Turbo Pascal for HP-IL on the HP Portable Plus

[pamphonica]

My longer-term project is to get control of test equipment via HP-IL (and HPIB via an interface), using my nice HP Portable Plus.

In a thread last year (https://www.hpmuseum.org/forum/thread-15...table+plus ), about basic on the PP, Martin Hepperle also kindly provided a binary for Turbo Pascal. But I could not get it to run. It just hung.
Now I am returning to that project and wondered if anyone (including Martin) has any advice.
The ROM image is not designed to show on PAM, so if I examine the B:\TURBO30\ directory, it contains:
TURBO.EXE
TURBO.MSG
HPGRAF.COM
HP110.BMP
IMAGE.COM
EDISK.SYS
Running TURBO from the command prompt just hangs the machine completely (reset button required). My PP is configured to 512K/1024K.

Before I re-blow the EPROM, does anyone have this working on the PP rather than the 110 and can offer any advice?
thanks

[Dave Frederickson]

I seem to recall getting this to run, but I believe I had to increase the amount of main memory.

[Martin Hepperle]

The version provided by myself was 3.00A and I Dave provided a copy of 3.01A, as a direct copy of the EPROM sold by Hal Goldstein at the time.
See post #20.
The Personalized System EPROM contained a PAM.MNU file, which I did not include.
Both versions should work.

In my recent experiments with Turbo C and a large EDISK.SYS I noticed, that the Portable crashes/hangs when a program asks for more RAM that you have allocated. Sometimes it simply does funny things. That was more or less "standard behavior" in CP/M and MS-DOS days.
Therefore I start with a large RAM setting (512 K) and step by step decrease the RAM until a program behaves funny. Thus I can find out how much minimum RAM is required.

Martin

PS: I also have written a set of Pascal include files for accessing HP-IL as well as graphics on the Portable. See the attached notes.
[Edit: removed due to file space limit]

[Edit: added Pascal files]

[pamphonica]

I'm sorry if I am being thick, but I am pretty new to the Portable Plus, and am struggling.

I can't get the Turbo Pascal ROM software to run. J-F's EMU41 in 2 ROMs also hangs. Yet the HP Basic I blew from the ROM image that came from the HP museum thanks to Dave Fredrickson works fine. So do all the original ROMs (Lotus 123, Memomaker etc). I've tried putting the Turbo Pascal ROM in the same physical socket as the Basic was in, but that still hangs.

So, is there something special about where these ROMs sit in the ROM module, or am I missing something about how to blow these images from Martin and J-F? Or do I have some sort of fault?

If I want to run the earlier versions of Turbo Pascal referenced here: https://www.hpmuseum.org/forum/thread-15233.html? Post #20
What magic do I have to do to get these files into a binary form to blow an EPROM?

Sorry if this seems clueless, but I am struggling, despite a lot of searching on this forum and cannot even find the file I blew originally into my Turbo Pascal EPROM!
That was downloaded from Martin H's post here:
https://www.hpmuseum.org/forum/thread-15233.html? post #10.
But I cannot see a .bin file there when I check

So any help would be appreciated.

[rprosperi]

Yes, it DOES matter how you install the ROM chips into the drawer.

Get the manual "PortablePlusSoftwareModuleInstallation-5955-8631-10pages-Jan86.pdf" from the HP Computer Museum on this page:

http://www.hpmuseum.net/exhibit.php?hwdoc=49

It's easy to do, and once done you should have no problems, I use TP (I think 3.01 in my case) on the PP all the time w/o issues.

Good luck, and please report back your results.

[J-F Garnier]

(11-16-2021 07:00 PM)pamphonica Wrote:  I can't get the Turbo Pascal ROM software to run. J-F's EMU41 in 2 ROMs also hangs. Yet the HP Basic I blew from the ROM image that came from the HP museum thanks to Dave Fredrickson works fine.

Quote:The ROM image is not designed to show on PAM, so if I examine the B:\TURBO30\ directory, it contains:
TURBO.EXE
TURBO.MSG
HPGRAF.COM
HP110.BMP
IMAGE.COM
EDISK.SYS

So I understand that you can access the B: folders with Emu41 or Turbo3 and see the files there. This shows that the ROMs are correctly installed.

Just a small confirmation, which type of EPROM are you using?

J-F

[pamphonica]

(11-16-2021 08:47 PM)rprosperi Wrote:  Yes, it DOES matter how you install the ROM chips into the drawer.

Get the manual "PortablePlusSoftwareModuleInstallation-5955-8631-10pages-Jan86.pdf" from the HP Computer Museum on this page:

http://www.hpmuseum.net/exhibit.php?hwdoc=49

It's easy to do, and once done you should have no problems, I use TP (I think 3.01 in my case) on the PP all the time w/o issues.

Good luck, and please report back your results.

Bob, yes, thanks, I had already read that publication (and various others), so was fairly sure the ROMs were correctly in place. I attach a photo of the contents of my ROM drawer.

However, I read in the 110config.pdf document that only "full bank" ROM software in H/L ROM pairs can execute directly from ROM. I don't really understand why but it may have to do with interleaved instructions (H/L). I did try moving all the TP files from B: to a floppy drive and executing from there, but that hung as well.

But I may be getting somewhere. Although the ROMs are detected, the Software/Memory Drawer test detects all the ROMs but shows three as faulty. And those three are the ones I have been having problems with. So I'll blow a new set with a different programmer and try again.

So could you (Bob) and Martin please post again or point to the correct ROM binaries, so I'll know I am burning the right versions.

BTW, EPROM types are:
TurboPascal - MX 27C512DC-15
EMU41 - National NMC27C512AQ 200 & Signetic 27C512L-20(both)
I may try to find some in my stock with more recent manufacture dates, just in case.

Thanks for all this help, as ever!
   

[Martin Hepperle]

Does your EPROM burner software do a read test after burning?
Most should do that to verify that the contents of the EPRIOM was written correctly.

Some also have a test for an empty EPROM before burning to make sure the EPROM was successfully erased.

Martin

[pamphonica]

Yes, the Dataman S4 checks for empty and also verifies vs source after burning. The issue may be in the source file I used, or a fault in the data transfer to the burner, or maybe the EPROM verifies on the burner but doesn't like to voltage in the PP. Who knows? In any case, once I have confirmed what should be in there, I'll do a re-burn with another machine just in case.
I notice that the EDISK function is on the disk. Am I meant to make an EDISK before running PP?

[rprosperi]

(11-17-2021 05:18 PM)pamphonica Wrote:  Yes, the Dataman S4 checks for empty and also verifies vs source after burning. The issue may be in the source file I used, or a fault in the data transfer to the burner, or maybe the EPROM verifies on the burner but doesn't like to voltage in the PP. Who knows? In any case, once I have confirmed what should be in there, I'll do a re-burn with another machine just in case.
I notice that the EDISK function is on the disk. Am I meant to make an EDISK before running PP?

No need, it works fine as-is.

I use RAM setup as 384K / 1152K and TP works fine, at least for small files, I only dabble and have never made anything substantial. For me, getting it all to run is the fun, actually using it requires boredom levels I have not encountered yet.

All the programs in ROM appear to be on the "B:" drive and PAM scans each top=level folder looking for PAM.MNU files which it will use to integrate TP into the PAM shell.

Good luck

[Martin Hepperle]

PS: I added my Pascal routines and include files to my message above to keep it with the description text document.

Martin

[pamphonica]

Update.
Thanks to Bob Prosperi, I have received versions of TP 3.01 and 3.02.
I can report success with 3.02, which requires 2 EPROMs to run.
I used a new EPROM blower (TL866) which may have helped.
This re-assures me that the ROM drawer is working fine.
Now all I have to do is get my head round Pascal for the first time in 30+ years, I suspect!
I'll report back if/when I get 3.01 working as well.
Thanks all,