Hi,
I was poking around inside the HP2100S mini that I acquired
recently, and thought some of you might be interested
in what's in there. No photos yet, but I expect to have
some soon.
It appears to me that the computer's backplane is divided
into three sections. Two sections are in the front half
of the chassis. The left section is coded with a blue
color, and I think this is where the CPU itself is. There
are nine circuit cards plugged in, with the designations
marked A1 through A8 (going left to right), the ninth
card isn't marked. The A2 card has a clip-on piece of
plastic marked "FP ROM 12901A installed".
To the right of the blue section is a section color-coded
in red. This appears to the the Input/Output option
card section. Slots 10-12 are empty, and starting with
slot 13 the card designators are as follows:
+8 BIT DUP REG
DISC INTF' 2 (13210A)
DISC INTF' 1 (13210A)
16 BIT G.P.O.
+16 BIT DUP REG
RELAY OUT REG
JUMPER
GRD TRUE IN/OUT
GRD TRUE CONTR
BUSS DATA
BUSS CONTRL
JUMPER
Some of these are pretty obvious about their functions,
but does anybody have any idea what the "DUP REG" functions
are?
The "BUSS DATA" and "BUSS CONTRL" cards have headers on them
that I believe are for attaching a HP peripheral box. This
system came out of a HP 8500 Network Analyzer product, and one
of the peripheral boxes I got looks to have the other end
of the BUSS stuff on it. The docs that I got with the system
indicate that the graphics terminal and a printer are
attached through the peripheral box.
The third main section is in the rear on the left
hand side. The power supply occupies the quadrant on
the right hand, rear side of the machine.
The rear card section is color coded black, and from left
to right the card fill is as follows:
XYD \
- Connected on top with 02100 60052 jumper header
SSA /
SSA \
- Connected on top with 02100 60054 jumper header
XYD /
ID (16K) --| --| These four are interconnected as shown
| | along the top using ribbon cables.
IDL | --|
| |
DC --| |
| |
ID (16K) --| --|
XYD \
- Connected on top with 02100 60052 jumper header
SSA /
SSA \
- Connected on top with 02100 60054 jumper header
XYD /
The "XYD" boards are HP part number 02100-60053, and appear
to me to have mag core driver circuitry.
The "SSA" boards look to be the core memory boards. The one
I examined had a jumper installed in the "8K" position (the
other possible position was "4K").
I'm speculating that the black section is the memory subsystem
for the machine, and that the ID & DC boards have something
to do with memory addressing, decoding, etc.
That's all the info. I have right now. Doesn't look to
me like there are any terminal I/O type interfaces in
the box. I haven't had the nerve yet to power it up
to see if it does anything. If any of ya'll have any info.
about this machine, I'd appreciate a shout.
Regards,
Alex
Calculator History & Technology Archive Web Page
http://aknight.home.mindspring.com/calc.htm
Received on Sat May 29 1999 - 18:57:30 BST