Got any HP minis running (or emulated)?
Tired of HPBASIC? Looking for something to get your HP's lights blinking?
Introducing the first (known) programming language / operating system
designed and written specifically for the preservation of antique
computing hardware, HP-IPL/OS (Hewlett Packard Interpretive Programming
Language / Operating System).
If you have any running HP mini from the HP2114A up through the HP2117F,
or use the SIMH package to emulate one of these rather unique CPU's,
there is a stand-alone freeware threaded interpreter available for
'Beta' testing.
Check out:
http://www.nc5.infi.net/~wrnewton/oldcomp/hp2100/
Currently the language kernel is totally stable, but the file system and
disk support modules are still in development. So it may fall a little
short in the 'Operating System' department currently, but only by
'modern' standards.
Being an extensible threaded interpreter, these modules and drivers can
easily be added (through the CREATE tool) as they are developed, so
there is no reason to hold the kernel back while these are worked out.
Currently disk support is focused on CS/80 disks using the 12821A
interface, but support for HP7900's, or any other well-documented device
is quite practical. Currently HP7970 (13181) mag-tape is supported,
along with paper tape readers, punches, and BACI serial links to
external host systems.
(Developers wanted!)
If you have a workable CPU with no peripheral devices, its quite easy to
hang the HP off of a host system with a serial port. I'll be happy to
help anyone interface their HP system hardware to an external host, and
an interesting ATAPI (IDE) hard-disk hardware interface is also in
development (using generic HP I/O boards).
If you have never gotten your blinkin'-light HP to do anything useful,
HP-IPL/OS is designed to be very easy to bootstrap. Simple but fast
stand-alone boot devices (paper tape reader emulators) are available as
pre-programmed parts (PIC and EEPROM).
This is an ideal starter project for those wanting to get their feet wet
with their HP hardware. In no time at all we can get HP-IPL/OS running
on anything from a 2114 with 4K words of core right on up through E and
F series machines with a full megaword (DMS is supported).
Currently HP-IPL/OS does not support the A or L series hardware, mainly
due to a lack of documentation on these later machines and their lack of
a front pannel for easy bootstrapping.
Should anyone have a working HP7970E mag-tape, bootable 1600 bpi
mag-tapes are available now. Opinions and suggestions are welcome, but
might be best kept-off list (although if the installed base ever grows
to 10 systems or more I'd be shocked!).
Enjoy.
Received on Sun Oct 27 2002 - 14:31:00 GMT