HP/Agilent Basic Needed - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / testgear

author: deepskyridge
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: February 10, 2018, 05:59:04 pm
content: I am looking for a copy of Agilent Basic that will run on Windows 98. I have looked on the web and found IBasic but it does not run under Win98.ThanksGary

author: dacman
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: February 10, 2018, 09:44:06 pm
content: HT Basic was based on HP Basic and is available for operating systems from DOS to Windows 10 (as is not free).

author: jfphp
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: February 11, 2018, 11:04:05 am
content: IBasic or Instrument Basic is a simplified HP Basic embedded in instruments (for ex 70820A). There are 2 Basic running Under Win : HTBasic originaly developped by HP (win 95, 98, NT) and the license was sold to Transera who sells still HTBasic : costly but runs Under Win7/10 with tremendous bridges between the Microsoft world (cut, paste, Excel...).You have fo find the original HT Basic which looks on your screen as a 9000/300 (black screen, white bar at the bottom fot the Fx functions).Beware :no HPIB discs supported on the bus and most of the progs for 9000 will not run under HTBasic (except complex modifications and often abolutely not compatible if the original prog --most of HP test progs -- contains CSUB compiled progs).

author: Stray Electron
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 11, 2018, 08:30:39 pm
content: Why do you need to run HP Basic on a PC? particularly under a POS like Windozes? I have used an HP Viper card in a PC and it runs standard HP Basic but it runs on it's own CPU and it's own memory. Good LUCK finding one of those today! What version of HP Basic are you trying to run? The early versions 2 & 3 are significantly different than RMB and IBasic. HP Basic was designed to run on a 68000 CPU and it uses more digits than a PC and has a larger range of numbers and also HP uses BCD match instead of binary to prevent underflow/overflow and rounding errors. In short, it can be VERY tricky and difficult to convert an HP Basic program to run on a PC. That's why I used a Viper card.FWIW I bought my first HP 9000/220 computer from a large military contractor where some manager THOUGHT it would be a GOOD idea to switch over to a PC. They could NEVER made their programs work on it, end of story. Even after they completely rewrote their programs in MS Basic? Fortran? (I don't recall which), they found that the calculations yielded very different results.My STRONG advice, if you need to run HP Basic, run it on the computer that it was designed to run on!

author: TK
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 11, 2018, 08:47:29 pm
content: https://www.hpmuseum.net/display_item.php?sw=405

author: TK
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 11, 2018, 08:52:49 pm
content: This is HP Instrument Basic:http://www.hpmuseum.net/display_item.php?sw=441

author: deepskyridge
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: February 12, 2018, 08:15:09 pm
content: Thanks for all the info. I downloaded Instrument Basic from the HP Museum.It is working on a Win98 machine I have setup in the lab for such uses.Gary