HP 2000 Time Shared BASIC Memories

From: Jay West <jlwest_at_tseinc.com>
Date: Thu Feb 25 20:56:34 1999

Rick;

Great to hear some stories about my personal obsession - TSB.

I know of only one TSB system still up and running - a friend of mine in CA.
I still don't have mine up but I'm getting awfully close - all I need is a
2748 paper tape reader and a 12920 mux set. I found the paper tape reader
but they want $650 for it. Pound Sand I said ;)

Yes, there is an emulator for the 2100 series cpu. Check out Jeff Moffat's
website. Don't remember the URL, but search yahoo & such for "2100" and
you'll find it. He has an emulator that runs on dos. It is supposed to run
on Unix, but - it has some real problems with FreeBSD. Another user on the
list here was kind enough to fix it up for freebsd and send me a diff file.
I've got it here if you want it. The emulator supports most of the 2100
instruction set (or subset of the 21MX M series - however you look at it). I
haven't yet dug into the emulator - eventually I will for sure - but for now
I'm obsessed with getting the "real thing" up and running. As I recall from
a quick first blush look - the emulator didn't have any real support for
emulation of the select code addressed devices - ie - no 13210 disk
controller, no 12920 muxes, etc.. but jeff has done a lot of great hard work
on it so it's a fantastic starting point.

On a side note - I'm still waiting but recently reconfirmed that I'm
receiving a complete SOURCE code listing for TSB (2000F varietry) both the
I/O and system processor portions. Then we can not only run it but change it
(and perhaps fix that NAM-, issue <grin>). Another person recently offered
me a copy of the "cupertino gold tapes". This is source for every version of
TSB, RTE, DOS, etc.... That isn't a firm deal yet but you can imagine my
anticipation if it works out :)

You also queried about if HP still made TSB available in any form. I've got
some pretty close ties to HP - the answer is a resounding NO. I even went so
far as to plead my case to their Historical Archives administrator. There's
not a shred left. But eventually I DID find some load tapes (both punched
and magnetic).

See ya!

Jay West


-----Original Message-----
From: Rick Bensene <rickb_at_pail.enginet.com>
To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers
<classiccmp_at_u.washington.edu>
Date: Thursday, February 25, 1999 10:57 AM
Subject: HP 2000 Time Shared BASIC Memories


>Jay West (in a wonderfully informative message about HP systems) wrote:
>
>> Generally the HP2000 designation meant the system was running TSB
>> (Timeshare
>> BASIC) which is my particular target of collecting since it was the first
>> computer system I ever learned. If the same hardware was running DOS/RTE,
>> etc. is was called an HP 1000.
>>
>So, does anyone out there know of, or have, any of the HP 2000 Timeshared
>BASIC systems *running*? This is what I learned on also.
>The county educational services district purchased an original HP 2000B
>TSB system. Over the years, it was upgraded to a C, then C', then E, F,
and
>finally ACCESS. The last I know of the system being in service was in the
>early
>1980's. I've tried to track down what happened to it, but every lead has
>resulted
>in a dead end.
>
>I was able to visit the 'computer center' where the machine was kept (more
>on this in the story below). It was
>a little hole-in-the-wall building about 5 miles from my house. I think
>that
>it was running in the 2000C configuration when I saw it. It used dual
>CPU's (don't remember which ones). According to the operator, one CPU
>handled
>the I/O stuff (the system had, as I recall, 32 ports, most connected to
>Bell 103 modems), and the other 'ran' the BASIC environment. The system
had
>a washing-machine sized disk drive with removable multi-platter disk packs.
>There was also a rack/cabinet about the same size as the rack that the
>two CPU's were in that contained a fast drum memory that was used for
>swapping store.
>
>Does anyone know if HP still can make available the TSB code? It would be
>TOTALLY amazing to get ahold of it, write and emulator for the CPU and
>associated hardware on something like a PII 450 running Linux, and *run*
TSB
>again.
>It would be a big project, but chances of finding the real mccoy
>seem pretty unlikely nowadays.
>
>Here's a recollection for y'all on the 2000C Timeshared BASIC system.
>
>One day I was reading the TSB manual (wish I still had it, but I think it
>ended up coming un-bound because I used it so much, and I think it got
>tossed away years ago when I was moving) in an effort to learn any new
>tidbits of information.
>
>On the page for the "NAM" command, which was used to attach a name to the
>current program in working storage, I noted that it said to NEVER name a
>program
>with a single comma; i.e. NAM-,
>
>I wondered why this would be. So, I wandered into the terminal room at
>our high school, and dialed up the machine (I still remember the phone
>number!)
>and logged in. I typed in a little program, and typed NAM-, and pressed
>RETURN. A linefeed popped back at me. I thought..."well, that was
>exciting".
>
>So, I typed LIS and there was my little program as expected. I then
>did a CATLIST to dump out my user directory. The CATLIST came back empty.
>This was startling, as I *thought* I had a whole bunch of stuff in my
>directory.
>I then typed the command that would tell you how much (I think it was TIME)
>connect time you'd used this session, and how much of your monthly time
>quota
>you had left. The command came back with really weird answers...and, it
>came back with different numbers each time I ran the command. This was
VERY
>strange. So, I logged off, and re-logged back in, and didn't type NAM-,
>and did a CATLIST. There was all my stuff. I typed in NAM-, then did a
>CATLIST...
>and all my stuff was gone.
>
>I then thought...I wonder if the NAM-, magically transports you to a
>different
>file area. So, I typed up a little program, gave it a name with the NAM-
>command (which seemed to take, and not affect 'where' I was), and SAVed it.
>I did a CATLIST. There it was. The interesting thing was that the CATLIST
>(which I hadn't really noticed before) said that I had some tremendous
>amount
>of storage blocks remaining.
>
>Upon noticing this, I thought I'd try CREating a big file, just to see how
>much
>space I really had available to me. I issued a command to create a 1000
>block
>file..which was a pretty good-sized file, as I remember. I typed in the
>command, and pressed RETURN. There were three other TTY's in our computer
>lab, and all were occupied by other students at the time. When I pushed
>RETURN,
>all the other TTY's quit printing for a second or two...just like the
>machine
>had crashed (which happened from time to time), but as soon as my terminal
>printed it's acknowledging linefeed, they started right back up where they
>left off.
>Hmmmm...
>
>So, how about a 10000 block file? Well, that took the system a while to
>create...and everyone else was 'dead' during that time...no character echo,
>output 'froze' at the point where I pressed RETURN on my terminal.
>
>I did a CATLIST...and sure enough, there was my little program, my 1000
>block
>file, and my 10000 block file. I did a KILL on my 10000 block file, and
>that took a bit, and everyone else again froze during the KILL operation.
>Too weird. I left it alone for then, and called a friend that night that
>went to another school that used the same system, and told him to make sure
>that he was logged on at 11AM the next morning, and observe.
>
>At 11AM the next morning, I was logged in, and had done the magic NAM-,.
>I asked the system to create a 100000 block file, pressing the RETURN
>on the command at 11AM sharp...which *appeared* to make
>the system crash, at least from my end. All the other terminals were
>'dead'.
>About 2 minutes into my create, my terminal (a good old TTY ASR33), along
>with
>everyone else's chattered a few garbage characters, like these beasts did
>when
>the carrier dropped. Either the system totally crashed, or the operator
>had killed it to reboot. I was a little scared at that point, as I figured
>it
>was all caused by me. I didn't do any more tinkering after the system came
>back
>up that day.
>
>My friend called me that evening, and said "Did you do that?". So, I knew
>that whatever I was doing, it was system-wide! He wanted to know how I
>did
>it, but I didn't tell.
>
>I did a few more experiments with this strangeness, but never 'crashed' it
>again,
>just playing around to see how much resource this 'warped' place that NAM-,
>too me to could consume. In this space, I had a larger working storage
set,
>had virtually unlimited file storage space (I wrote a little program that
>would CREate lots and lots of small files), and unlimited connect time.
>It seemed that NAM-, sent you off to the 'system overhead' area...where all
>resources that weren't in use were available to whomever had executed the
>NAM-, command.
>
>After tinkering with it for a while, I decided I should tell my instructor
>about
>it. The instructor and I were very close, and I figured this was something
>that
>could cause problems if the word got out about it. He was amazed..and
>immediately
>called the operator of the system, and arranged a meeting so we could tell
>them
>what was going on. We arranged a meeting in an evening after 'prime time'
>so I could demonstrate this. The operator was stunned...it would be
>terrible
>if the word about this got out...people could 'wedge' the machine pretty
>much at will. Apparently, a call was made to HP the next morning, and
there
>were
>HP folks there the next day, and within a couple of days, the NAM-, command
>would result in something like "ILLEGAL FORMAT".
>
>According to our system operator, from what was told to her by the
>HP engineers, was that the the NAM-, command was a purposely written-in
>'back door' that was put into the TSB code. It had to have been known
>about
>by HP, because of the mention of not using a name of ',' in the manual.
>In any case, the back door was closed, at least on our system.
>
>I made a point of checking, when we upgraded to the C', E, F, and ACCESS
>systems
>to check the NAM-, to see if it worked. It never did again.
>
>Sorry for the long message, but I thought it'd be of some interest to those
>who used these wonderful old systems.
>
>Best wishes,
>Rick Bensene
>
>
Received on Thu Feb 25 1999 - 20:56:34 GMT