9915A

From: roosmcd_at_dds.nl <(roosmcd_at_dds.nl)>
Date: Wed Mar 13 12:57:31 2002

 Hello,

> Nice find! I have a couple of these and ONE keyboard. It took me four
> years of serious searching to find it!

 About two months ago I noticed a complete HP-85 (tapes, manuals and a 19" rack
with HP-IB equipment) at a local industial recycling facility and told this to
a friend of mine. He immediately wanted to buy this, but when I asked, it was
already sold...

 So this weekend I was at a HAM market and saw some manuals with HP-85 printed
on them and underneath was the 9915a, which I didn't recognize at the moment. I
talked a bit to the guy selling it and got it for EUR 20 (about $20), which I
hope is a good price.

> AFIK this is the only keyboard around. They are EXTREMELY rare!

 Am I correct in thinking that with the keyboard I can use the 9915A as a HP-
85? Or is the keyboard just a row of digital inputs which can be read out by a
basic program?

 Can I do anything usefull with a HPIB terminal? Somebody on the sunrescue list
mailed me this, but then I've tried a terminal with the serial card and that
didn't work..

> The tape approach is the easiest to use EXCEPT just about all the 9915 and HP
> 85 tape drive rollers have gone soft with age.

 Aha, I also haven't gotten any tapes... Are these still obtainable somewhere?

> I've made a schematic of it. I'll try to find it but I'm not promising that
> I'll be able to. The "keyboard" connector is also used to output some
> status and control signals so be carefull if you start experimenting with
> it. I've been looking for a long time but I've only been able to find a
> couple of manuals for the 9915 and they're not very helpfull.

 Those schematics would be nice if you found them, I haven't tried hooking up
anything to the keyboard ports yet in fear of breaking something. The manuals I
have are:

 HP-85 Owner's manual and programming guide (2x)
 Printer/plotter owner's manual
 I/O programming guide
 HPIB installation and theory of operation manual
 HPIB peripheral installation instructions
 registration and warranty cards :)

   regards,
     Michiel
Received on Wed Mar 13 2002 - 12:57:31 GMT