So I took a chance on an eBay auction for a really beat up HP 9830A
desktop (and spent more than I probably should have, alas),and it
arrived on my doorstep this evening.
This machine has taken a beating and has clearly been salvaged from; I'm
missing the main CPU and RAM boards, andseveral keyswitches are broken
off (and long gone.)
So first:
- It's a long shot but does anyone out there have any spares for this
machine? (CPU and RAM, but also plastic parts like the plastic keyboard
plate which have been utterly destroyed would be nice...)
- The keys look kind of similar to the ones on my 9825 -- anyone know if
they use the same keyswitches before I dig mine outof storage and take
the time to open it up to see? (Just looking for possible option for
sourcing keys, finding a parts-only 9825 keyboard is likely to be much
easier than finding a spare 9830...).
Second:
It looks like this thing has beenupgraded with an Infotek Systems RX-30,
and an MP-30 + FP-30 boardset (so perhaps I'm not missing the CPU after
all?)But I'm unsure that it's complete -- in particular it looks like
I'm missing the larger of the two boards here:
http://www.hpmuseum.net/images/Infotek_FP30-48.jpg, while I have both of
the MP-30 boards. I'm guessing the missing board is pure unobtanium at
this point... however, as is clear in the photo it's labeled as "BASIC
ROM II" and only contains what look like a few mask ROMs. My
understanding from reading the docs I've found is that the FP-30 is a
replacement processor (and those two boards in the picture don't look
like much of a processor to me) and the MP-30 is an optional I/O
processor that goes with it -- the "Mass Memory Interface Processor"
(pics here -
http://www.hpmuseum.net/images/Infotek_MP30-45.jpg).
Can anyone confirm what boards are supposed to be present for a complete
CPU set? The presence of four 2901's plus a bunch of EPROMs on the
MP-30 boardset make me wonder if there's more to the MP-30 than just I/O...
Thanks as always,
Josh