Using PC as a emulated hard drive or floppy disk

[hgnhnnyt]

I have another question is it possible to connect my pc to my hp-150 with a usb to db25 connector through the parallel port on the hp-150 and if so what emulator would i need to use. And what specific cable do i need. Like null modem or straight i think it would just be a straight rs232 db25. I'm trying to do something like this https://www.hp9845.net/9845/projects/hpdrive/ but with the parallel card on the hp-150 and not gpib.

[Martin Hepperle]

There are solutions for the PC which connect a disk emulator with a CF card to the parallel port.
As far as I know they are relatively slow.
To adapt this solution you have to write a device driver for MS-DOS for the HP-150 which creates a disk drive device and redirects all read and write request through the HP hardware to this parallel port device.
Instead of using such a hardware plug-in device you could also write an emulator for the PC and connect the two systems via cable.

So you need two pieces of software: a device driver for the HP-150 and a disk emulator for the PC. As a classical parallel port like on the HP-150 plug-in card has only about 4 control lines available for the return path (I am not sure whether this card could be used bidirectional - look at Tony Duell's schematics), you have to break bytes into nibbles so that the control lines (like paper out, acknowledge) can be used to return any data from the drive emulator.

In total, I don't think that the result will make you very happy. It is probably much better to use the HPDRIVE solution on HP-IB for this purpose.

The parallel port extension board of the HP-150 is not very well integrated into the system and requires additional software to operate. It looks more like an afterthought, developed on customer request.

Martin

[KeithB]

I think a relatively high powered MCU - like the TI MSPM0G3507 launchpad - might work better. Much closer to the hardware and no pesky OS to get out of the way.

[hgnhnnyt]

(05-09-2024 08:01 AM)Martin Hepperle Wrote:  There are solutions for the PC which connect a disk emulator with a CF card to the parallel port.
As far as I know they are relatively slow.
To adapt this solution you have to write a device driver for MS-DOS for the HP-150 which creates a disk drive device and redirects all read and write request through the HP hardware to this parallel port device.
Instead of using such a hardware plug-in device you could also write an emulator for the PC and connect the two systems via cable.

So you need two pieces of software: a device driver for the HP-150 and a disk emulator for the PC. As a classical parallel port like on the HP-150 plug-in card has only about 4 control lines available for the return path (I am not sure whether this card could be used bidirectional - look at Tony Duell's schematics), you have to break bytes into nibbles so that the control lines (like paper out, acknowledge) can be used to return any data from the drive emulator.

In total, I don't think that the result will make you very happy. It is probably much better to use the HPDRIVE solution on HP-IB for this purpose.

The parallel port extension board of the HP-150 is not very well integrated into the system and requires additional software to operate. It looks more like an afterthought, developed on customer request.

Martin

Is there a cheap way or diy way of getting a HP-IB adapter I was trying to work around it since I have a laptop and don't like tower computers so getting a pci card wont work. The adapters ive seen are hundreds and some were a few thousand.

[KeithB]

B&K has one for $229

Prologix has one cheaper.

The problem is how compatible the libraries are.

[hgnhnnyt]

(05-10-2024 03:00 PM)KeithB Wrote:  B&K has one for $229

Prologix has one cheaper.

The problem is how compatible the libraries are.

what about this? https://github.com/xyphro/UsbGpib or not it.

[Martin Hepperle]

For HPDRIVE, you could use either a PCI or an ISA bus HPIB card (with the required HPIB chip).
A used PCI card should cost not more than $50 on Ebay - most sellers ask too much.
My ISA cards were about $10-$25 per card.
Some ThinClients have a single PCI slot so that one can build a fairly small HPDRIVE server.

Besides that, there are solutions like HP85Disk, which might also work for the HP-150.
However, these are out of stock (https://www.tindie.com/products/hp85disk...computers/).
And then, there is HPDisk (http://www.dalton.ax/hpdisk/), which might also work for the HP-150. I would recommend to contact the developer, before buying to make sure.

Martin