HP300's Booting with HPDrive

bbraun · 2015-10-31 05:14:04

I've had a 330 sitting around for a couple years now, but was never able to do much with it. Software for the 68k HP's seemed hard to come by, and even if I had it, these systems only use GPIB for storage. I tried netbooting NetBSD on it, but I couldn't get NetBSD 6's kernel to fit in the 4MB of RAM this thing has.

The 330 is more or less comparable to a Macintosh II. It's a 68020 with 68881, and cost about the same as a Macintosh II, and came out about the same time. The 330 came with monochrome video, ethernet (thinnet, but oh well), and GPIB instead of SCSI (although the last of the 300 series started getting SCSI later). No floppy, no hdd.

The machine has a single RCA jack for monochrome video, but it ain't NTSC. It's a fixed 1024x768 monochrome signal. Using a VGA to RGB component cable (one that I was using for PS2 VGA), just plugging the green cable in and connecting it to a SoG LCD worked fine.

I had known about the hpdrive project for a while, but never took the time to figure out the necessary cards, and setup a windows box with PCI (or ISA) slots until recently. I picked up a National Instruments PCI card that had a TNT4882C chip, which seems to be pretty much any National Instruments PCI GPIB card. One thing to note about the PCI card is, you can't use Win98. You have to use their custom driver, which is for win2k and higher. So, I setup an XP machine on an old P3 era Celeron machine, plugged in the card, installed the driver, and "hpdrive -scan" found the card. Sweet!

The HP Museum has a bunch of software that can be used on these machines via hpdrive. It's pretty slick, once you've got the card and a machine setup, it's pretty easy to get the machine up and running. Right now I'm running HPUX 7 on the thing.

ClassicHasClass · 2015-10-31 17:55:31

I'm still trying to get that 9144A tape drive working. It still won't write tapes, even though it will certify them.

bbraun · 2015-11-01 18:00:26

Something I've been threatening to do, and I'm reminded of it every time I fire up one of these old unixes, is do yet another ports system or (because the term 'ports' has so much baggage associated with it) system of building software for these older systems. There's a ton out there already, but they are all either comparatively heavy weight (using things that don't exist on older systems), or tend to be specific to one system. The goal would be to come up with a single system that would work across most everything, these older HPUX', Ultrix, older IRIX, BSD4.2, A/UX, MachTen, etc.
But I've been threatening it for years, so who knows when I'll get around to it.

ClassicHasClass · 2015-11-01 19:42:06

Sounds like pkgsrc lite.

bbraun · 2015-11-01 20:28:26

Yeah, pretty much. The last time I looked at pkgsrc, it took a while of building dependencies on an older system before being able to actually use pkgsrc at all. That kind of defeats the purpose, so definitely much lighter.

Juror22 · 2015-11-17 03:42:52

CHC - If you haven't replaced it yet, the rubber drive wheel on the 9144A tape drive is probably turning to goo, the early stages produce those kind of errors, I have a 9145 with my 360 that I had to fix.

I have SCSI cards with mine, so I don't have to rely on HPIB, but I got a couple of those that still work. Still, I would like to work with the hpdrive, but so far I have seen a great disparity in the price of the GPIB cards - would this one work?

bbraun · 2015-11-17 03:58:30

Yeah, that looks right. The key is that TNT4882C chip, which is the larger chip closer to the connector.
This one and this one should also work, I think. They seem to run about in that price range AFAICT.

ClassicHasClass · 2015-11-17 06:32:02

I already replaced those wheels. The tape can be wound fine, and like I say, it certifies them but I can't get HP/UX to write them. I might have it set up wrong in HP/UX though.

Juror22 · 2015-11-18 05:26:38

CHC - I am pretty sure that I set my tape drive devices through the command line (possibly a few through SAM) on HPUX 7. I don't remember if I have the tape drive set up on HPUX 9 (running on another boot drive that I have). I will check for the commands, if you want - I think I have the commands that I used, squirreled away with some install tapes that I have.

bbraun - thanks for confirming that and passing along the other candidates. I will pony up for one of those and try to get hpdrive running for my HP 300's.

ClassicHasClass · 2015-11-18 15:54:46

Thanks, the commands you used would be helpful. I don't know if I have the proper things in /dev set up and/or what the major/minor should be, for example.

Juror22 · 2015-11-19 01:51:39

CHC - There is a doc that you will find very helpful, google 97005-90002 and download it from from the bitsavers archive.
The section on the 9144 starts on 6-87.

Here is what I have...
9145 tape drive Address 4
98624A HP-IB adaptor Address 8

Here is what I ran... (I'm pretty sure that I had to create the ct and rct directory [otherwise the following doesn't make sense], although I didn't document that)

astel_root: chown root:root /dev/ct
astel_root: chown root:root /dev/rct
astel_root: chmod 755 /dev/ct
astel_root: chmod 755 /dev/rct

astel_root: mknod /dev/ct/0s0 b 0 0x080400
astel_root: mknod /dev/rct/0s0 c 4 0x080400
astel_root: ll /dev/ct
total 0
brw-rw-rw- 1 root sys 0 0x080400 Aug 18 15:35 0s0
astel_root: ll /dev/rct
total 0
crw-rw-rw- 1 root sys 4 0x080400 Aug 18 15:36 0s0

Last edited by Juror22 (2015-11-19 01:54:12)

ClassicHasClass · 2015-11-19 16:11:25

That sounds a little different (for example, my 9144A has an integrated HP-IB port). Does it have to be on a specific address?

Juror22 · 2015-11-19 21:18:47

The address for the integrated port is different, (it should be 7, according to the documentation that I have). You just need to change the '8' that is part of the minor number in the steps above to be the same address (7), as your integrated port.

Use the 9144's address for n, below.

e.g.
mknod /dev/ct/0s0 b 0 0x070n00
mknod /dev/rct/0s0 c 4 0x070n00

Juror22 · 2016-03-02 03:47:54

Has anyone had to communicate through the HPDrive website? I sent a message to request access to the 64bit software and have not heard back yet (its been over a week) - it says that it might take a few days to get back, but I sent another question some time back and never got a response to that. If anyone has communicated successfully, I would appreciate advice on how to make contact with the programmer.

bbraun · 2016-03-02 20:07:13

I have not tried to contact anyone from hpdrive. The site is... less than intuitive in many ways, and seems infrequently updated.

Juror22 · 2016-03-03 15:16:18

Thanks, that is the same conclusion that I came to. I sent another email out through the website, since I would much rather run this on my Win 7 machine than on the old Gateway, which I would have to dig out of the garage.

bbraun · 2016-03-03 17:27:33

One alternative, I don't know if they'll have what you need, but the folks at the HP Computer Museum are very responsive, and seem reasonably involved or at least in regular contact with the HPDrive folk.

Juror22 · 2016-03-06 06:58:37

I got an email yesterday from the programmer, it provided a link for the driver that I had requested and some additional information regarding other progress he has made. Thanks for the comments and suggestions (the folks at the HP Computer Museum are a truly invaluable resource), I hope to have hpdrive set up and working with my HP 300's in the next few days.

Thanks again

ThinkClassic

#1 2015-10-31 05:14:04

HP300's Booting with HPDrive

#2 2015-10-31 17:55:31

Re: HP300's Booting with HPDrive

#3 2015-11-01 18:00:26

Re: HP300's Booting with HPDrive

#4 2015-11-01 19:42:06

Re: HP300's Booting with HPDrive

#5 2015-11-01 20:28:26

Re: HP300's Booting with HPDrive

#6 2015-11-17 03:42:52

Re: HP300's Booting with HPDrive

#7 2015-11-17 03:58:30

Re: HP300's Booting with HPDrive

#8 2015-11-17 06:32:02

Re: HP300's Booting with HPDrive

#9 2015-11-18 05:26:38

Re: HP300's Booting with HPDrive

#10 2015-11-18 15:54:46

Re: HP300's Booting with HPDrive

#11 2015-11-19 01:51:39

Re: HP300's Booting with HPDrive

#12 2015-11-19 16:11:25

Re: HP300's Booting with HPDrive

#13 2015-11-19 21:18:47

Re: HP300's Booting with HPDrive

#14 2016-03-02 03:47:54

Re: HP300's Booting with HPDrive

#15 2016-03-02 20:07:13

Re: HP300's Booting with HPDrive

#16 2016-03-03 15:16:18

Re: HP300's Booting with HPDrive

#17 2016-03-03 17:27:33

Re: HP300's Booting with HPDrive

#18 2016-03-06 06:58:37

Re: HP300's Booting with HPDrive

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