Arduino Board as HP-IL device?

[Dave Frederickson]

(07-22-2019 02:29 PM)Artur - Brasil Wrote:  Hi, guys!

I was thinking about such ideas on HP-IL storage devices, as I can't be confident on my cassette recorder and cassettes themselves actually.

But my direction would be other than you are trying. I would use or the cassette recorder or, even better, the card reader for interfacing with some Arduino board (Arduino nano???), as both accessories already translate all electric signals to digital ones and send them to their processors and this to storage media (circuits, motors, heads, etc).
So, I believe we should intercept the processor signals to store, read and deal with internal controls (timing, wait, read, write, etc).
The hardware is ready - well, at least the first half !!
Does anyone would like to work on such thread with me?

Best regards
Artur

Portable mass storage has already been done.

https://www.hpmuseum.org/forum/thread-10...l#pid18204

[Artur - Brasil]

Quote:Portable mass storage has already been done.
https://www.hpmuseum.org/forum/thread-10...l#pid18204

Yes, I know, but or they are too expensive or they need another hardware for support them.

[Martin Hepperle]

(09-02-2014 05:27 PM)charger73 Wrote:  Hi all

Software Update:
It is now possible to select any LIF container file on the SD Card with
the controler (HP41 or HP71) by name - so, there is now full flexible access :-)
A catalog function of all LIF files is already there.

Please contact me, if you like a copy of the new software.

I will check now to integrate a TFT touch display... there are displays with an integrated SD Card reader on it. Perhaps I can show
something in Allschwil..

Best regards
Tobie

Revisiting this thread after a long time: what is the status of this solution?
Was there any additional development and are the sources and documents up-to-date?

I was considering to build a simple mass storage solution for my HP Portable Plus in case my 9114 starts to fail.

I would prefer combining the PIL-Box part and the Arduino firmware into a single micro-controller (Arduino PIC, STM, ESP).

Martin

[Jurgen Keller]

(08-06-2020 11:04 AM)Martin Hepperle Wrote:  

(09-02-2014 05:27 PM)charger73 Wrote:  Hi all

Software Update:
It is now possible to select any LIF container file on the SD Card with
the controler (HP41 or HP71) by name - so, there is now full flexible access :-)
A catalog function of all LIF files is already there.

Please contact me, if you like a copy of the new software.

I will check now to integrate a TFT touch display... there are displays with an integrated SD Card reader on it. Perhaps I can show
something in Allschwil..

Best regards
Tobie

Revisiting this thread after a long time: what is the status of this solution?
Was there any additional development and are the sources and documents up-to-date?

I was considering to build a simple mass storage solution for my HP Portable Plus in case my 9114 starts to fail.

I would prefer combining the PIL-Box part and the Arduino firmware into a single micro-controller (Arduino PIC, STM, ESP).

Martin

Hi Martin,

I just dropped a mail to Tobie, maybe he has missed your question ...

Best regards,
Jürgen

[Sylvain Cote]

Hello Tobie,
I am building two Arduino-IL-Drive units.
I have received the Arduino boards and waiting for the PIL-Box to become available again to complete this project.
From the source code analysis that I did, it is currently compatible with PIL-Box version 1.6 firmware. (9.6Kbps & 115.2Kbps)
I did some tests with Serial1 port and I was able to successfully transmit at 230Kbps.
This means that with minor modification of the Arduino source code I should be able to use PIL-Box v2.1 firmware.
What is the product number of the box you used ?
Regards,
Sylvain

[charger73]

Hi Sylvain

My last Arduino drive I build, was with the PIL Version 1.5.
So, I have no experience with the Version 2.x

Since about 6 years, there was no development on this project from my site

Best Regards
Tobie

[Klaus Overhage]

Hello Sylvain,

please look at the pictures in my thread "Arduino IL Drive Sim read good write bad"
https://www.hpmuseum.org/forum/thread-14041.html

I use PILBox 2.1. Jean-Francois send it to me in october 2019 with this information:

"Your PIL-IO board kit with PIL-Box MCU has been shipped yesterday.
Assemble it as a standard PIL-IO board.
Then, since it uses the PIL-Box firmware, a jumper (provided) must be installed on JP2 to set the com speed to 115kbps."

Regards
Klaus

[Sylvain Cote]

Hello Klaus,
I am at work right now (EDT GMT-4h).
I did a fast diagonal read and it looks very interesting.
Thank you very much for the information.
Regards,
Sylvain

[floppy]

(04-02-2014 08:49 PM)Jurgen Keller Wrote:  I don't know much about electronics, however, as you can implement nearly anything with an Arduino board I'm wondering if you can also make one acting as a HP-IL device. I see two basic variants:

1. An Arduino board with an USBSerial adapter and a PIL-Box; this seems to be the easier variant as the IL signal processing is already done inside the PIL-Box.
2. An Arduino board which connects directly to an IL interface through the analog pins on the board. Not sure if this is really possible but there are analogRead/Write functions that might be used to read/write the IL signal.
   

The Arduino board might be battery powered. Therefore, you would have a small battery powered device which might, for example, serve as an HP-IL mass storage device. The benefits I see are:

• you don't need to startup your computer to save/load some programs to your IL capable HP calculator
• you could easily exchange programs on SD cards
• it might be quite a mobile solution to take with you
• it might be a path to many other exciting applications
• ...
  

Anyone who can assess this idea? Is it possible to implement that with "reasonable" efforts?

So far, I am using a raspberry PI4 (not arduino; however, small size). On the ToDo list is now to make it headless (prio C for me); however, a terminal output is good.