hp proprietary uP history (9825 uP?)

Could you, Bill McD., or any other folks who've joined the list in the past several years, shed more light on the HP 9825 CPU and others around that time? Al Kossow's statement wondering whether info is extant on HP's microprocessors is right on the money for me. Bill's message, copied below, is a good bit of information that I had not known to now. Thanks! (A BPC manual was available??!!! Scan that sucker if found!!) Additionally, I understood the CPU in the HP250-series business computers different microprogramming. A source seems to confirm something like this, except mention is made of using a CPU similar to the 9845. Check this interesting URL which is that source I mention: http://www.hp-eloquence.com/history/history.html My system consists exactly of the "Delila" pictured lastly on the page. CPU box is that to the left of the very similar looking HP7908 16 mb drive on the right, both on wheels. Both boxes are equipped with DC600 tape drives and typical gooey tape rollers which need to be repaired :-/ Firstly, are the 9825 and 9845 processors the same part? Secondly, can the HP250/9825(45) uP connection be verified by any other source(s)? Thirdly, could anybody add more to the limited amount of technical info available on the HP250 machines? I have a 250-30 upon which I've done some study back in the early 90's ? la Tony Duell (e.g., self-generated hand drawn schematics, some address decoding, bits and pieces of other tech notes scrounged from here and there). Up until a few years ago there was a severe lack of available info on the machine. I haven't focused on searching since then, mainly because of other stuff getting in the way (such as life, etc.) Also, anyone know whether the boot ROMS were devices electrically compatible with anything known commercially? I want to know so that I can possibly dump them for preservation and also learn a bit by observing human readable system messages and from whence they are called plus guessing at some machine code and hand disassembling a few areas. That's sometimes interesting and fun when discoveries come about. Right Tony? In short, is there anything substantial available out there on the HP250 machines other than the URL shown above? Google caught the URL I gave but picking through many hundreds of others yielded very little of additional substance. My machine still ran last I checked about two years ago and came with an HP7908 hard disk and HP Business BASIC operating system (with the very last version update released which was implemented by our HP CE in 1987 or '88), two HP2631 printers and two or three 2622 terminals. BTW, I have an HP7912 65 mb disk drive that I got with the system which always showed a "Servo Error" error code on the two-character LED display at the back of the machine. Anybody have a set of boards real cheep for this machine which I could swap-out and see if it can be brought up? If swapping boards doesn't work then for sure the disk unit is shot and I'll have to scrap the darned thing and pass the boards back to the original seller if need be or others. No room around here for such unusable 130+ pound boatanchors :-( Regards, Chris F. NNNN Upon the date 12:40 AM 4/30/04 -0600, Bill McDermith said something like: Christian Fandt, Electronic/Electrical Historian Jamestown, NY USA cfandt(a)netsync.net Member of Antique Wireless Association URL: http://www.antiquewireless.org/