HP 85A. GET and SAVE commands.

[inaki]

Hi.
I am looking for a way to transfer files to my HP85A from my PC using the HP85 RS232 interface. Apparently I need the commands GET and SAVE to convert files between ASCII and tokenized modes. I read somewhere I could get them by using EDISK plus Extended Mass Storage modules. It seems the module EDISK provides these two commands. As these ROMs only exist for HP85B I downlaoded the ROMs from "1980s Vintage Computers" site. I have burned them to two EPROM modules. But when I start the system I get the error "Error 21: Missing ROM Module". If I ignore the error and go ahead, the system seems to recognize the command "SAVE" by displaying the message "Saving is in progress" but then the machine restarts itself and shows again the error 21 shown above. Does this have any meaning to anyone? By the way, is there any other way to have GET/SAVE commands?.

Inaki.

[Patrice]

Did you set the switches in the ROM emulation module ?

From memory, it should be easier to use IO ROM and redirect serial input to keyboard.

Otherwise, there is windows software to read/write on floppy disks
The HPDir Project and a long time ago, I used an Agilent utility called LIFUTIL.

Edited: 3 June 2013, 4:27 a.m.

[Paul Berger (Canada)]

I don't think you need the extended mass storage to get these commands, the EMS ROM is just to support SS/80 protocol. The GET and SAVE commands seem to be part of the base commend set for the 85B and the EMS ROM was optional. The 85B had built in the Mass storage ROM and the Edisk ROM, and I suspect that they are the ones you need. If you have the Edisk and EMS ROMs installed, but don't have the 85B version of the Mass storage ROM that is likely what it is complaining about. The 85B version of mass storage is required for the Edisk and EMS ROMs. This is what lead me to design my first EPROM card, in my case I wanted to be able to access my SS/80 diskette unit. I took a quick look at the ROM images, GET and SAVE are part of the Edisk ROM so what you need is 85B version of the Mass Storage ROM and the 85B Edisk ROM. For the switch setting if you are looking at John Shadbolt's ROM list the ROM number are of course in decimal and the switch setting are binary the Edisk is not listed but it is on one higher than the mass storage or 11010001

[inaki]

I have replaced the EMS module by MS and now it works! :-)

However, sometimes, when I use the GET command to retrieve a file saved with SAVE, I get the error: "ERROR 126 MSUS". If I retry the command I get the usual "DONE" indicator and I can see the listing is loaded fine. Do you know what does this error mean ?

Thanks for your help!!

[Paul Berger (Canada)]

ERROR 126 MSUS "The specified mass storage unit specifier is invalid"

The usual format being ":Dsau" of "filename:Dsau" where s is the select code of the HPIB adapter, a is the address of the target device, and u is the unit number in the target device. For instance I have a 9122C dual diskette unit at address 0 and my 86B's built in HPIB adapter uses select code 7 so if I wanted to list the files on a diskette in the first drive the command would be CAT ":D700" and if I wanted to copy a file from the first drive to the second one the command would be COPY "fname:D700" to "fname:D701"

[inaki]

I am using the built in tape. Do i need to specify the format in this case?. Perhaps when I restart the system, the default configuration for GET command points to the wrong interface?

[Paul Berger (Canada)]

I have never used the internal tape drive in my 85A so I don't know off the top of my head, I would suggest you refer to the 85B manual. The 85B Owners Manual is on the DVDs available from this site.