cctalk Digest, Vol 20, Issue 24

[mark at markesystems.com]

From: "GerardCJAT" <gerardcjat at free.fr>

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

> Just curious.
> It seems ( at first ) that most collections stops at 21MX ( M/E/F ) era.
> Am I correct in my view ?

Except for the time I spent as a system manager on a couple of 2000/Access 
systems, in college, the A-series was my introduction to the 1000 line.  I 
spent several years programming that - all A600s, except at the end when the 
A400 came out, and all in Fortran-77 under RTE-A.  Industrial control 
systems, mostly, although I did right for in-house use a terminal control 
package (similar in concept, but by no means execution, to termcap), a 
full-screen hex file editor, a little mail system, etc..  It really seemed 
like you could do almost anything you wanted as far as system calls, etc. 
from the high level language - shared memory (SHEMA), inter-process 
communication (using Class-IO), etc.  I never ventured in to assembly on it.

I hated the full-screen editor (it would write a full screenful of data to 
the 26xx terminal, which you would then locally then cause it to read it 
back off the screen), which is why I wrote my own WordStar-like editor.

I also ended up with a really nice fully decked-out A600 system, with a 
couple of terminals, the built-in disk plus a 7912, plenty of memory, and an 
8-port mux.  Of ourse, like an idiot, I gave all that away to the Salvation 
Army (the wife couldn't understand its intrinsic value like I did).
~~
Mark Moulding