17 Feb
2003
17 Feb
'03
1:16 a.m.
I have been working for some time on a pet project to make a mass
storage emulator for HP-IB systems. Given the massive improvement in
capacity that has taken place the past 10 years, most mass storage
devices from the 80s look pathetic.
For example, take the HP 9133H which is a massive unit that can store
about 5Mb. Even the compact flash cards that are bundled with popular
digital cameras can do better than that.
I started my project by trying to utilize the HP-IB drivers that are
part of the NetBSD Open Source Unix clone (which runs on the HP 300
series), but I have come to realize that the HP-IB cards are the
creating a new legacy issue.
Open Source drivers for HP-IB cards are very hard to find and thus any
solution that depends on them becomes de facto legacy (once the card
itself is no longer sold, finding the card becomes almost as difficult
as finding HP 9133H drives).
So I looked hard at the HP-IB bus itself (using the schematics from the
Series 80 adaptor) and it looks like a simple parallel bus. So why use
a custom card, if the PC parallel port can be adapted to drive an HP-IB
bus.
If the PC parallel port can be used, then I can port the NetBSD drivers
to use the parallel port, rather than the HP 300 HP-IB interface. The
NetBSD drivers also support SS-80 compatible mass storage devices,
which means that the implementation can be verified against a real
HP-IB mass storage device. If this works than the drivers will have to
be modified so that they become a mass storage "server" rather than a
"client" (i.e. a device that responds to mass storage requests, instead
of a computer that issues such requests).
Small i386 compatible single board computers are easily procurable and
embedded versions of *BSD and Linux systems run on these SBCs (they
even accept compact flash cards or more traditional hard disks). This
means that we can make a mass storage device that can physically fit
inside the cabinet of the main unit (e.g. Integral PC, or HP-87).
Anybody willing to provide assistance to this effort, is welcome to
contact me. However, I think that going through this list may be
more beneficial so that other people can contribute in the technical
discussion.
**vp
17 Feb
17 Feb
2:59 a.m.
A PC's parallel port CANNOT emulate an HPIB bus without a good deal of
external hardware, and
if you did the performance would be terrible, nearly unusable.
Why not simply get a National Instruments HPIB card and write some code
to turn a standard PC into
your emulated HPIB stroage system?
No hardware needs to be fabricated, its a fairly simply matter of
writing some code so some part of the PC's
hard disk is used to emulate the HPIB disk.
Also HPIB disks are VERY common, and also VERY reliable. Ask on this
listy and you will hear stories of
CS/80 drives from HP being underwater, thrown into dumpsters, and other
suffering forms of abuse without
any problems at all.
As for capacity issues, many HPIB drives (like HP's CS/80 drives) have a
rather low limit (in modern terms) on
their maximum capacity due to the limited disk address field size.
Modern devices like ATA (IDE) drives are many
times larger than this maximim capacity. So a true emulation of these
devices (needed for driver compatibility)
will not be able to use much of the modern drives actual capacity.
Given that you can find a working CS/80 drive on eBay for short money,
is this project worth doing?
If so, I'd have to reccomend using a commercial HPIB interface board and
some code running on a PC rather
than developing any custom hardware. It pains me to say this, as I'm a
hardware engineer, but sometimes the
best solution is not to design any hardware. This is exactly such a case.
Vassilis Prevelakis wrote:
I have been working for some time on a pet project to
make a mass
storage emulator for HP-IB systems. Given the massive improvement in
capacity that has taken place the past 10 years, most mass storage
devices from the 80s look pathetic.
For example, take the HP 9133H which is a massive unit that can store
about 5Mb. Even the compact flash cards that are bundled with popular
digital cameras can do better than that.
I started my project by trying to utilize the HP-IB drivers that are
part of the NetBSD Open Source Unix clone (which runs on the HP 300
series), but I have come to realize that the HP-IB cards are the
creating a new legacy issue.
Open Source drivers for HP-IB cards are very hard to find and thus any
solution that depends on them becomes de facto legacy (once the card
itself is no longer sold, finding the card becomes almost as difficult
as finding HP 9133H drives).
So I looked hard at the HP-IB bus itself (using the schematics from the
Series 80 adaptor) and it looks like a simple parallel bus. So why use
a custom card, if the PC parallel port can be adapted to drive an HP-IB
bus.
If the PC parallel port can be used, then I can port the NetBSD drivers
to use the parallel port, rather than the HP 300 HP-IB interface. The
NetBSD drivers also support SS-80 compatible mass storage devices,
which means that the implementation can be verified against a real
HP-IB mass storage device. If this works than the drivers will have to
be modified so that they become a mass storage "server" rather than a
"client" (i.e. a device that responds to mass storage requests, instead
of a computer that issues such requests).
Small i386 compatible single board computers are easily procurable and
embedded versions of *BSD and Linux systems run on these SBCs (they
even accept compact flash cards or more traditional hard disks). This
means that we can make a mass storage device that can physically fit
inside the cabinet of the main unit (e.g. Integral PC, or HP-87).
Anybody willing to provide assistance to this effort, is welcome to
contact me. However, I think that going through this list may be
more beneficial so that other people can contribute in the technical
discussion.
**vp
4:42 a.m.
The Hewlett Package HPIB cards are on eBay from time to time also.
At 09:01 AM 2/17/03 -0500, you wrote:
A PC's parallel port CANNOT emulate an HPIB bus
without a good deal of
external hardware, and
if you did the performance would be terrible, nearly unusable.
Why not simply get a National Instruments HPIB card and write some code to
turn a standard PC into
your emulated HPIB stroage system?
No hardware needs to be fabricated, its a fairly simply matter of writing
some code so some part of the PC's
hard disk is used to emulate the HPIB disk.
Also HPIB disks are VERY common, and also VERY reliable. Ask on this
listy and you will hear stories of
CS/80 drives from HP being underwater, thrown into dumpsters, and other
suffering forms of abuse without
any problems at all.
As for capacity issues, many HPIB drives (like HP's CS/80 drives) have a
rather low limit (in modern terms) on
their maximum capacity due to the limited disk address field size. Modern
devices like ATA (IDE) drives are many
times larger than this maximim capacity. So a true emulation of these
devices (needed for driver compatibility)
will not be able to use much of the modern drives actual capacity.
Given that you can find a working CS/80 drive on eBay for short money, is
this project worth doing?
If so, I'd have to reccomend using a commercial HPIB interface board and
some code running on a PC rather
than developing any custom hardware. It pains me to say this, as I'm a
hardware engineer, but sometimes the
best solution is not to design any hardware. This is exactly such a case.
Vassilis Prevelakis wrote:
>I have been working for some time on a pet project to make a mass
>storage emulator for HP-IB systems. Given the massive improvement in
>capacity that has taken place the past 10 years, most mass storage
>devices from the 80s look pathetic.
>
>For example, take the HP 9133H which is a massive unit that can store
>about 5Mb. Even the compact flash cards that are bundled with popular
>digital cameras can do better than that.
>
>I started my project by trying to utilize the HP-IB drivers that are
>part of the NetBSD Open Source Unix clone (which runs on the HP 300
>series), but I have come to realize that the HP-IB cards are the
>creating a new legacy issue.
>
>Open Source drivers for HP-IB cards are very hard to find and thus any
>solution that depends on them becomes de facto legacy (once the card
>itself is no longer sold, finding the card becomes almost as difficult
>as finding HP 9133H drives).
>
>So I looked hard at the HP-IB bus itself (using the schematics from the
>Series 80 adaptor) and it looks like a simple parallel bus. So why use
>a custom card, if the PC parallel port can be adapted to drive an HP-IB
>bus.
>
>If the PC parallel port can be used, then I can port the NetBSD drivers
>to use the parallel port, rather than the HP 300 HP-IB interface. The
>NetBSD drivers also support SS-80 compatible mass storage devices,
>which means that the implementation can be verified against a real
>HP-IB mass storage device. If this works than the drivers will have to
>be modified so that they become a mass storage "server" rather than a
>"client" (i.e. a device that responds to mass storage requests, instead
>of a computer that issues such requests).
>
>Small i386 compatible single board computers are easily procurable and
>embedded versions of *BSD and Linux systems run on these SBCs (they
>even accept compact flash cards or more traditional hard disks). This
>means that we can make a mass storage device that can physically fit
>inside the cabinet of the main unit (e.g. Integral PC, or HP-87).
>
>Anybody willing to provide assistance to this effort, is welcome to
>contact me. However, I think that going through this list may be
>more beneficial so that other people can contribute in the technical
>discussion.
>
>**vp
4:43 a.m.
At 09:01 AM 2/17/03 -0500, Bob Shannon wrote:
Also HPIB disks are VERY common, and also VERY
reliable. Ask on this
listy and you will hear stories of
CS/80 drives from HP being underwater, thrown into dumpsters, and other
suffering forms of abuse without
any problems at all.
Bob isn't joking. The first HP-IB dirve that I bought was sitting in plastic tote bin
half full of water. The drive was 2/3 covered but I bought it anyway (a whopping $2!). I
dried it out for a couple of days and plugged it into a 9000 220 and it booted right up!
Since then I've found that that's pretty normal with the HP stuff. I've bought
plenty of it that has been underwater, dropped down oil wells (HP-15C) , left sitting in
fields in the weather for months, thrown out of four story windows into onto pavement and
just about any other abuse that you can think of and most of it worked. I love the quality
of the older HP stuff!
Joe
5 a.m.
Joe said:
think of and most of it worked. I love the quality of
the older HP stuff!
Amen! I hauled my 7933 on a small trailer (single axle (sp?), no shocks or
springs) approx 100km. When I got home I disconnected the trailer from
the car, didn't notice that the drive was on the back of the trailer:
Disconnect from car, drive (and the back of the trailer) smash down,
front end flies up, almost taking my chin in the process. Scared the
living s*** out of me.
The drive works just fine modulo a few bad blocks.
--
jht
6:44 a.m.
On Mon, 17 Feb 2003, Joe wrote:
...thrown out of four story windows into onto
pavement...
What's the story behind that one?
;)
--
Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org
* Old computing resources for business and academia at www.VintageTech.com *
7:33 a.m.
At 09:37 AM 2/17/03 -0800, you wrote:
On Mon, 17 Feb 2003, Joe wrote:
That was some government bureaucrat's idea of "de-mil"ing it. Their
requirement is that it "must be destroyed beyond it's intended useage" so
they dumped a big pile of stuff out onto a parking lot, then piled it in a dumpster and
let it sit in the rain for about 6 months. It's a good thing that they don't know
how tough the HP stuff is! This particular item was a HP 9825. When I found it the case
halves were ajar, about 1/4 of the keys were missing, it was full of water and it was
scrapped all to hell. I bought it from the scrap guy for parts for a couple of dollars but
I decided to dry it out and test it before I gutted it. Imagine my surprise when it worked
perfectly!
Joe
...thrown out of four story windows into onto
pavement...
What's the story behind that one? 
3:16 p.m.
I have been working for some time on a pet project to
make a mass
storage emulator for HP-IB systems. Given the massive improvement in
capacity that has taken place the past 10 years, most mass storage
devices from the 80s look pathetic.
However they're often large enough for the machines they were designed to
work with...
Consider the 9114 disk drive (HPIL interface). It fits about 630K on a
3.5" floppy disk. That's a _massive_ amount of storage for the HP41 (or
even HP71, HP75) calculators, to the extent that all the programs from
the HP solution books for a particular machine will fit on 1 or 2 disks.
So I looked hard at the HP-IB bus itself (using the
schematics from the
Series 80 adaptor) and it looks like a simple parallel bus. So why use
Tbe HPIB spec (or IEEE-488) is certainly published and available.
It is an 8 bit parallel bus, although it's not particularly simple. There
are a total of 16 lines :
8 data lines (bidirectional)
3 handshake lines (DAV (Data AVailable), from talker to listener(s) and
NFRD (Not Ready For Data), NDAC (Not Data ACknowledge) from listern(s) to
talker)
5 control lines (ATN (Attention), EOI (End Or Indentify), SRQ (Service
ReQuest), IFC (InterFace Clear), REN (Remote ENable)).
There are 3 classes of device on the bus : Controllers (which send bus
commands, select other devices, etc), Talkers (which output data) and
Listeners (which input data). A particular device may be more than one of
these -- a computer is likely to be able to be a Controller, Talker and
Listener, a disk drive a Talker and Listener (but not a controller) and a
printer a Listener (only).
a custom card, if the PC parallel port can be adapted
to drive an HP-IB
bus.
There have been many devices which implemented the IEEE-488 bus (GPIB,
HPIB) using a standard parallel interface chip like the 6821 or 6522
together with buffers. Sometimes some TTL (or PLD-based) state machines
were added to handle the low level side of the handshake, but this is
_not_ required. The handshake system was carefully designed so that a
relatively slow device (like a software driven PIA chip) can handle it
without missing changes of the signals. HP themselves often used a simple
microcontroller (8048 series) + a buffer chip to do it. The handshake was
handled entirely in software on the microcontroller.
I don't know if a PC (bidirectional) parallel printer port can do it.
Possibly it can, but there may not be enough inputs/outputs for all the
control lines. Cut-down GPIB implelmentations (e.g. to drive a plotter,
with the PC as controller) have certainly worked on the parallel port.
Even if you can't use the standard parallel port, it would be fairly easy
to make an add-on card with the necessary logic on it. And you wouldn't
have to use a difficult-to-find GPIB interface chip (many of which are
long out of production)
If the PC parallel port can be used, then I can port
the NetBSD drivers
to use the parallel port, rather than the HP 300 HP-IB interface. The
NetBSD drivers also support SS-80 compatible mass storage devices,
which means that the implementation can be verified against a real
HP-IB mass storage device. If this works than the drivers will have to
The CS/80 command specification was also published, although it's not
easy to find (I _do_ have it somewhere).
Let's keep this on the list (it's on-topic). I've fooled around with the
GPIB bus a bit (to the extent of making my own devices using TTL/PALs,
not the special interface chips) and might be able to give some help.
-tony
18 Feb
18 Feb
9:35 p.m.
Re:
For example, take the HP 9133H which is a massive unit
that can store
about 5Mb. Even the compact flash cards that are bundled with popular
The 9133H is a 20 MB drive, IIRC. My notes say:
9133D 1986 14 MB w/3.5" double sided
9133H 1986 20 MB w/3.5" double sided
9133L 1988 40 MB w/3.5" double sided
9133V 1984 4 MB w/3.5" single sided (hard drive: 4.6 MB)
9133V/ 1984 4 MB w/3.5" single sided /010 (hard drive: 4.8 MB)
9133V/ 1984 4 MB (see 9133V) /004 (4 partitions of 1.5 MB)
9133XV 1984 14 MB w/3.5" single sided 270 KB (9121 compat)
Quibble aside, wow...that would be great, if you could do it via
the parallel port (or even via USB)
--
Stan Sieler
sieler(a)allegro.com
www.allegro.com/sieler/wanted/index.html
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days inactive
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