HP 712/60 to HP 16505A - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / testgear

author: sevarre
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: October 01, 2021, 05:14:21 pm
content: I’ve read a lot about how the HP 16505A prototype analyzer is just an HP 712/60,80,100 workstation that runs software to interface with the 16500B/C Logic Analysis systems.My question is how similar are the 712 and 16505A? Could a generic 712/60 be converted to a 16505A, potentially by swapping an HDD and ROM from a 16505A to 712? Or are there further hardware differences. Ideally it would be nice to be able to install 16505A system via some initial install media, but it seems no one has ever come by this “re-ignite” media for the 16505A.If anyone has more info on this, or maybe a disk image of a 16505A HDD and/or ROM, I would appreciate it! I have a 712/60 and 16500B with the 16500H card and would be interested in trying to get the 712 to function as a 16505A.

author: PaulAm
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: October 01, 2021, 07:30:21 pm
content: Get a 712 workstation along with either a 16500B or a 16500C. Connect the two with a scsi cable, add the software and you're good to go.The software used to be available on the Keysight web site, but I haven't looked in a few years.Given the current prices, it's much more practical to get a 16700 series which is essentially the same thing in a single box. It also supports most of the same blades as the 1500. The licenses for all the software products are available as well.The 712s are limited in terms of memory and clock speed (I think 32MB and 100MHz, but it's been a while). The problem is the software load includes the OS and will not run on faster/later boxes. You might be able to tease things apart a bit and pull out the app from the software load and put it on another PA-Risc 1.0 system that's bigger/faster/etc, but that would take some effort.In any event, I did assemble an 16505a, then bought a 16700 and never turned the 16505a on again.If you wanted to rewrite the software you could probably do that. I was teasing apart the scsi command set that the 712 used to talk to the 16500, so I think that is possible, but other stuff pushed that off the table.Edit: Well, well, never throw anything away. I have a zip file with 2 disk images of a 16505a. One of them has the last version of the software along with demo licenses for the tools good for 21 days. I suspect the key generator in the 16700 code would probably work for extending that, but who knows. It's about 145M total. Let me know how to get it to you.

author: DiTBho
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 01, 2021, 07:35:52 pm
content: Quote from: PaulAm on October 01, 2021, 07:30:21 pmProprietary ram modules, the 712/100 can address up to 96MB of ram. Both 712/60 and 712/80 can only address 64 MB of ram.

author: sevarre
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: October 02, 2021, 12:37:25 am
content: PaulAm, thanks so much for the reply. That is very useful info. And yes, 16700 option definitely seems better, but I have the 16500B and 720/60 lying around and thought it would be better to try and use them than get another piece of gear… however, I am sure it is only inevitable, ahahah.That is great news about the zip files- I would greatly appreciate it! I will PM you and update thread on any interesting details/roadblocks to installation/usage.

author: gslick
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: October 02, 2021, 01:08:48 am
content: From a hardware point of view an HP 16505A is exactly the same thing as an HP 712/60, 712/80, or 712/100 workstation, except for the product label on the front, and the 16505A comes standard with a floppy drive while it is optional on the 712 workstation.The 712/60 and 712/80 have four SIMM slots and support up to 128MB of main memory using A2575-60001 32MB SIMMs, while the 712/100 has six SIMM slots and supports up to 192MB of main memory.[For comparison, the 16700A/16702A have either 64MB or 160MB (with Opt 003) of main memory, while the 16700B/16702B have either 128MB or 256MB (with Opt 003) of main memory.]From a software point of view a 16505A comes with HP-UX version 9.03 or 9.05 and the special logic analyzer application preinstalled. While it is possible that a "re-ignite" CD-ROM did exist for the 16505A, I have never seen one myself, nor have ever I seen anyone else claim that they had one or that they had seen one.I do have a 16505A A.01.40 software update CD-ROM which I got directly from HP / Agilent years ago when it was available on request. That is not a bootable "re-ignite" CD-ROM, and contains no HP-UX installation files. That CD-ROM is only set up to update an existing 16505A software installation. It contains scripts which are executed by the 16505A software to extract and install new versions of the 16505A software components from cpio file archives on the CD-ROM.Quite a while ago I tried installing HP-UX 9.05 from scratch on a 712, and then tried to manually execute some of the installation scripts on the 16505A A.01.40 software update CD-ROM. Comparing the results from doing that with the files installed on a working 16505A it appeared that most of the necessary logic analyzer application files were installed, but maybe some shared libraries or other files were missing and weren't installed from the standard HP-UX 9.05 installation nor from the 16505A A.01.40 software update CD-ROM archive files. I never made a complete list of what files might be missing, and if a working 16505A clean install could be created that way by tracking down a small set of missing files and copying them over. It would be interesting to revisit and complete that exercise some day if I ever get motivated again to do that.

author: PaulAm
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: October 03, 2021, 07:44:43 pm
content: I dug out a zip file containing two disk images of the 16505a software. One of these is the 1.40 version with demo licenses enabled for the software products.If I recall correctly, just dd this to a disk on a working system, put the disk in the 712 and you're good to go. If you have a working 712, you could probably just use that.Here's the link, it's 145MB and will be up for a while, but it will eventually disappear. For historical purposes, if someone finds this thread in the future and needs the files, drop me a PM.https://gofile.io/d/4C2FuI

author: sevarre
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: October 04, 2021, 06:22:23 am
content: Great, thanks for getting that download set up! I will have some fun and get to work on this later in the week and update the thread with any successes/failures/curiosities.@gslick thanks for giving some more info on the hardware capabilities and RAM details. I would also be interested if the standard 712 HP UX install could be made to work with that 16505A software update CD to create a functioning 16505A.

author: sevarre
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: October 19, 2021, 06:22:42 pm
content: Apologies about the delay in getting this going.Happy to report that it works! As expected, a simple dd of the HP16505A_4.img image to a SCSI disk and the 712 boots the 16505A software and sees my 16500B. Haven't tested thoroughly but would expect it to be fine based on it being identical-ish hardware.Again thanks for getting those disk images uploaded, PaulAm.

author: PaulAm
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: October 19, 2021, 08:07:58 pm
content: Great to hear!Somebody else wanted those files after the link went down, so here is a new, temporary link:https://gofile.io/d/0sAgi5It will disappear in a bit, so again, if anyone needs them, just pm me

author: fisafisa
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: April 25, 2022, 07:57:17 pm
content: I am interested as well.Could you put up the link again?Thanks

author: alm
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 25, 2022, 11:39:58 pm
content: Maybe someone could upload the files to a public place like bitsavers.org, archive.org, BAMA and/or xdevs.com?

author: PaulAm
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: April 26, 2022, 01:37:12 am
content: I was going to put it up on the HP wiki and got sidetracked. Maybe I'll send them over to Ko4bb. I thought they might have been on archive.org from when I had them on my website, but I didn't see them there .In the meantime, as the previous post says SEND ME A PM, I almost missed this one. I'll post a link as soon as I can find the file again.

author: PaulAm
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: April 26, 2022, 01:53:43 am
content: Here's the link:https://gofile.io/d/4ynNnu

author: PaulAm
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 10, 2022, 08:15:06 pm
content: The files have been uploaded to K04bb, just search for hp 16505a on the site and you should get a hit.