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HP Forum Archive 21

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HP85B and 9133H hard drive
Message #1 Posted by Roe Peterson on 18 Dec 2012, 2:41 p.m.

Has anyone ever used a 9133H drive with an HP85B equipped with the EMS ROM? I get conflicting impressions based on the info available on the forums and via google...

Thanks.

      
Re: HP85B and 9133H hard drive
Message #2 Posted by Vassilis Prevelakis on 18 Dec 2012, 7:16 p.m.,
in response to message #1 by Roe Peterson

While the EMS ROM should allow you to connect SS/80 drives such as the 9133H drive, you must still understand that the Series 80 are very limited computers.

Essentially they only know about floppy disks (hard drives are OK as long as they look like floppy disks).

So ideally your 9133H should me made to look like a bunch of 9895A 8 inch floppy drives.

This is how the older models in the 9133 family could be connected to the Series 80 computers.

Looking at the manual of the 9133H drive, it looks like putting the configuration switch in position 8 will partition the 9133H so that it looks like 8 drives with 2.45 Mb each.

Now I am not sure whether your HP85B will be OK with such large drives (the 9895 were much smaller at 1.5Mb).

So have a go at it and tells us what you find.

Be sure to check the series80.org site for documentation on the Series 80 computers and the 9133 documentation page at the hpmuseum.net site.

Best

**vp

            
Re: HP85B and 9133H hard drive
Message #3 Posted by Juergen Keller on 19 Dec 2012, 8:56 a.m.,
in response to message #2 by Vassilis Prevelakis

I once had a problem with accessing an 9133XV drive with my HP-85. Eventually, I solved it by initializing it with my HP-86, after having configured it to 4 volumes, refer to Accessing an HP-9133XV disk drive with an HP-85. I didn't had an EMS ROM at those times, probably it would have helped, too.

                  
Re: HP85B and 9133H hard drive
Message #4 Posted by Roe Peterson on 19 Dec 2012, 11:51 a.m.,
in response to message #3 by Juergen Keller

How big were each of the 4 volumes on the 9133XV after you initialized them on the 86?

                        
Re: HP85B and 9133H hard drive
Message #5 Posted by Juergen Keller on 19 Dec 2012, 1:37 p.m.,
in response to message #4 by Roe Peterson

Each of the volumes is around 1.15 MB. That means I cannot use the whole disk space and have lost around 10 MB. However, it was the only configuration that worked with the Series 80 computers.

According to Vassilis' findings I'm in doubt if it will work with an HP-85. You'll find some information (including manuals) here: 9133 Disc Drive

                  
Re: HP85B and 9133H hard drive
Message #6 Posted by Vassilis Prevelakis on 20 Dec 2012, 5:36 a.m.,
in response to message #3 by Juergen Keller

Quote:
I didn't had an EMS ROM at those times, probably it would have helped, too.

Not really, the 9133XV is AMIGO, so you don't need the EMS ROM.

Even if you did have the EMS ROM you wouldn't get any help in configuring the 9133XV. The EMS ROM contains just code to interface with SS/80 drives.

(in today's speak, we'd say that the EMS ROM has the SS/80 drivers).

**vp

                        
Re: HP85B and 9133H hard drive
Message #7 Posted by Juergen Keller on 20 Dec 2012, 10:17 a.m.,
in response to message #6 by Vassilis Prevelakis

Thank you for the clarification.


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