HPIB & Disk Emulator

[hp87leo]

Hi guys! I'm new to HP computers & calculators and will soon be a proud owner of a HP 87xm.


I have also a CP/M cartridge and a thinkjet printer along with the HPIB cable. I was wondering if someone could help me out as I am looking for more information on a GPIB / HPIB disk emulator for the HP 87xm so I can use my CP/M cartridge - where would I be able to buy one? Any tips on how to get it set up with disk images?

Thanks!

[Dave Frederickson]

Check out hpseries80@groups.io. There are two possible products.

The first is the HP85Disk which is an HP-IB device.
https://groups.io/g/hpseries80/topic/hp8...0,74521587

Contact Mike Gore or Jay Hamlin. Mike can be contacted through this forum.
https://www.hpmuseum.org/forum/user-7170.html

Second is the Solid State Tape Drive which sort of combines the HP85Disk and the PRM-85 ROM Emulator and plugs into the backplane. I don't know the current state of this project.
https://groups.io/g/hpseries80/message/5127

Dave

[smp]

I have one of the HP85Disk units, and I love it.
I can also report that it works well with the CP/M cartridge, if you have the required boot disk image.

smp

[Dave Frederickson]

(03-30-2021 04:30 PM)smp Wrote:  I have one of the HP85Disk units, and I love it.
I can also report that it works well with the CP/M cartridge, if you have the required boot disk image.

smp

Speaking of disc images, Everett Kaser's HP-85/85B/87 emulator contains a good-sized library of images.
https://www.kaser.com/hp85.html

[mfleming]

There's also a disk emulator using an SD card that I first found out about via an article in Elektor magazine

https://www.elektormagazine.com/labs/hpd...-computers

The author of the board has more details on his site and also sells the bare board plus an RTC add-on board, both priced in Euro.

http://www.dalton.ax/hpdisk/

I'm not a big fan of the TQFP package used, since it's difficult to solder by hand. I can't really tell if this is the same as the aforementioned HP85Disk unit - don't think so.

[Dave Frederickson]

(03-30-2021 06:55 PM)mfleming Wrote:  I can't really tell if this is the same as the aforementioned HP85Disk unit - don't think so.

No, that's the emulator by Anders Gustafsson. It's referenced in the HP85Disk documentation.
https://github.com/magore/hp85disk

[cruff]

The HP85Disk and its SD card makes it real easy to download the disk images from the net and make them available for your 85 or 87 without needing to find old equipment capable of writing floppy disks.

[mfleming]

(03-30-2021 11:21 PM)cruff Wrote:  The HP85Disk and its SD card makes it real easy to download the disk images from the net and make them available for your 85 or 87 without needing to find old equipment capable of writing floppy disks.

And I bet it's a lot quieter too!

[Martin Hepperle]

If you have a PC with PCI or even ISA slots, there is also the HPDRIVE software emulator by Ansgar Kückes. This software solution requires a HP-IB card and no additional specific hardware.
It can also be used with a small PC (ThinClient) with Windows 98, XP, 2000 as long as it has a PCI slot. See https://www.hp9845.net/9845/projects/hpdrive/.

Martin

[Dave Frederickson]

(03-30-2021 02:59 PM)Dave Frederickson Wrote:  Second is the Solid State Tape Drive which sort of combines the HP85Disk and the PRM-85 ROM Emulator and plugs into the backplane. I don't know the current state of this project.
https://groups.io/g/hpseries80/message/5127

Here's a recent update on the EBTKS project.
https://groups.io/g/hpseries80/message/5534

[mfleming]

Awesome project! Awesome work by these three as well. Now where is that "Shut up and take my money!" meme?