Fluke 1720A Instrumentation controller floppy disks & keyboard connector ID ? - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / repair

author: JimHearne
author_rank: Newbie
timestamp: June 08, 2020, 04:11:46 pm
content: Hi all,I've just acquired one of these.It's basically a TI 9900 cpu based computer with a mono wide screen CRT & a touchscreen !Dates from 1980It would normally boot from floppy and runs Flukes own FDOSOf course mine came without a keyboard and any OS disks.The keyboard i can sortby making a PS/2 to Fluke adaptor, the service manual gives full details of the keyboard.Does anybody recognise the keyboard connector ?, 24 pins on alternator 3 pin (x4) and 4 pin (x3)rows.Otherwise i will make a little pcb to fit in there and cnc a plastic body.The floppy disks aren't so easy, does anybody have any idea where i could find some or disk images of them (i can hook up a Gotek floppy emulator).Many thanks,Jim

author: JimHearne
author_rank: Newbie
timestamp: June 10, 2020, 10:27:28 am
content: Can anybody suggest any other forums on the net that might be good for old Fluke gear.Or any for Varian Sputters as that seems to be where a lot of these instrument controllers were used.Many thanks,Jim

author: jsheradin
author_rank: Newbie
timestamp: February 19, 2022, 05:29:07 pm
content: Sorry for resurrecting a dead post but I recently picked up a 1720A of my own. It came with a boot floppy for BASIC 1.6. I'm not entirely sure of the format but I was able to clone it using a Kryoflux in raw stream mode. The machine is able to boot from the cloned disk just fine.Here's the raw stream files if you have means of writing your own or decoding it:https://archive.org/details/track18.0I haven't had any luck finding other software for this thing unfortunately.

author: JimHearne
author_rank: Newbie
timestamp: February 19, 2022, 07:11:52 pm
content: Hi, thank you for posting that.After i posted my message i actually acquired a Fluke 1780A InfoTouch Display which seems to be a cut down 1720A, this had an optional keyboard connector on the back which is the same as the 1720ABefore i got a chance to do something with that i managed to get hold of a couple of Fluke 1722A which is the later version with the TMS99105 processor.These came with floppy emulators fitted and quite a few disk images and floppys.If anybody needs these let me know here.Jim

author: jsheradin
author_rank: Newbie
timestamp: February 19, 2022, 07:35:07 pm
content: If you have the images/floppies please do upload them somewhere likehttps://archive.org/I'm not sure how backwards compatible they are but it can't hurt to try!

author: JimHearne
author_rank: Newbie
timestamp: February 19, 2022, 08:31:35 pm
content: Hi,I think i've uploaded them correctly to archive.orghttps://archive.org/details/@jimhearneI've not used it before so if somebody sees something i've filled in wrong please let me know.I've uploaded the Fluke 1722A disc images i have in 3 different formats.Also the various 1720A and 1722A EPROM dumps I've made.And the service manual for the 1720A , this i scanned in myself from a hard copy as at the time there wasn't a copy online for the 1720AJim

author: bbqws60
author_rank: Newbie
timestamp: July 15, 2024, 03:47:05 pm
content: Hello, there are only two good images inside, and the other images are duplicates. If there is a chance, please create a new image file for other software and upload it. Thank you