HP 6101x and PCIB

My question, though, is what's the alternative to PC-based test equipment? Completely self-contained proprietary stuff? -- I'm of the Tony Duell school here.. Document as much as you can if you care about using it in the future. The PC stuff is 'proprietary' as well, with the exeception of a few card vendors, you can't find out from them how it works (or doesn't...) Any instrument with a microprocessor should have its ROMs read and backed up. I got VERY lucky and was able to get my 16500B analyzer going again because I had access to another unit, was able to read the eprom, and was able to reprogram the part that had gone bad (a bit had gone to a '1' and could be reprogrammed to '0') The entire CPU board is a FRU, it's cheaper to find an entire chassis on eBay than trying to find just the processor board.