23 Oct
2011
23 Oct
'11
9:51 a.m.
All,
I've located two HP 2116 systems, a B and a C. I've also got access to
period Teletypes, 2748A paper tape reader requiring restoration, and the
uncatalogued back stores of a museum. I'm strongly considering a
restoring one working system from the two for museum demonstration and
display.
If you were me, or have had experience with these systems before, what
would you keep in mind or look out for? Assume for the moment I have the
time and skills myself or available from colleagues to carry out the
work. All thoughts and contributions gratefully received.
Some background and progress:
* neither system has been in "conservation friendly" storage
conditions.
* the museum has fairly extensive HP collection, which makes missing
component location more likely if required
* the museum also has a range of HP instruments which might be used to
create an interactive industrial control or scientific computing display
My first steps so far:
1. Conduct background reading research using internet sites and scans.
Thanks to all the following for making these resources available
* Al and Bitsavers,
* http://www.cs.ubc.ca/~hilpert/e/HP21xx/HP2116.html (B Hilpert)
* http://rikers.org (Tim Riker)
* http://www.hpmuseum.net/
2. Begin basic physical evaluation of the "C" system:
a. Basic cleaning of the cabinet and vacuuming out of components -- so
far excluding the card cages (ran out of time)
b. Begin inventorying components and starting photographing them
The verdict so far is that environmental damage appears limited to the
front panel and some limited contact corrosion on the chassis and
panels. There's mildew evident on the some cabling, but not really
showing on what I've seen on the backplane wire-wrap so far so far. The
cards are in a muddle though. This is what I've catalogued:
=================================================
<Rack 1>
1 - 22 EMPTY
<Rack 2>
101 A101 Front Panel Coupler
102 A102-105 Arithmetic Logic
103 A102-105 Arithmetic Logic
104 A102-105 Arithmetic Logic
105 A102-105 Arithmetic Logic
106 A106 TIMING GEN (clock)
107 A107 Instruction Decoder
108 EMPTY -- Missing A108 Shift logic (this could be in the loose
boards)
109 EMPTY
110 EMPTY
111 EMPTY
112 EMPTY
113 EMPTY
114 EMPTY
115 EMPTY
116 EMPTY
117 EMPTY
118 EMPTY
119 EMPTY
120 EMPTY
<Rack 3>
201 A201 I/O Control
202 EMPTY
203 EMPTY
204 EMPTY
205 ?? *not yet identified*
206 A13 MDB (this is supposed to be in slot 13?)
207 POWER FAIL (not sure what this is in relation related cards
208 POWER FAIL
209 POWER FAIL
210 POWER FAIL
211 ??
212 A4,6,16,18 Inhibit Driver (should be in the 2116 B according to #1)
213 A4,6,16,18 Inhibit Driver (should be in the 2116 B according to #1)
214 A4,6,16,18 Inhibit Driver (should be in the 2116 B according to #1)
215 A4,6,16,18 Inhibit Driver (should be in the 2116 B according to #1)
216 MMD / XV Driver ( should be associated with a core board )
217 SSA ( should be associated with a core board )
218 A2
219 A8,9,14,15 Driver Switch (should be in the 2116 B according to #1)
220 MDB ( system should only have one of these )
221 EMPTY
222 EMPTY
<Loose>
Looks like two or three core stacks and four cards:
POWER FAIL
??
??
??
===================================================
Given that some of these cards look like they are from the wrong
machine, all the memory slots are unpopulated (some are stuck in the IO
rack), I'm guessing that the guts of this system have been mixed and
matched with others, possibly the "B" model -- either that or just
shuffled. I won't know until I've started to look at the "B" model for
comparison, and of course, completed the cataloguing of this one.
-- Colin