22 Jan
2006
22 Jan
'06
11:38 a.m.
You wrote....
Wow... 3 of 'em :-).
Got a few 262x
terminals too. The 262x and 264x are pretty nice terminals
really.
How often do you fire them up? They used to have some
of these in
the terminal room at udel.edu and were the first raster graphics
terminals I remember seeing, around 1980.
the last month or two excepted..... about
twice a week. They're kinda
essential to boot my HP2000 systems. Also many of the HP off-line utilities
get rather irked of you don't have an HP terminal on them.
I'm trying to secure my first unit from Boise --
I'll probably be able
to pick it up next weekend. I got the user manual from bitsavers and
I was surprised to see how many options it had, with a "main frame"
and all that. Besides the dual tape drive option, do you have any
other options on them? Recently some ROMs were offered on ebay but
god knows what they actually provided (presumably they provided
additional graphical character sets or something like that).
When I was
refurbishing my first 2648A, I spent a lot of time going through
the manual from bitsavers. I was completely shocked at the features &
functionality in it. I'm familiar with quite a lot of terminals and never
saw one with so many features. It really is a little computer. As I recall
(very foggy memory), the option roms gave you additional character sets, the
ability to make your own characters... and I think there was a ram upgrade
for graphic memory. There were also option cards for additional serial
ports, HPIB ports, etc (I luckily have those).
Well, when you pick yours up, let me know if they have any extra keyboards
that have the tape controls in the center :> I haven't looked at my HP stuff
in a while, but I do recall that my 2648A's were completely stuffed with
option cards.
By the way... if your terminal needs parts.... Of the three 2648's I have,
one has been restored to perfect condition. Another is half-restored, using
some parts from the third. If your terminal needs parts, you're welcome to
the leftover parts from my 3rd donor system.
Best regards,
Jay West