HP BASIC & SRM newbie

From: Carlos Murillo <cmurillo_at_emtelsa.multi.net.co>
Date: Tue Feb 13 14:02:09 2001

Hi;

Jarkko Teppo wrote:
>Hello,
>Some background: I was going through my computers last weekend, trying to
>get their operational status changed from "mothballed" to something else.
>I found a couple of HP 9153C & 9153s from the storage and in an act of
>desperation decided to connect them to a 9000/382 running HP-UX. Imagine my
>surprise when the 382 started booting HP BASIC!

Actually, the '200 and '300 series started as instrument controllers using
BASIC (though PASCAL and LISP systems were also available). Then came HPUX.

>After that I went searching for another machine (found a 340, 310 and an SRM
>server). First I tried to boot basic on the SRM server, but that failed due
>to not having enough memory (512KB). I eventually got it working with the
>310 + HP composite video card + Phillips monitor.
>
>A couple of questions:
> What can I do with it and where do I find more info ?

I don't know much about the SRM server; I always used
stand-alone BASIC systems, then went straight to networked HPUX systems.

HP Basic is optimized for instrument control via HPIB. That's
about the best use for these machines; many test systems
used these little guys as controllers. I had to get rid
of my 236, 310's, 320's and 340 before I moved, and my 380 won't
run BASIC for some reason, so now I can only run HP BASIC in
one of my BASIC Language Processors (aka "viper" card).
I do have most of the DOCS for BASIC 5.0/5.1 .

> I've never used HP BASIC so the only commands I got
> working were PRINT and a mysterious LIST BIN, which gave
> me more than a screenfull of stuff like this:
> "CLOCK 5.0". I assume this is HP BASIC 5.0 ?

That is a list of the BIN modules that are built into your particular
BASIC system. You'll typically find the CS80 disk driver, the
HFS (hyerarchical file system) module, the complex arithmetic
module, the HPIB, keyboard, console, video, serial drivers .... stuff like
that.


> I guess I can use this with the SRM server ?
> Do I need extra software to go from HP-UX to SRM ? (I've go extra cards)
>
>I don't even know how the access the disk drives :)

some commands to get you started:

CAT ":, 700" will list the contents of the drive at HPIB address 0

CAT ":, 700, 1" will list the contents of the floppy if the device at
               HPIB address 0 is an HP9153C

INITIALIZE ":, 700, 1" will format the floppy with default parameters

MSI ":,701" will make the drive at address 1 the default "mass storage is"
            device.

COPY ":,700" TO ":,701" will duplicate the volume at adress 0 again at
adress 1

COPY "MYFILE:,700" TO "NEWFILE:,701"



Carlos.
Received on Tue Feb 13 2001 - 14:02:09 GMT