HP 9915A (industrial version of HP 85A) - test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

10 Oct 2002

...
   I also have a
HP 9915A in my possesion. Useless without keyboard and I also
have only documentation for the HP-85.  
    Maybe I should back up. You do know that the 9915 will read HP-85 tapes
 and run the HP-85 programs don't you?  The HP-85 is inteneded to be the
 developement system for the 9915. 
 Yes, but I also don't have a HP-85 and when I had a HP-85 I could run programs 
on that instead of the 9915 :). But it's not really an important matter; I just 
would like to use the 9915 sometime.

...
   This sounds
like they are absolute unobtainium today? I'd better start  looking 
 for a HP-85, only they seem to want quite some
money when I see them on 
eBay :).    
    Are you kidding? I've seen plenty of them go cheap. But you should really
 look for a lot better machine like the 87XM. They have a lot more memory and
 have a number of ROMs built-in.  Take a look at <http://www.ebbsoft.com>. It
 has some comparisions of the various models. 
 Unobtainium was related to the development kit for eproms. As for HP-85's, I'm 
located in Europe and haven't seen them much around here. Last one I remember 
was on eBay.de and it went for quite some money (over EUR 100,-?), but I 
haven't really looked that hard. I know there's a friend looking for a cheap 
one for couple of years and I don't think he has already found one. But I got 
offered one by e-mail, so maybe I'll have one soon :).

 There's also an industrial surplus site that sometimes has them, but the last 
time I when they had one, it was already reserved for someone else. They did 
have some other nice industrial computers.

 greetings,
   Michiel