A couple of places to look for information:
1)
http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Lab/7510 - The Old Calculators
Museum
There's a page there on the HP85
2)
http://www.hpmuseum.org - Lots of information on HP calculators, there
is some
information there on the HP-85
You are right, the beast runs BASIC (a pretty solid and feature-rich
dialect)
and was generally used as a control system in testing situations, i.e.,
instrumentation
testing, scientific test and measurement systems, data analysis systems,
etc.
Have fun with this cool old machine!
Rick Bensene
The Old Calculators Web Museum
http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Lab/7510
Yesterday evening a friend gave me a new toy. Hp85,
which is a
strange looking computer.
<SNIP>
I havn't powered the thing up yet, but apparently
it runs BASIC. It
has a printer and what looks like a tape slot.
I'm sure one of you can tell me more... :-)