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Vintage HP computer systems

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43 pointsoptimalsolver12 comments

We had an HP-150 in 1983, it felt like the future. 3.5” floppy, touch screen. Incredible.

Unfortunately it was a loaner from HP and Dad had to give it back eventually.

Here’s their launch video: https://youtu.be/VrlY-aPOW7E

Aside from the fact that this presenter and presentation is almost a stereotype of mac vs pc, it is interesting to see how touch was used. There are elements that now look very familiar — PAM being much like the Home Screen of smart phones, selecting text, direct manipulation of individual elements... but of course it would have been a not super great touch experience in both technical capacity to recognize the touch, inability to drag (?), and most importantly, gravity working against you here. The mouse would soon replace their vision for touch and fix all these fundamental problems. Still cool to see what they thought was important then: business.

The HP2000/HP3000 is where where I cut my teeth on developing on a timeshare system in the mid 80s. Great systems and they set my expectations for what computing should be at an early age.

I learned BASIC on an HP3000 circa 1975 or so.

Same. My high school had a "computer lab" which had a teletype with a paper tape punch that communicated over a modem to a local community college. Definitely not the norm at the time for a high school.

Same, in junior high school around 1980 (we had some DECWriters and a Hazeltine terminal connected to an HP2000 somewhere). Kids played HP BASIC Star Trek:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Trek_(1971_video_game)

I remember my first program was a slot machine- so I learned about generating random integers within a desired range.

I own a number of prices of vintage/retro HP hardware including stuff that was from specific divisions (Agilent, IDACOM). I ended up having a number of questions on these things and I’m also in need of missing software. I wonder if these sort of things are on topic here, even though information on them outside the documentation I currently have is a log shot either way.

Caused me to search for "IDACOM". The PT500 protocol tester is pretty neat. A color screen luggable with seven separate MC68k processors, all running FORTH. And pretty cheap ($120+shipping) for a used one. https://www.ebay.com/itm/HP-Idacom-PT500-Protocol-Tester-E40...

Here's the guts: https://imgur.com/a/tz0Y4BZ

Looks like a MVME bus system.

That was incredibly fascinating. Loved the keyboard.

That’s exactly what I have :).

Got a really good deal on one with the original carrying case manuals and a lot of the software although I’m missing a few disks that I want in particular. It also has a CGA video out I’m trying to get converted to something like VGA.

There’s a company that exists supposedly full of former engineers for the company providing support. Or at least I should say a website for a company. I tried reaching out to them to get some information on the missing software but unfortunately didn’t hear back. I wouldn’t be shocked if it’s abandoned but I would have imagined their domain / hosting expired in that case.

I also made some minor progress on reverse engineering the file system used on the floppy disks but haven’t done much in a while.

Here's a HP 4951C I had on loan until recently: https://smcleod.net/tech/2017/12/27/hp-4951/

Thanks for the link. I still have two old hp9000s.

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