HP97 The journey begins

[teenix]

Hi all,

After days of playing around with modern PCB design software I have come to the conclusion that the automation has well overtaken manual methods, and I am sure it is good in many ways, but for an old bloke like me used to doing things a certain way, it will be a hard grind to go down that path. Just so complicated to use even for what I think should be simple tasks.

Anyway, I ended up finding an old laptop in good condition that was really cheap. I have file copies of the old design software and transferred that to the new PC. I tried running the schematic and it groaned about missing DLLs which led me to a few groans of my own. I tracked the listed offender down on the internet and it then groaned about missing another which I could not find any reference to.

I tried the PCB designer and it started ok, but unfortunately, I forgot that it needs multiple passwords to activate. Luckily I have a bitmap screen shot of the original install window (which was legitimate software in its day). I also found the original readme file which has a list of the install files and it listed about 10 DLLs, so I thought finally I've run into the brick wall.

I noticed on the acquired laptop power supply that you can change the output voltage. My old seemingly dead laptop works on 15V, and most others I've seen work on 19V. This supply has both. Ok, I'll try this supply on my old PC. Murphy is still there as the plug was a larger size. Slumped shoulders again. I then found a DC socket in my junk box and the plug fitted, so a bit of soldering and verify the polarity, I plugged it into the old PC and what do you know, it sprang back to life. Great, it seems the old power supply died. Why it never ran on the temporary supply I'll never know. I can now copy the DLLs and back them up.

I turned on my new WIN 10 machine with my backup disc and an unhappy Windows face appeared and said a problem occurred and it shut down. It would then not power up at all. You've got to be kidding. I think Murphy is embedded in my finger tips, everything I touch seems to stop. Cup of tea time.

I copied the required DLLs to the laptop I just got and all the software sprang into life. So now I have 2 machines running the software properly. My older Win7 machine has WinPro running which has a Windows VM for XP mode. I haven't tried but I think it will work there too now that I have all the files restored. The screen died ages ago but works with HDMI.

After I finished my cuppa, the Win10 machine decided to come back to life after holding down the power button for a lengthy time.

A long sorry tale, but in the end, I can now try to finish the 97 design and hopefully it will be the last change.

cheers

Tony