I saw the HP-85 presentation at the HHC 2013 conference and bought one from Larry Atherton of La-Tech-Renewal. It works great and is fun to use. I remember when I bought my first 41C there was an 85A but I could never afford it on my military salary. I wanted one so bad. I could barely afford the 41!
So now I have an 85A. I also acquired from Larry an HP 82901M 5 1/4" dual-disk floppy drives along with an HP-IB I/F and Mass Storage ROM. It all works great.
So, how do I get programs from the Internet and onto the 85A? Do I need to use Lif2DOS or LIFUTIL programs? Then I would need an old PC with 5 1/4 floppy drives. Is there another way?
I also want to get the HP 82938A HP-IL interface so I can use my IL peripherals like my 9114B 3 1/2" disk drives. But I understand that an HP-85 can talk to a 9114 only if it has the Extended Mass Storage ROM which is only available for the 86 and 87. The HP 82901M uses the Amigo protocol over HP-IB and the 9114 uses the SS-80 protocol. That's what I love about standards, there are so many to choose from! I wonder if an HP-IL to HP-IB on the 41C loop would make a difference?
Anyway, if you have any suggestions to ease my headache, I would appreciate it.
Gerry