I have 2 HP87's and both have lost their channel 7 HP-IL. If the floppy is powered up before the computer, the 87 can acquire the floppy but not the other way around. Thought there might be a battery for autostart of the 87's but inspection of an open case does not show one. Also have complete operating manuals and no battery is mentioned. Would be grateful for any help on this problem. HP stopped supporting the 80 series many years ago so if anyone has a shop manual would like to buy a copy.
???????? What do you mean 7 channel HP-IL? There's no such thing. Do you mean the HP-IB? That the one that uses a connector like a Centronics printer copnnector but smaller and with only 26 contacts. If so it's 8 bits parallel plus control signals.
There is no battery needed for an Auto start program. I don't understand why you're looking for one. The Autostart works the same way that an AUTOEXEC.BAT program does on a IBM PC, the machine looks for a file with that name when it first starts up or when it's reset. All you need is a program on your disk or magnetic tape with the name "Autost". On some maachine there is also a switch that you have to set to Autostart position but I don't think there is on the HP 8x so they will always look for the file.
Joe
???????? What do you mean 7 channel HP-IL? There's no such thing. Do you mean the HP-IB? That the one that uses a connector like a Centronics printer copnnector but smaller and with only 26 contacts. If so it's 8 bits parallel plus control signals.
There is no battery needed for an Auto start program. I don't understand why you're looking for one. The Autostart works the same way that an AUTOEXEC.BAT program does on a IBM PC, the machine looks for a file with that name when it first starts up or when it's reset. All you need is a program on your disk or magnetic tape with the name "Autost". On some maachine there is also a switch that you have to set to Autostart position but I don't think there is on the HP 8x so they will always look for the file.
Joe
Joe
You read me right-I am struggling to reactivate an HP 87XM and think I recall that the early PCs had a small battery to retain some essential information and if that battery finally ran down, the PC would no longer start up. Since the HP87 has been in storage for about 15 years, i thought that might be the problem.
You are quite right in correcting me on the interface and channel. The HP87 I have was set up to use HP-IB connector, my mistake, and had mass storage set on ":d770", printer on 705 etc hence I called channel it 7.
It has turned out that the twin floppy drive was at fault and I have since found a working floppy and am slowly recovering the programs I wrote some 20 years ago. I am afraid that at one point I used a later type of 5 1/4 floppy to copy off of my original and first generation 5 1/4 disks and that is a current problem as well. The drive is an 82901M.
Some of the keyboard keys respond either slowly or not all on the first try so I am not certain but it seems to me that the HP-87 has lost some of it's memory on the HP graphics lanquage in running the plotter.
I appreciate your comments particularly since no one else has come back
Regards, Fred
Fred,
You said " I am not certain but it seems to me that the HP-87 has lost some of it's memory on the HP graphics lanquage in running the plotter."
You may be missing one of the plug in ROMS that contains some of the plotter commands. Good luck with the 87.
Joe
Many thanks for the help that has come in on my effort to reactivate a dead HP87XM. The system involving the 87, twin floppy drive, printer and plotter is now alive and operating on the programs I wrote in 1982. Apparently there is no battery in the 87 for the retention of startup data and that supposition on my part was a mistake.
Fred,
I have the same problem. I have many programs on 3 1/4" floppys, I wrote in 1981-2. I have a working HP-86B with 9121 dual floppy drive, but it is missing the mass storage ROM and so I cannot read the files.
I would appreciate any ideas you could share from your recent experience.
Thanks, Paul
Paul
see my response under your question near the top of this forum listing dated april 28
Fred