Flex Disc options for the HP 9825

[CuriousMarc]

Unfortunately, I have the older ROM, the HP 98217A. Says 9885 Flexible Disk
Drive on it (duh). Only this 9885, single side low density 8" drive,
connected with the parallel interface and a special cable is supported. And
indeed as Tony says, to start from a blank disk, you need a tape cartridge
that has the "disc system" on it and run an initialize program to copy files
on the first disc sectors. If you don't have a copy of that cartridge then
you are hosed even with that ROM. So I am hosed twice: I don't have a 9885
drive and I don't have the cartridge. And I suspect a cartridge that's
readable doesn't exist anymore.

The newer ROM is the HP 98228. Which can ONLY work in a later HP 9825T (not
the A nor the B), and can drive the aforementioned 8" 9885 with the parallel
interface, and also the 9895 double sided double density double drive via
the HP-IB interface. But only with the "revised" HP-IB interface, not the
original interface. Very picky that ROM.  Bu for the 9885 disc, it does not
have the cartridge requirement (yeah!). I have the 9825T, the 9895 drive,
the revised interface, but not the right ROM. Hosed again.

The details are in the 9825 Disc ROM Manual:
http://www.hpmuseum.net/document.php?hwfile=1864

Marc

> > Probably a question for Tony's encyclopedic knowledge. I just scored
> > two HP 9825, one a later "T" option and one "B" version with all the
> > fixings (i.e ROM packs). They both seem to work save the usual tape
> > drive which I have not gotten to yet. Both have the flexible disc ROM.
> > What kind of discs can I hook up?
> 
> Which flexible disk ROM? There are 2. The older one, AFAIK supports the
> HP9885 8" drive which has a 16 bit parallel interface and needs the right
> version of the 98032 to hook it up. The later disk ROM supports the HP9895
> on HPIB.
> 
> The older ROM needs a disk with various programs on it to work, it is
> essentially just a bootstrap. Have any such disks survived?
> 
> -tony