2000 was a LOVELY machine!!!
They were based on 2 HP 2100 series cpus, which were simialr in size and
capability to a PDP8. The two were coupled tightly, with one doing all the
handling of input/output to users (terminal muxs etc, and printers), the
other doing user processing, disk i/o etc. Each had a max of 32k RAM, but
swapping of memory was very fast, and it was amazing how well they ran on so
little resource. DIscs started off at 10MB (in my time, 76-86) as a fixed
5mb platter with a removable Winchester 5 mb (HP7905) , then to 10 fixed, 5
removable (HP7906), then ended with the HP7920 50MB drive. Sadly this one
could only use ~35MB, as internal tables ran out of sector addressing there,
and there wasnt room to fix the op sys internals. We ordered a system with
100mb of disk, and when we only got 2x35, we looked HP in the eye in
silence, and they gave us another drive to make up the 100mb. The last 2100
were 21mx version, made into 2000F I think.
The biggest system I saw had 32 user ports, but I believe they could go
bigger. Usually had HP7970E tape drive as back up in later days. Real TTY
teletype as console, and ours used to play Jingle bells at log on from Dec
15 to 25th, but it only sounded correct at 1200 baud. Most of our systems
ran 2640, 2645 terminals, and some early 26?? series units, in block mode.
No spooling, no DB, no ksam but we wrote our own, interpreted basic only,
like an early version of Basic/V. We put 2 of these on Xmas island (indian
Ocean) at a phosphate mine to do costing, HR, payroll, ledgers, mine
planning in 78, as HP were the only people who would offer to support such a
site, which is 3 1/2 hours NW of Perth, Western Australia, about 1 1/2 Hours
south of Singapore. Engineers wopuld fly in from Perth to do a PM, and any
other work required within the contract. As soon as they ran out of work,
they were charged to customer at T&M rates. 7-9 days after arrival they
could fly out to Singapore - only charter flights came in/out. The engineers
used to love it, few days off in the tropics, playing golf, sipping beers at
the Yacht Club by the beach, bit of duy free shopping in Singapore. There
was an article in the HP in house magazine about this site once, with a pic
of a stamp issued there on the back page that showed an operator sitting at
the console, John somebody (not me). Once they had a problem in a 7920
drive, and via radio telephone (not fun), the electrician on site was led
through diagnosis to suspect a resistor on a board had gone open circuit,
found one in the stores, replaced it, and got the drive back on line. Dont
think they would do that now. With 2 coupled together (early version of
DSLINE) either machine could use either or both printers or tape drives.
We converted the operation to 3000 about 83-84, using a contrib library SPL
program to read 2000 backup tapes and convert the data and program code. I
had to make a few mods to get it to handle multiple reels of backup tapes,
but in the end it worked well.
Very effective systems.
JP
-----Original Message-----
From: HP-3000 Systems Discussion [mailto:[log in to unmask]]On
Behalf Of John Pearce
Sent: Thu, November 01, 2001 5:30 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [HP3000-L] OT: HP2000?
At 07:21 AM 10/31/2001 -0800, David T Darnell wrote:
>Dear List,
>
>I've seen references to the HP2000 a few times on this list.
Dave,
I worked with a HP2000C' (read C prime) at a private, liberal arts
college. It was "the" machine for administrative and academic
computing. It was retired in 1978 or 79. When I left the college in 1986,
there was still a box of manuals in one of the professor's offices although
he retired several years ago and I doubt the manuals survived that long.
The 2000C' had a paper tape reader and some one had found a way to "play"
the Hungarian Rhapsody with a punch card under the paper tape read
head. The card vibrated and made the sound. I have no idea how that
worked and I was skeptical until I heard it for myself.
John
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John Pearce <[log in to unmask]> | Bethesda Management Company
Speaking for only myself | Colorado Springs, CO USA
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