At 03:03 AM 5/8/04 -0400, you wrote:
>I just picked up an HP 97 at a church rummage sale. It was sold "tel
>quel" ("as is"), so it was a bit of a gamble, but I figured if it was
>broken it'd be even more fun 'cause then I would feel no compunction
>about opening it up and Investigating.
>
>The battery pack appears dead (based on a 1kohm/volt voltmeter, it's
>producing about .1V) and it didn't come with a wall wart. But the
>battery pack was visibly made up of four cells, so I figured four
>rechargeable cells is probably about 5V - and the external power
>connector is marked 5V.
It should be marked 8 volts. The charger for them has an 8 VAC 3VA
output. The original chargers are a bit hard to find but the later chargers
that were used for nearly all of the HP-IL devices such as the HP 82161
casssette tape drive, 9114 disk drive, various data converters such as
HP-IL to HP-Ib, HP-IL to RS-232 and HP-IL to GPIO converters work perfectly
with the HP-97. The same charger is used for the HP 91, HP 92, HP-71 and
HP-75 and for the HP-41s with the rechargeable battery packs. The model
number of that charger varies according to what AC outlet it fits but here
in the US it's a model HP 82059. I routinely find them in surplus stores in
the US and there are plenty of them on E-bay.
<
http://search.ebay.com/hp-hewlett-charger-adapter-calculator-ipaq-omnibook_
W0QQbsZSearchQQcatrefZC6QQfromZR10QQhtZ1QQsacategoryZQ2d1QQsatitleZQ28hpQ2ch
ewlettQ29Q20Q28chargerQ2cadapterQ29Q20calculatorQ20Q2dipaqQ20Q2domnibookQQsb
rftogZ1QQsocolumnlayoutZ3QQsocurrencydisplayZ1QQsofocusZbsQQsosortorderZ1QQs
osortpropertyZ1QQsotimedisplayZ2>
So I hooked it up to 5V from a peecee power
>supply (peecees are good for _something_; they provide me with power
>supplies :), and it seems to be in full working order. Even the
>printer works (though the ribbon appears a little enfeebled).
There is no printer ribbon. it uses thermal paper. The biggest problem
with the printer is that the paper feed mechanism wears out and it can't be
fixed.
>
>All I need to do is find a manual for the thing. Anyone know of one?
Nope, the original manuals are collector's items and I'd be surprised to
find one on-line. The HP Museum sells a set of CDs with this and many other
HP manuals for a very reasonable price. I'd recommend those unless you're
willing to pay the price for a real manual.
>Google found me a few places _selling_ scanned copies of the manual,
>but none civilized enough to have it up for fetching.
>
>The thing cost me all of five bucks. :)
You can make a nice profit on E-bay :-)
Maybe not quite on a par with
>an ASR33, but it's also a lot easier for me to find space for. As yet
>I may be but a dilettante when it comes to old computing gadgets, but
>*I* think it has a healthy dose of gamish!
BTW you do know that the slot on the LH side is for a mag card reader
don't you? The reader in it is almost certainly gummed up due to
deteriorated feed wheel but they can be fixed. It uses the same cards as
the HP 412 card reader and the HP-65 and 67s.
Joe
>
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Received on Sat May 08 2004 - 07:35:32 BST