HP-71B and some (to me) interesting modules

[JanS]

I recently aquired an HP-71B in quite good condition "by accident" (I was buing a 48 from somebody dispensing with parts of their late fathers estate). The person selling the 48 had some other HP Hardware they were willing to add to the sale for very little over the price of the 48 and not really knowing what I was getting into, i closed that deal. So, the 71B in Question did not come with the HP Card reader (but a CMT Memory Module in it's place), a case, a power supply or anything other than what was plugged into it. Also, someone had the good notion of not leaving batteries in it, so no leakage !

Once home, I put fresh batteries into the machine and powered it up - That's when I got a little bit of a surprise:

   

I powered the machine back off, read up on the compendium and unplugged everything from the machine to document what i got:

This is what I found in the 4 front ports:

Corvallis 64K RAM Module
CMT71-64E Eprom Module
CMT71-32E Eprom Module
HP-71 Forth Assembler 5061-7234 (HP-82478A FORTH/Assembler ROM with Debugger)

   

On the back of the machine, I found:

HP-IL Interface 82401A
CMT Memory Module CR-128R

   

I don't really know what the W&W Software in those two EPROMS does, but for the time beeing, here's what I've been able to find out so far about the machine and it's different parts:

VER$ Output:
HP71:2CDCC HPIL:1B FTH:1A EDT:A KBD:B W&W:A CSTU:A CSTU:A EDT:A DATA:B

SHOW PORT Output:
0.05 16384 2
1 16384 2
2 65536 2
3 32768 2
0 4096 0
0.01 4096 0
0.02 4096 0
0.03 4096 0
4 32768 0
4.01 32768 0
5 32768 0
5.01 32768 0
5.02 32768 0
5.03 32768 0

As the memory modules in Ports 1 and 5 are RAM and have been without power for years and the Forth Rom in Port 4 is a known, i did not bother to look at them, however here is some more information for the two EPROM Modules present in Port 2 and 3:

I did a CAT:PORT(2) and this is the output of that command:

BABEIN BASIC 5080 10/09/89 18:17 2
BABDRUCK BASIC 7746 10/09/89 18:17 2
BABPVGL BASIC 9082 10/09/89 18:17 2
LFGEIN BASIC 2769 10/09/89 18:17 2
CAT BASIC 2583 10/09/89 18:17 2
LFGWOCHE BASIC 1057 10/09/89 18:17 2
LFGKBE BASIC 6848 10/09/89 18:17 2
LFGWOEIN BASIC 3955 10/09/89 18:17 2
LFGPLOT BASIC 4108 10/09/89 18:17 2
VKEIN BASIC 3820 10/09/89 18:18 2
VKQDRUCK BASIC 4554 10/09/89 18:18 2
VKMDRUCK BASIC 3566 10/09/89 18:18 2
VKJDRUCK BASIC 4073 10/09/89 18:18 2
LKT BASIC 1756 10/09/89 18:18 2
SICHERN BASIC 1109 10/09/89 18:18 2

I did a CAT:PORT(3) as well and here is the output of that command:

WUWROM1L E LEX 10822 10/09/89 17:22 3
KABULEX LEX 9382 10/09/89 17:22 3
EDTEXT BASIC 6790 10/09/89 17:22 3
EDKEYS KEY 54 10/09/89 17:22 3
INDEX2 BASIC 1838 10/09/89 17:22 3
SODI BASIC 1670 10/09/89 17:22 3
UPRI LEX 105 10/09/89 17:22 3
PRINT BASIC 1424 10/09/89 17:22 3

So, naturally the W&W EPROMS have me interested. I'm in the process of aquiring a PIL-Box from Jean-François (if still available - I just emailed him today) to interface with one of my PCs for the purpose of learning and having something new to play with something old (and possibly preserving the ROMs along the way as suggested by Bob Prosperi).
I've also emailed Wilfried Kötz, who I believe is the (former?) owner of W&W to see what he has to say about these ROMs.

I also did disassemble the CMT Memory Module that was in the card reader port to check it's battery - no joy - so I need to find a replacement cell, some new heat shrink to seal the new cell once I get it soldered into place and some time to actually do the work....

   

I guess for the 64K RAM Module in Port 1 there are no replacement batteries to be found (at least according to some of the forum entries here on the site - or has someone managed to find out a solution to that problem ?) - so I guess the PIL-Box becomes even more important if I decide to play around with the 71B for any length of time as the main batteries will at some point run dry and then whatever is in that RAM Module will be lost AFAIK. Not an issue at the moment though, because there is nothing there to begin with.

This about wraps up what I know about the machine that I lucked into.

Here is another pictures of the CMT Memory Module from the card reader slot:

Module Open:
   

Once I learn more about this machine and make progress with getting it hooked up to my PC, I'll post an update here. In the meantime:
Stay healthy and keep calculating,
Jan