IB Bus Analyzers for use with that. (Anybody got a
manual for these?)

  I'm still looking for those blankity-blank manuals! Don't know where I
put them. I found a set of paper back manauls of the same thing. I can send
them to you if you need something right away. Did the other manuals arrive
yet?

     Joe

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From: [email-masked] (Tony Duell)
Date: Mon Jun 2 07:57:50 2003

> that handles that size tape except for the very rare HP 9877 External Tape

Actually, the 9877 is not an HPIB device. It's got a custom parallel 
interface which links to the 9825 using a 98032 16 bit GPIO interface module.

Inside the 9877, there are 1 to 4 tape drives (identical to those in the 
9825 itself), each with its own controller board, again very similar to 
the 9825's internal tape controller. There's a little interface PCB which 
handles things like drive selection and initialisation (and nothing 
else!), and a PSU, again mostly copied from the 9825. The interface on 
the 9877's tape controller card is pretty much the same as the 9825's 
internal I/O bus.

The 9877 is a pretty dumb device. It transfers data 1 bit at a time over 
the LSB of the parallel bus. OK, it does use the DMA feature of the 
98032. But much of the intellegence must have been handled in software on 
the 9825

> plus no one has one that's still operational. I know some of the bigger

Well, the hardware of mine still works, but like everyone else I'm 
missing the prgoram tape for the 9825. The correct wiring and jumpers for 
the 98032 would be useful too -- I know the pinout of the connector on 
the 9877, so can make a pretty good guess as to the wiring of the cable, 
but it would still be nice to know for sure.

-tony