HP Integral questions

From: Tony Duell <ard_at_p850ug1.demon.co.uk>
Date: Sat Aug 2 16:45:01 2003

A couple of weeks ago I mentioned I'd obtained an HP Integral. I've now
had time to test the PSU, etc, and it seems to be fine. However, I have a
few questions about it.

1) What's the space on top, under the printer cover, for? I've found the
HP-HIL mouse (and cable) is an almost perfect fit there, and as a mouse
is a useful accessory for this machine, that's where I store it. But is
there a more official use?

2) One of the cards I have in the machine is the interface for the 82904
expansion unit. Alas I don't have the expansion unit itself :-(. The card
has a 64 pin Blue Ribbon connector on the bracket, which seems to mostly
carry a buffered version of the Integral's expansion bus. My first
problem, though, is that 64 pin Blue Ribbon plugs are not listed in any
catalogue I've looked in so far -- 50 is the largest we seem to get in
the UK. Anyone know a source?

3) Also, has anyone any information on designing I/O cards for this machine?

4) A really long shot, but that expansion unit card is taking up a slot
that could be better used for something else. So does anyone know where I
might find a serial card (either RS232 or current loop, preferably the
former) or a GPIO card?


I also think I need a hard disk. I have whichever version of the 9133 is
around 20Mbytes here, which I believe should work. However, I have
questions about that too

1) Inside there's a set of 4 links called the 'Ident Sea'. It appears
these tell the controller the geometry of the ST506 hard disk that's
connected. Anyone know what all 16 possible settings are for?

2) Is it possible to low-level format a 'new' hard disk on this unit? If
I found a replacement drive that matched one of the expected geometries,
how could I use it?

-tony
Received on Sat Aug 02 2003 - 16:45:01 BST