HP Forum Archive 05

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Need: Basic HP-85 I/O Commands to Floppy Message #1 Posted by Mike on 20 Mar 2001, 2:58 p.m. I have the following equipment: HP-85, H82937A (HP-IB interface), 82901M (Flexible Disk Drive) and a Mass Storage ROM. I even have manuals for the 85 and the Disk Drive. But I don't have any documentation on the Mass Storage ROM or the HP-IB interface. What I am looking for, if someone has the data, are some commands that I can use to setup, copy, load, etc, programs and files between the HP-85 and the Floppy Drive? If anyone have this information that they could share me, I'd appreciate it?

Re: Need: Basic HP-85 I/O Commands to Floppy Message #2 Posted by Bruce Cohen on 20 Mar 2001, 6:33 p.m., in response to message #1 by Mike I'll try to help but this is from memory about 20 years ago. This will be fragmented but here goes. First you need to issue a command to define the location of the storage device. Note: the curly brackets are not part of the commands The first command {MASS STORAGE IS} can be abbreviated as "MSI" and is used thus {MSI ":D700"}. The 7 refers to the identity of the HPIB interface card and the 00 is the HPIB address. This will now redirect the LOAD, STORE, READ, and WRITE commands to the disk drive. If memory serves me, the dual disk drives use 00 for the first drive and the second drive is one greater -- 01. I think you can also direct the read and writes directly by using this form {READ ":D700"}. There is a very slight chance I can get copies of the manuals. Good luck, Bruce Cohen

Re: Couldn't wait to try these... Message #3 Posted by Mike on 21 Mar 2001, 1:31 a.m., in response to message #2 by Bruce Cohen Good memory. They worked just as you say. I have successfully read from floppy and copied the programs to tape. Now to figure out how to do the same for data files. But I think I can figure that out from the applications. One more question: Do you know if it is possible to copy from disk to tape in one command without having to do a load "examplefile" followed by a store "examplefile:Tape" Also, do you remember a command to format and delete files on a floppy?

Re: Couldn't wait to try these... Message #4 Posted by Bruce Cohen on 21 Mar 2001, 10:42 p.m., in response to message #3 by Mike I don't think there is a way to copy programs from one device to the device to the other. As I recall, all programs had to be read into memory using the LOAD or LOADBIN (for binary programs) and then stored using the STORE or STOREBIN commands. I’m a little fuzzy here but I think that the format command was {FORMATDISK 2 ":D701"} or {FORMATDISC 2 ":D701"} -- both spellings were allowed. I'm pretty sure that the ":D700" was mandatory to avoid formatting the wrong disk due to a previous MSI command. The "2" in the above command is the disk sector interleave number -- the value of 2 may be too low -- I think 4 or 5 might be better. Also its use is optional (I think -- not really sure. The HP-80 series used a disk storage system format called AMIGO 80. This format would not break files on tape or disk; files had to stored contiguously. I think AMIGO 80 would merge adjacent blank spots to optimize space but it WOULD NOT move files to create space. The 5 1/4 inch floppies had 270K space. Although the system was supposed to tolerate some disk flaws and create hidden dummy files on the bad spots, the early drives would reject disks with any errors. As far as deleting files from disks, I'm afraid my answer is going to be 65% guess. The DELETE command was used to remove lines of basic programming. There should be an ERASE command similar to the one for the tape drive. Regards, Bruce Cohen

Deleting files Message #5 Posted by Steve (Australia) on 25 Mar 2001, 4:26 a.m., in response to message #4 by Bruce Cohen HP was always fond of PURGE is a command to remove files.

Anyone Know what the Format Disc Command is Message #6 Posted by Mike on 23 Mar 2001, 8:01 p.m., in response to message #2 by Bruce Cohen for the 9825A. I've tried the obvious, per suggestion, and it did not work. Tried FORMAT, FORMATDISC, FORMATDISK. Also a delete file command would be helpful. Thanks

Re: Anyone Know what the Format Disc Command is Message #7 Posted by JR Hansen on 26 Mar 2001, 5:06 a.m., in response to message #6 by Mike Give these a try INITIALIZE["new vol label"[, ".old vol label"[,directory size[, interleave factor]]] INITIALIZE-- this will initialize the disc with no volume lable. INTIIALIZE "NEW,":D720"-- initializes the disc at "'D720" and assigns volume label ",NEW" INITIALIZE "NEWER",",OLD",15,2-- initalizes disc ",OLD" and assigns new volume label "'NEWER" the directory consist of 15 records and interleave factor is 2. Hope this helps JR

Re: Thanks I will ... Message #8 Posted by Mike on 28 Mar 2001, 1:45 p.m., in response to message #7 by JR Hansen I will try these this evening. Finally got come original documentation for the HP-85 and 9825 but it has not arrived yet. Mike Give these a try INITIALIZE["new vol label"[, ".old vol label"[,directory size[, interleave factor]]] Thanks, INITIALIZE-- this will initialize the disc with no volume lable. INTIIALIZE "NEW,":D720"-- initializes the disc at "'D720" and assigns volume label ",NEW" INITIALIZE "NEWER",",OLD",15,2-- initalizes disc ",OLD" and assigns new volume label "'NEWER" the directory consist of 15 records and interleave factor is 2. Hope this helps JR

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