HP 64000 with 80186 emulator?

From: Bill McDermith <bill_mcdermith_at_mcdermith.net>
Date: Sat Apr 24 14:03:45 2004

Joe R. wrote:

>
> The ones that I've seen with the tape drives are marked 64000. The ones
> with the two floppy disks were marked 64100 and the large "portable" one
> were marked 64110. The portable version is built like an oversize (and
> overweight!) Kaypro.
>

Thanks for the clarification. We always called the benchtop units
"crocks" and the "portable" ones Orions, and I didn't pay too much
attention to the part numbers...

>>(Bill McDermith)
>>The whole idea was to put several 64000s on
>>one "large" disk drive using the HP-IB port on
>>the back. The resulting arrangement was called
>>a "cluster" in the HP manuals.
>
> I've seen that shown in some of the manuals but I suspect that they
> would require the use of some kind of SRM (Shared Resource Manager) software.

No extra software needed, as the system tape software would
load onto the cluster drive, and all the crocks would share
the one disk, both for file storage and to boot the the OS...

> You'd have a lot better luck finding a 7957, 7958 or 7959. They're a lot
> smaller, newer and more reliable. I've NEVER found one of the large 79xx
> drives that was still working. The 7957, 7958 and 7959 are roughly 80 Mb,
> 150 Mb and 300 Mb capacity. If you only need 15, 20 or 40 Mb then you can
> probably use a 9133, 9134, 9153 or something of that type. 20 Mb doesn't
> sound like much but it's more than enough for most of the old HP computers.
> I have a 80 Mb 7958 attached to my HP Integral and I've installed every
> piece of software that was ever available for the IPC and I've only used a
> fraction of the drive.

You're correct, I did find a 7957 on e-bay not long ago. I would be
surprised if you could find a 7920/25 cheaply, though it seems that
some of the HP houses that handle 1000 series CPUs also have some
of these around for a small fortune... You're also right about the
software size; once the system was loaded a 7920 had tons of room
left for development files. I know that early on the 91xx drives
didn't work, but there may have been later mods to the 64000 to
allow them.

>
> Hint. If you're considering the purchase of any of these HP drives, plug
> it in first and power it up without connecting it to a system. The newer
> ones have built-in self test and thry will run for about a minute and test
> the drive. If the fault light comes on and stays on then the drive is bad
> so don't buy it. Some of the early ones have a 2 character display on the
> back. If they pass selftest it will show P and the HP-IB code (2 for
> example). If they say F something then they failed self test. ALSO on some
> (or all?) models powering them up >>with no system attached<< will cause
> them to park the heads. That's another reason that I always power them up
> before purchasing and moving them.

Good advice...

> I believe I gave some to Frank a couple of years ago but the biggest
> problem is going to be finding a good tape drive. If somebody is serious
> about these they should fix one of the tape drives then connect a external
> floppy drive and dump the tapes to a^H MULTIPLE floppy disk.

Or even as binary files on a PC or some other machine that could
be exchanged, analyzed, and used to generate floppies (or whatever...)

>
> Joe
>

Bill
Received on Sat Apr 24 2004 - 14:03:45 BST