HP-71B HP-il device operation in loop.

[John LaRock]

I've tried to searched the museum site and the CD set and have been unable to find information of how to write data to the digital cassette drive from the HP-71B. Would someone advise please? I have the cassette manual, and it doesn't seem to cover the subject, which I can't believe.... Is it part of the IL guide specifically for teh 71B? I do have the HP-IL installed in the 71, and the manual for the 41 IL, but the operation for the 41 doesn't seem applicable to the 71... The device works fine with the 41, so it leads me to believe it is totally the operator in ability to function in the 71 society!! The IL on the 71 is working as it seems to interfaces with the printer. Any suggestion on where the operators manual may exist? Might I impose on the HP guru's for advise and tutorage? Sure appreciate any and all assistance..
Thanks to all,
John

[Raymond Del Tondo]

Hello,

AFAIK the HP-IL interface manual covers how to send and receive data from the tape drive.
It's more than 15 years ago since I wrote a little file manager for the tpae drive, and I don't have the sources here...
But as I recall, you could use SEND for most things related to loop/drive control.

Something like
SEND DDL 7
to rewind the tape, etc...

Regards,

Raymond

[Tony Duell]

There is a special HPIL manual for the HP71. It's the 'HP-IL Interface Owner's Manual for the HP-71'. The one I have here is part number 82401-90001
Section 3 of this manual covers 'Mass Storage Operatios', which includes things like the tape drive (I can confirm that the 82161 tape drive will work with an HP71).
But here's a little information to get started. To format the tape (equivalent to NEWM on the HP41), you use the INITIALIZE command. Soething like INITIALISE MYTAPE:MASSMEM. The 'MYTAPE' is the volume name (and is optional), the 'MASSMEM' specifies the device you want to use -- in this case the first (or only) MASS MEMory device on the loop.
An HP41 formatted tape is fine too, and you can use the same tape to store files from both the th HP41 and the HP71 (and an HP75 if you have one of those). Now, suppose you have a program in memory called 'GAME1' that you want to save to tape under the name 'TTT'. Just type
COPY GAME1 TO TTT:MASSMEM (this is roughly the equivalent of the WRTP command on the HP41, except that it works with all types of files (text, data, sdata, basic, etc, not just basic programs).
To load the program back in again, you just use the COPY command again :
COPY TTT:MASSMEM TO PROG will load the program back in and call it 'PROG'. To see what's on the tape (the equivalent of DIR on the HP41), use CAT :MASSMEM .
There are a lot of other commands, of course, but that should get you started. Actaully, a lot of the cammands are the obvious extensions of the HP71's RAM filesystem commands.

[John LaRock]

Thank you gentlemen for your assistance and to Wayne for sending me his .TIF of the quick reference card... I'll piece the rest together it think... I was checking further on Dave's CD set and he has manual for the Dual IL-loop which is the 82402A.. I have the 82401A which is listed as the HP-IL Interface... Any idea what the difference is except that it has 2 sets of ports for in/out.. I wonder if the operation is the same... Time to play, I guess... Thanks, and sounds like this may be a subject to be explored further and posted...

[Tony Duell]

The double HPIL adapter is just a few connectors wired together to allow you to plug 2 HPIL modules (82401) into a single HP71. You can then have the HP71 as a device on one loop (say), and a controller on the other.
So you could monitor bytes flowing rounda loop from another controller (sort of like the SCOPE function of the HP41 DevIL ROM) and print the results to an HPIL printer on the other loop (where the HP71 is controller).
IIRC, the standard HP71 ROM firmware can correctly handle 3 IL modules, but if you manage to plug in more IL modules (up to a total of 16, I think), it'll only let you access the first 3 using the standard software, but it will respond to commands sent by other machines on any of the loops.
Needless to say, therefore, the commands used with the double adapter are very similar to those used for a single HPIL module, and the manual for the double adapter does _not_ (AFAIK) give all the commands -- it assumes you have the normal HPIL manual (which you would have if you'd bought it all new from HP -- you'd have to buy the adapter and 2 HPIL modules, and both of the latter would come with manuals).