HP 82161A - SD card drive?

[Paul Berger (Canada)]

Sure you can use the 1LB3 chip inside to interface to the HPIL loop they are well documented, and pretty easy to understand, HP even publish a guide to writing code to manage the HPIL interface.

I have started down the path of writing code to manage a HPIL connection through a 1LB3 but I am using an ancient microprocessor because I have them and they interest me, I am sure the coding would be simpler with something like an Arduino but I have never used one so I don't know for sure.

Because the interface between the 1LB3 and its host is a 8 bit parallel interface, switching between the existing tape control hardware, which is based on a mask programmed microcontroller, and your new microcontroller with code to drive the SD card would be at best difficult. It is possible to have multiple units inside a single HPIL device however this is normally done by having one controller run everything. I suppose if you really wanted to preserve the tape function you could have your new controller emulate the 1LB3 when talking to the tape drives embedded controller. This would of course entail some cutting and hacking inside the tape drive.