HP 9836 Resources
Allan Ayres
I'm a computer professional and hobbyist. After a recent down-sizing, I
was able to purchase an HP 9836 desktop computer from my company.
Unfortunately, all software (except a seismic application written in
HPL?) and documentation have been lost.
Can anyone suggest a source of systems software and other reference
materials for the 9836? Does HP support this system any longer? (I
searched HP's web site, and the only match for 9836 were a couple of
phone numbers.)
Any assistance is appreciated. Thanks.
Allan Ayres
ayr...@cadvision.com
Stan Bischof
Allan Ayres (ayr...@cadvision.com) wrote:
: I'm a computer professional and hobbyist. After a recent down-sizing, I
: was able to purchase an HP 9836 desktop computer from my company.
: Unfortunately, all software (except a seismic application written in
: HPL?) and documentation have been lost.
Was a very nice machine, particularly if you have the "C" (color) version.
Still is fine for instrument control.
Has been knwon by various names over the years- look for "9000/200"
"Series 200", "9000/236" etc.
OS's included HPL (a very terse but extremely efficient language/OS)
, PAWS (Pascal Workstation), RMB (Basic workstaion), and if you have the
right version ("U"?) even an early flavor of HPUX.
: Can anyone suggest a source of systems software and other reference
: materials for the 9836? Does HP support this system any longer? (I
: searched HP's web site, and the only match for 9836 were a couple of
: phone numbers.)
Latest/greatest Basic Workstation from HP should still work on this
unless we finally obsoleted its support. If so then there's quite a
bit of software out there if you can find it.
Also latest PAWS from HP should run just fine.
HPL is (or at least was) available still from a third party, though
the name escapes me.
--
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Stan Bischof Hewlett Packard Company 707-577-3994 st...@sr.hp.com
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Tom Lane
st...@sr.hp.com (Stan Bischof) writes:
> Latest/greatest Basic Workstation from HP should still work on this
> unless we finally obsoleted its support.
Basic 6.21 and PAWS 3.25 work fine on mine. Haven't tried Basic 7.*.
> HPL is (or at least was) available still from a third party, though
> the name escapes me.
Still is.
Structured Software Systems, Mount Holly, NJ. 609-267-1616.
regards, tom lane
excuse the blatant plug...
Tom Lane
st...@sr.hp.com (Stan Bischof) writes:
> Tom Lane (t...@netcom.com) wrote:
> : > HPL is (or at least was) available still from a third party, though
> : > the name escapes me.
> : Still is.
> : Structured Software Systems, Mount Holly, NJ. 609-267-1616.
> So how many platforms have you folks ported HPL to? It was fast back
> on 200's- must really fly on a 700 or Pentium!
It runs on everything in the Series 200/300 line (except we skipped the
237 because of its incompatible-with-everything-else video hardware).
There's also a version for the BLP ("Measurement Coprocessor") plugin
cards for PCs.
95% of the OS is 68k assembler, so porting it to any other architecture
doesn't look real practical. (Yes, I know Bob Hallissy and a couple
other guys translated the original 9825 code to 68k. But the market's
not there anymore to support that kind of heroism.)
> Guess I'll always have a little soft spot for HPL, after writing tens of
> thousands of lines of code.
Me too, but you gotta admit it's pretty old tech anymore...
regards, tom lane
Stan Bischof
Tom Lane (t...@netcom.com) wrote:
: > HPL is (or at least was) available still from a third party, though
: > the name escapes me.
: Still is.
: Structured Software Systems, Mount Holly, NJ. 609-267-1616.
: regards, tom lane
: excuse the blatant plug...
So how many platforms have you folks ported HPL to? It was fast back
on 200's- must really fly on a 700 or Pentium!
Guess I'll always have a little soft spot for HPL, after writing tens of
thousands of lines of code. Was neat to be able to write self-modifying
code, code that could print itself out and insert documentation as needed, etc.
Stan Bischof
st...@sr.hp.com