Who, on this list, Owns / Collects / Plays with an HP1000 A or L series ??

[brian]

On Tue, 23 Feb 2016 23:48:52 +0100, you wrote:
>
>> -----Oorspronkelijk bericht-----
>> Van: cctech [mailto:cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org] Namens Jay West
>> Verzonden: dinsdag 23 februari 2016 21:09
>> Aan: 'GerardCJAT'; 'General Discussion: On-Topic Posts'
>> Onderwerp: RE: Who, on this list, Owns / Collects / Plays with an HP1000 A
>or L
>> series ??
>> 
>> GerardCJAT wrote...
>> -------
>> It seems ( at first ) that most collections stops at 21MX ( M/E/F ) era.
>> Am I correct in my view ?
>> -------
>> Not to minimize those that love the A/L stuff.... but I suspect you are
>correct in
>> general terms, statistically. But I do know there are some folks lurking
>that are
>> familiar with that era.
>> 
>> I myself started to look at the A series as the instruction set had mostly
>similar
>> instructions (ie. A superset). But then I saw that was the sum total of
>the
>> similarity, and did not proceed further. I'm content to focus on 21MX and
>prior ;)
>> 
>> J
>I've a few A-series systems, and like to have an L-system once (just because
>of the technology jump to silicon on sapphire)
>But at the moment, they're just waiting for attention ;)
>
The hardware unfortunately disappeared when my previous employer went
broke (I would have offered to buy it, as I was freelancing by then)
but the dear old HP-1000A brings back memories. We used to write
laboratory systems software in FORTRAN-77 to interface with the LAS
(Laboratory Automation System) and LABSAM (Laboratory Sampling and
Management) packages which H-P sold as their combined laboratory
software offering. Unfortunately Y2K put paid to LABSAM, H-P decided
it wasn't worth updating it, although they kept LAS staggering along
for a final year. We did a five man-year project for a major
pharmaceutical company, writing an add-on chromatography calculations
package with just the FORTRAN compiler and H-P's FORMS/1000 screen
management library. 

Happy days!

Brian.