HP Forum Archive 08

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HP-IL/RS232 made by "Firmware Specialists" Message #1 Posted by andy on 21 June 2002, 9:26 a.m. I recently bought what I thought was going to be an HP82164a hpil-rs232 unit. It actually turned out to be a similar device but made by a company called "firmware specialists". I'm looking for a manual or any information at all for that matter. Thanks, Andy

Re: HP-IL/RS232 made by "Firmware Specialists" Message #2 Posted by Steve Borowsky on 25 June 2002, 11:34 p.m., in response to message #1 by andy I have one called 'Maxum HP-IL converter' made by Federal Products corp., a measurement instruments company which is a division of Esterline, which is an aerospace company. I also can't find any specific information on it. What does yours look like? Mine is enclosed in a heavy gauge steel box meausuring 3 1/8" X 6 5/8" X 1 3/16"(8cm X 17cm X 3cm) with a baked on two tone gray finish and a 6 pin data cable, a three pin 'remote switch' connector and a 4 pin power connector. there are four screw-mounted rubber feet on the bottom and a single red LED on the top. My theory is that these were made by several companies in the 1980's either as 'in-house second sources' to the HP product or as 'ruggedized' versions for the industrial market. Either way, it was never a mainstream product and it is now a technological artifact so digging up specifics will probably be difficult. I think the best way to proceed is to get the documentation for the HP product and try to derive the rest from there.

Re: HP-IL/RS232 made by "Firmware Specialists" Message #3 Posted by Ellis Easley on 26 June 2002, 1:14 p.m., in response to message #2 by Steve Borowsky "I think the best way to proceed is to get the documentation for the HP product and try to derive the rest from there." I was going to suggest that. I am familiar with the HP HPIL/HPIB interface and because both sides are addressable, the protocol is a little complicated. Since RS-232 is not addressable, it should be a little easier to do on the HP model and hopefully to figure out on another model. I have an old non-HP HPIB/RS-232 interface I want to figure out someday. I suspect mine might be a one-way convertor to allow a computer with only a serial port to control an HPIB printer or plotter in "listen only" mode, or to input data from an HPIB instrument in "talk only" mode. I have a non-HP multimeter like this - the mode and range have to be set manually, the HPIB only sends readings.

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