Steve,
There are several dealers of used HP1000 and 3000
equipment (Monterey bay Communications) that may be
able to help you with a replacement key and other
items for a few $ if you're inclined to go that route.
Google on used HP computers. Nice find. Used 264x
terminals when I was at HP and they are built like
tanks.
Lee Courtney
--- Loboyko Steve <sloboyko_at_yahoo.com> wrote:
> I picked up on a $10.00 eBay Buy it now an HP2644A
> terminal. This terminal uses little tapes (DC-100A's
> or HP 98200A's). It's slightly beat up (mostly in
> shipping in spite of the seller's best and
> professional efforts), but nothing (except see
> below)
> that I can't repair - I'm pretty sure I can get this
> back to nearly original factory condition. It should
> be a nice complement to some classic micro's I'm
> working with. The HP 2644A is working. It even came
> with the hard to replace RS-232 cable,with an edge
> connector to the unit, weird. Annoying, considering
> that this thing cost several $1000's in the mid
> 1970's. It looks like you could put 20 amps of
> RS-232
> signal through it, given the diameter of the cable!
>
> The 2644A's claim to fame is that it used the 8008
> CPU, and has a tiny mini-operating system, pretty
> good
> for a machine with 16K of address space. There is a
> web site in Germany with a pong game that is
> actually
> that you run on the 8008 in the terminal via a
> diagnostic "back door", which I'm looking forward to
> trying. I wonder who wrote it.
>
> This unit I have doesn't have many goodies like
> graphics or lower case, but for $10, what do you
> want.
> It's built like a "mainframe", and later models used
> the same everything with different boards plugged
> into
> the backplane.
>
> I got a few manuals with it; the 2645A and 2648A
> manuals. The 2645 seems to be very similar.
>
> A few questions:
>
> 1. The "infamous" HP 98200A tapes are REALLY awful.
> I
> got a box on eBay, never used, in wrappers, and they
> failed immediately. After taking them apart, I think
> I
> know why. Even sealed after all these years, the
> oxide
> was actualy coming off the tape and the reels didn't
> even have clips to hold the tape on. Whatever held
> the
> ends of the tape on originally, doesn't. Hard to
> beleive that this was an HP product of that era.
> I've
> got almost 35 year old audio casettes that still
> work
> and sound great.
>
> I think DC100A's and even DC2000's will work
> according to what I've googled. Any comments? Of
> course, I've already tackled and (probably) fixed
> the
> "gummy" roller problem. Before I used the drives,
> even. Naturally, I've given away all of my DC2000
> tapes...
>
> 2. Has anyone ever seen a CRT develop mold between
> the
> (bonded to the tube) safety glass and the tube
> itself?
> The unit itself was probably stored indoors in a
> controlled environment because it was otherwise very
> clean. I'm pretty sure I can get a replacement, but
> it
> will cost. Too bad, because the tube is really good
> and not burned in whatsoever, which is very
> surprising
> (the tape heads have zero detectable wear also).
> Trust
> me, even if it's technically possible, I won't be
> trying to separate the safety glass from the tube
> itself. I hate replacing CRT's. Unfortunately, I've
> gotten good at it.
>
> 3. The tab key is missing. Not broken off, just
> missing. I have a "kinda close" replacement, but if
> anyone has a junk HP product of that era with tall,
> "Cherry" keytops, I'll take anything.
>
>
> Thanks for reading!
>
>
>
>
>
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Received on Mon Sep 16 2002 - 02:10:45 BST