I have an auction running, for a 9114B. In the auction I mention that you can use it with the Series 80, with an HP-IL interface. However, someone pointed out this might not be true. I just assumed it was because the Series 80 does have an HP-IL interface.

So, this is a good theoritical question.

My feeling is that the HP-IL interface knows nothing about controllers or devices that might be used with the HP-IL chip set or the interface. Therefore, it seems logical that any controller, should be able to talk to any device, assuming full implementation of HP-IL is in the interface.

All that a controller does, is read and write to registers in the HP-IL controller chip. All that a device does is access data in these registers. So, it's just a matter of putting the right data in the necessary registers.

I do understand that the data must be sent in a format, as expected by the 9114B. Clearly, any controller must know something about the format of the data and storage media, before it could use the storage device. But that doesn't mean the controller couldn't use it. Just that some programming might be necessary, in BASIC or Assembly or such.

So, can a Series 80 (85, 86 or 87) read or write to a 9114? If not why not? I just can't imagine how a controller would not be capable of using any HP-IL device. If there is not a specific read/write command (for a 9114), it seems that it could be programmed in BASIC or assembly rather easily. What are the limitations using the 9114B with the Series 80?

Edited: 8 July 2006, 11:43 p.m.

No Mike, I don't think so.

Being Hp-IL connected is not enough.

The 80 series lacks the firmware or added Roms to manage Hp-IL mass storage devices. Such a firmware is readily available built-in or added with the Mass storage & Extended mass storage Roms for HP-IB Mass storage devices only.

Therefore, even with the Hp-IL plugged in, the computer will see all peripherals as character-peripherals read with the ENTER function and written to with the OUTPUT & SEND functions.

Using a 9114 or 9161 would imply writing the proper mass storage function in machine language and I'm not aware of any guru that could have attempted such a foolish project.

Etienne

Edited: 9 July 2006, 11:18 a.m.

Are you sure that a series 80 with the Mass Storage ROM can't do it? The 9114 does respond to SS/80 commands (in addition to the Filbert commands), and it will work on a 110 or Portable+, so I would have expected it to work fine on a Series 80 with the Mass Storage ROM (since that works with other SS/80 disks).

But I've never actually tried it.

Eric,

IIRC The Mass storage ROM issues only Amigo protocol commands (ie 9121 floppy drives & some hard drives).

My understanding is that only the Extended Mass storage Rom can generate SS/80 commands.

Anyway, here in Fourqueux (next best place to live on Earth), my 9114 connected with Hp-IL does NOT respond to my 86B with EMS ROM.

Etienne

Edited: 9 July 2006, 1:00 p.m.

You're right, I meant EMS. It seems odd that it wouldn't work, but since you've actually tried it, I'll take your word for it.

To be more specific, I've connected the 86B + EMS Rom + Hp-IL to the 9114 in normal mode (ie. not in translator mode) and tried to INITIALIZE the floppy.

This is what didn't work.

I would love to be wrong because it would allow me to discard my bulky single sided 9121 for the elegant double-sided 9114.

Eric, are you sure that the 9114 is SS/80 compliant and not just Amigo?? I ask this question because, on my Hp-110+, I have a file named AMIGO.SYS in my B:\BIN Rom directory.

So I concluded, maybe hastily, that the Hp-110 could drive Amigo devices.

Eric or Vassilis, any hint on this ?

Greetings from Fourqueux.

Etienne

Edited: 9 July 2006, 6:25 p.m.

Quote:

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Using a 9114 or 9161 would imply writing the proper mass storage function in machine language and I'm not aware of any guru that could have attempted such a foolish project.

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It's a fact that the HP-IL interface for the 80 series lacks any mass storage functions. However, I believe I know of a guru that did write HP-IL mass storage functions in assembly language that might port over to the 80 series with less trouble than might be otherwise. I'm speaking of course of the routines in the HP-75 ROM. I know the architectures differ, but the CPUs are the same. Just a thought.

Regards,
Howard

The I/O functions are supposed to be interface-agnostic. Neither the HP-IB nor HP-IL interface modules provide any special functions for printers, yet both HP-IB and HP-IL printers work. The mass storage functions would be the same, except that there are no HP-IL Amigo mass storage devices. The EMS should also work (for SS/80 devices), but reportedly doesn't work over HP-IL.

Based on some HP-internal notes I've seen, and a partial disassembly of the 9114A firmware, I'm fairly certain that it supports SS/80 and not Amigo protocol.

Quote:

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in normal mode (ie. not in translator mode)

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With *what* in "normal mode"? You weren't trying to do this through an 82169A, were you?

I a 9114 was going to work on a Series-80 at all, I'd expect it to work with 82938A HP-IL interface plugged directly into the Series-80 machine.

Hi,

I am the "someone" who started all this by asking Mike about connecting an 9114B to an HP Series 80.

I tried CAT and INITIALIZE on my HP-87 with Mass Storage and EMS ROMs and the 9114A connected to the 82938A HP-IL Interface.

It didn't work giving me error 116 (not active listener).

I Know the loop worked because I added an HP-IL printer after the 9114A and I could print just fine on that one.

**vp

I used my 82938A in normal (ie active controller) mode. My typo/fault about the translator mode (I use it on my IL-IB interface).

After trying the mass storage functions without luck, I issued a STATUS statement.

The status register 7 indicates the correct number of auto-addressed Hp-IL peripherals on the loop - including the 9114.

And that's the best result I got.

Etienne

Edited: 10 July 2006, 3:15 a.m.

Eric,

Thank you very much for the SS/80 info! I'll try to find the reason for that Amigo file in my b:\BIN

Etienne.

Possibly the 110 and Portable Plus can support the Amigo versions of the 913x and 915x drives, and other Amigo drives. Although I owned a secondhand 110 for a few years, I never had the time to learn much about the innards.

Quote:

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The I/O functions are supposed to be interface-agnostic. Neither the HP-IB nor HP-IL interface modules provide any special functions for printers, yet both HP-IB and HP-IL printers work. The mass storage functions would be the same, except that there are no HP-IL Amigo mass storage devices. The EMS should also work (for SS/80 devices), but reportedly doesn't work over HP-IL.

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While the Series 80 I/O interfaces ARE "interface-agnostic" FOR THE MOST PART, in reality each type of I/O DOES have things that are unique to it, that can not be "generalized". In particular, the HP-IB has the need to assert the CMD line when sending device-specific commands to devices. ie, on HP-IB, you can differentiate between DATA being sent to a device and COMMANDS being sent to a device. On serial interfaces, for example, there's no such concept. The designers of the Series 80 system realized this need for "interface specific" I/O features, and there's a register in the I/O processor (CPU on the interface card) that is "card specific".

In working on my HP-85A emulator, to get the disk drive emulation working, I had to step through a BUNCH of the Mass Storage ROM (not the EMS ROM, so can't speak to it), and I KNOW that the Mass Storage ROM will ONLY talk to HP-IB cards, and uses this "interface specific" register to send commands to the Amigo disk drives. I SUSPECT that the EMS ROM also only talks to HP-IB cards and does similar things, but to talk to SS/80 disk drives. So far as I recall, the Series 80 never supported using disk drives on HP-IL interfaces (although I remember trying, at the time... :-)))

Everett Kaser