Commodore PET and the IEEE-488 Bus - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / testgear

author: pascal_sweden
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 16, 2014, 02:54:20 pm
content: Automated test measurements are nothing new, and could in fact already be accomplished in the eighties on the Commodore PET computer using the IEEE-488 interface.There is a nice book from OSBORNE/McGraw-Hill that describes the IEEE-488 interfacing capabilities of the Commodore PET and its applications for automated test measurements in details:http://www.1000bit.it/support/manuali/commodore/pet/PET_and_the_IEEE488_Bus.pdfChapter 7 of this book contains specific examples of interfacing the Commodore PET with different test equipment, such as e.g. HP 3455A Digital Volt Meter, Systron-Donner 6043A Frequency Counter, Centronics Microprinter-P1, Tektronix 7603 Oscilloscope with 7D01 Logic Analyzer and DF2 Display Formatter, ICS 4880 Bus Interface Coupler.Many universities used the Commodore PET for this purpose. This is really nostalgy. The basic principles are still the same today with VXI, PXI and LXI.I was writing this post here to hear if some people out here have used a test setup based on the Commodore PET, and for what purposes? Feel free to share some nostalgy =)

author: Alex Eisenhut
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 16, 2014, 03:21:38 pm
content: 1970s, even.There was also a IEEE-488 interface for the Commodore 64, this might have been used more as the PET was a huge metal monster by the 1980s.If you want nostalgia, look into the Tektronix 567/6R1 combo, it was possible to connect that to computers of the era, as well as a printer.Yikes.

author: kwass
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: October 16, 2014, 03:23:42 pm
content: Quote from: pascal_sweden on October 16, 2014, 02:54:20 pmI did back in 1979. I was using a PET with the an early version of the ROM and the IEEE-488 port did not work properly. So, I used the parallel port to control a power supply, some custom electronics and a plotter. The goal was the measure the write/erase endurance of some experimental MNOS (not NMOS) transistors. I knew the PET really well by than having purchased my own back in late 1977 and I programmed it in machine language -- I hand assembled the code -- and used some BASIC for the non time-critical parts of it.This was one of the first uses of automated testing done at the lab at the time. I was in the device physics group there and gave a talk on the project when it was complete. The head of the computer group couldn't understand how I was able to do this without a development environment .... go figure.-katie

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 16, 2014, 03:28:18 pm
content: Quote from: pascal_sweden on October 16, 2014, 02:54:20 pmAh, the good old days, when IEEE-488 was still HPIBWe could never figure out why the PET had an HPIB bus. It didn't seem to offer anything useful for the average user. However, for those of us with labs full of HP test equipment it was by far the cheapest controller around.

author: Alex Eisenhut
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 16, 2014, 03:31:19 pm
content: Quote from: coppice on October 16, 2014, 03:28:18 pmWell that's what the floppy drives used. Did you use tape? That was a dedicated (or was it two?) port.I've always wondered if you can control an old IEEE drive with a modern PC. I don't know what's needed software-wise.Obviously the drives aren't SCPI. But they did put a whole megabyte on a 5.25 floppy.

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 16, 2014, 03:40:52 pm
content: Quote from: Alex Eisenhut on October 16, 2014, 03:31:19 pmThey made various HPIB devices, like a printer, and people used HPIB for that reason. However, it made little sense. Everyone else used Centronics interfaces for printers and a direct interface for floppy disks, and their hardware was simpler.QuoteA whole megabyte only came very late in the day. The original 8" floppies were 250k and I think the original 5.25" ones were something like 120k.

author: MarkPalmer
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: October 16, 2014, 03:51:50 pm
content: At the time that book was written in 1980, HP just introduced their first "personal computer" based instrument controller with the HP 85. The PET had been on the market since '77, and even in 1980 a PET was about a quarter of the price of an HP 85. The 85 ended up being the more popular player though as HP supported it for control of their instruments and would often sell it as part of a complete instrument system.I use a full HP 85 based HPIB setup in my hobby shop utilizing 6 instruments along with a printer and dual 3.5" diskette drive. It's useful for data logging with multimeters and counters, and I can do automated distortion analysis with my spectrum analyzers. This old school setup works great for my needs as I can still program with BASIC, but don't know (and don't want to know) any of the other super-nerd computer languages used today.-Mark-

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 16, 2014, 04:04:18 pm
content: Quote from: MarkPalmer on October 16, 2014, 03:51:50 pmOoooh, there was a seriously unpleasant machine. The tiny screen of the HP85 drove people crazy. HP sweetened deals for substantial packages of instruments with those things, and they ended up all over the place. Programming HP-IB with an HP9845 was a more pleasant expensive, but that thing was seriously expensive. Like the PET, all its peripherals communicated by HP-IB.

author: Alex Eisenhut
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 16, 2014, 08:25:48 pm
content: Quote from: coppice on October 16, 2014, 03:40:52 pmI don't know what you mean by "late in the day". These beasts were around at the same time as the clunky 1541 and the funky SFD-1001.500K per side. Enormous beasts with two 6502s in their bellies.As for printers, pretty sure the PET had the usual user port as well. Nobody was forced to use HPIB printers.

author: MarkPalmer
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: October 17, 2014, 01:25:13 am
content: Quote from: coppice on October 16, 2014, 04:04:18 pmIt was no secret that Dave Packard was a whole lot more devoted to instrumentation than computers. Yet in the business sense he was smart enough to know the value of building and selling computers. HP’s first minicomputer, the 2116A, was first built and marketed as an instrument controller, and this was to appease Packard. When HP designed the little 85, they did the same thing to get the approval- marketed it first as a fully self-contained portable instrument calculator/controller, although in every sense it was 100% computer. Like the 2116A, once it gained greater popularity in the markets outside of instrumentation, they came out with the HP 86 which was the 85 minus the small internal CRT, operators connecting an external video monitor like most other small desktop computers of the time. The name of the game at HP in the computer world was to test the waters before diving in.I imagine anyone could put together a working HPIB instrument system with a Commodore PET today just as easy as you could with an HP 85. If it would work as well as the 85, that I don’t know.-Mark-

author: free_electron
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 17, 2014, 01:52:25 am
content: The 9000 series machines of HP used HPIB as interconnect for harddisks, floppy drives, tape drives and whatnot. plotters, printers. you name it.the coolest one was the hp 150. touchscreen , rocky mountain basic , gpib port, 3d plot library.

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 17, 2014, 02:38:22 am
content: Quote from: Alex Eisenhut on October 16, 2014, 08:25:48 pmThe 8250 in that picture came late in the day. The original PET floppy disk drives from 1977 were the model 4040. They look very similar to the 8250. They cost so much, most PET owners lived with cassette tapes. The 8250 was double sided, double track density, and double data density. The original 4040 had none of those improvements. Its capacity should have been around 1/8 of the capacity of the 8250, but I can't remember the exact figures.

author: MarkPalmer
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: October 17, 2014, 03:18:20 am
content: In the mid 1980's storage devices for microcomputers were almost as expensive as the computers themselves. Here is a picture of my HP 85 HPIB system that uses a decent 9121D 3.5" diskette drive rather than the 85's built in dreaded DC100 tape drive. HP 9121 was the first 3.5" diskette drive sold in the USA at $1750.00 in 1983. Other pix is the inside of the 9121D.-Mark-

author: Alex Eisenhut
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 17, 2014, 02:32:39 pm
content: Quote from: MarkPalmer on October 17, 2014, 03:18:20 amThe media itself wasn't cheap either. I still have the first 5.25" floppy I bought at Radio Shack. It must have been precious because I regularly scanned it for read errors and kept the printouts with the disk...It didn't take too long for wholesalers to pop up specializing in selling off-brand bulk diskettes.

author: kwass
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: October 17, 2014, 03:39:46 pm
content: Quote from: free_electron on October 17, 2014, 01:52:25 amHP also used HPIB to connect peripherals in it's 3000 business series computers, in fact the 9000 and the 3000 shared many of the peripherals. The HP150 with touch screen add-on (it was a bezel that snapped onto the display and had an array of IR photodiodes/receivers of very low resolution) was a pretty cool device at the time. But aside from some games that came with it, I don't remember seeing any software that made much use of the "touch screen" aspect of it.

author: netdudeuk
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: October 17, 2014, 05:43:05 pm
content: I programmed the HP85 for a living in 1981. It was pretty amazing at the time. Everything in one compact unit. The ones we had included the ROM drawer and the serial interface expansion. They were used to drive the electronic scoreboards in Headingly, Leeds, UK.

author: MarkPalmer
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: October 17, 2014, 06:03:12 pm
content: With the HP 85, users weren’t stuck with HPIB only…. but the interfaces were plug-ins (at another $400.00 each, plus another $300.00 for an I/O ROM module, wow what a rip-off!) They had the HPIB, a general purpose interface, and a serial interface. And then if you wanted a printer and diskette drive, yet another $145.00 each for those ROM’s. Want 16k more of precious memory? That will be another $195.00 please! You got a top notch system, but HP really got you in the wallet for it. My father used to put together equipment monitoring and control systems for the dairy processing industry in the 1980’s and he used Apple II’s with SSC interfaces that were probably about a quarter of the price of any of the HP micro systems at the time.-Mark-

author: netdudeuk
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: October 17, 2014, 06:46:36 pm
content: Each of the HP85s that we used, with all the add-ins, cost about £3000 each in 1981.

author: Hlafordlaes
author_rank: Newbie
timestamp: November 17, 2014, 12:32:37 pm
content: Hello, first post.I joined this board today in order to track any conversations regarding hooking up old HPIB drives to modern PCs. This thread seems to be the most recent that is close to my interests, so I've posted here.I have an old HP150B Touchscreen computer I am taking out of mothballs for the first time in decades. I do have an 8-bit ISA HPIB card, and drivers on a 5 1/4" floppy, the first hurdle. I am building a dedicated PIII system for that, since the mobo has an ISA slot. Just in case, I just ordered one of Steven Casagrande's USB to HPIB modules to see if I can't get that to work as well. I've also seen the HPDrive project for using this sort of connection to set up disk emulation directly on the PC, which I also plan to test.At any rate, if any of you are connecting up to things like the HP9122 or similar, I would love to hear about what you have found to be the best method for exchanging data, and/or any methods such as HPDrive for providing disk support to old HP equipment whose drives are bound to fail over time.What I would truly love is a means for building HPIB-compatible drives using modern SATA and flash drives, if such is possible. That way I can better ensure a future for my old junk. Thanks in advance for any tips.[Warning: Just a PC power user, not an engineer.I do follow instructions well, however.]Nice to make your collective acquaintance,Hlaf.

author: BloodyCactus
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: November 17, 2014, 03:04:04 pm
content: a forum member I think, makes a USB GPIB card for like 60$ or something.http://galvant.ca/shop/gpibusb/its open source too. I often see GPIB PCI cards come up on ebay for cheap sometimes.

author: tggzzz
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 17, 2014, 03:24:28 pm
content: Quote from: MarkPalmer on October 17, 2014, 01:25:13 amThe 9845 was marketed as, described as, and invoiced as a "calculator" - despite being a seriously powerful desktop computer for its time, based on very large integrated circuits manufactured in-house by HP.Why a "calculator" and not a "computer"? Simply and explicitly to avoid provoking their customers' purchasing departments immune response, since copanies typically had a "computer purchases must be authorised by the board" edict, whereas calculators could be purchased by department heads.It is also worth noting that in HP every division made their own decisions about producting computers - and many did. The result was, unsurprisingly, a range of somewhat incompatible somewhat application-specific computers. Rocky Mountain Basic was another of the results of that policy, which ISTR is still being supported by someone outside HP.