Interfacing an HP 9134 HDD to my HP 85 - test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

15 Apr 2003

Hi Bob & Joe,

At 04/15/03 12:01 PM Joe wrote ...

...
   At 11:52 AM
4/15/03 -0400, you wrote:
Hello,

I am having trouble interfacing an HP 9134 HDD to my HP 85. I have connected
 other drives without difficulty such as the 9121D
so I believe the computer
 is set up properly.

I recently picked up a 9134A HD. It apparently emulates a 9895A 8" flexible
 drive and 3 slaves each with 1.15MB capacity.

    I'm not sure that the 9134A will work, you may need the 9133 or 9134 VX
model. 
The 9134A will work just fine with a HP85.  It's the same as a 9135A 
without the
5.25" floppy drive that the 9135A has.  I've used a 9135A with both the HP85/87
family machines and with a HP9835B.

...
  I set the HP-IB
address to zero on the HD and typed MASS STORAGE is ":D700".

    Try using "D700,0", "D700,1", "D700,2" and
"D700,3", That will address
the individual logical drive units. 
I believe those commands are for a 9826 or something else.  On the HP85,
the 9134A/9135A drives emulate four 9895 8" floppy drives (approximately 
1.2 Mbytes
each).  If the unit address switches are set for 0, the individual logical 
drive
units are ":D700", ":D701", "D702", and "D703" on
the HP85.

...
 I then typed CAT and Initialize and keep getting a
"Timeout". Also if I
turn
 the 85 on with the HD connected and running and
type CAT the HD does not
respond as my 9121 would without typing a mass storage is command.

Can I assume the drive is bad or am I using the wrong syntax. The drive
spins up nicely, and the light comes on but I get that error message and the
 >disk access light does not come on. 
I had much the same trouble with the hard drive in my 9135A when I got it.
It appears that the drive mechanism got "sticky" during a long period of 
storage.
Much of the other stuff I got from the same lot as the 9135A was 
rusty.  Anyhow,
with some encouragement from list member Vassilis, I opened up the case,
unscrewed the hard drive (I think it's an ST-506) from the mounting 
hardware and
set it on it's side, still hooked up, and was able to eventually get the disk
to initialize.  It took a number of tries before I could get all four 
partitions to
initialize, but once I got them all going, it worked fine.

I would try MASS STORAGE IS ":D700" and then INITIALIZE.  If that doesn't
work,
then try the same thing with ":D701", then ":D702", then
":D703".  I wouldn't
give up unless you've tried it multiple times, alternating between partitions.
If you do decide to open up the case, you can see an arm on the side of the
drive that is supposed to move - it moves about 90 degrees going from the :D700
partition to the :D701 partition.

Once I got it working on the HP85 I tried it using my 9835B with Mass Storage
ROM, but I had to re-initialize the partitions I wanted to use with the 
9835B because
they weren't compatible with the HP85 (too bad, I'd hoped to be able to
transfer data that way).  Right now I have two partitions in HP85 format 
and two in
9835 format.

At least Bob got the hard drive in his 9134A.  I bought a second one that was
listed on eBay that ended later the same day as his, and when it arrived I 
found that
the unit had been stripped and there was no hard drive inside :-(
Anybody have a spare ST-506???

Hope this helps,
Alex

The Calculator Museum Web Page
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