seb022@tijc02.UUCP (Scott Bemis ) (10/10/89)
October 9, 1989
I am trying to determine if a Hewlett Packard 150
microcomputer is IBM compatible or can be "made" IBM compatible via a
few tricks. A non-profit organization (a local symphony) has received this
HP microcomputer via a donation. The symphony manager is trying to get this
HP 150 microcomputer working to solve his problems.
The donor stated that this microcomputer was not IBM compatible (he had
bought another IBM compatible microcomputer and donated this HP microcomputer
to the local symphony). I am trying to determine if the donor was
correct, or was not aware of a few possible tricks to make this HP
150 microcomputer IBM compatible.
If this HP 150 microcomputer can not be made "IBM compatible", could
you tell me where can I obtain software for this computer (I still get
catalogs for the Texas Instruments 99/4A home computer which "died" in 1984.
I am curious if such catalogs exist for this HP 150 microcomputer). I
would like to get this HP 150 microcomputer working for the local
symphony. Otherwise, I will have to beg to get an IBM compatible for
the local symphony.
Here are some more details on the Hewlett Packard microcomputer and it's
operating system software.
I received this information listed below from the computer maintenance
invoice. It describes this computer in a slightly different way.
Hewlett Packard Touchscreen System product model 45650A,
Hewlett Packard CPU product model 45611A, Serial number 2412A34926
with attached peripherals (HPIB Think Jet Printer model 2225A
and two 9121D/S 3.5 inch diskette drives)
Here is what is on the labels on the 3.5 inch operating
system diskettes.
HP Series 100
HP 150 Sys_master
45621-13001 A.01.04 2402
P.A.M. (A.01.02) HPBIOS (A.01.02)
MSDOS (2.01) MSDOS COMMANDS (2.10)
FORMAT(A.01.06) DEV CONFIG(A.01.00)
Please forward any replies, comments, suggestions to me.
Scott Bemis
Texas Instruments
P.O. Drawer 1255 M/S 3517
Johnson City, Tennessee, U.S.A. 37605-1255
Telephone: (615) 461-2959
e-mail: mcnc!rti!tijc02!seb022
andrews@hpcupt1.HP.COM (Edward E. Andrews) (10/10/89)
There are a couple of types of compatibility for IBM PC's: 1) DOS compatible. That is, the DOS function calls (INT 21h) are supported (plus a couple of others such as INT 25h and INT 26h for disks). 2) BIOS compatible. That is, software interrupts to system BIOS will works as expected. BIOS compatible implies DOS compatible too. 3) Hardware compatible. This is what everybody tries to be. 99.9% IBM work-alike. The HP150 is DOS compatible. If your program just makes DOS function calls for all I/O (screen, keyboard, and disk), then your program will work. The types of programs that will not work are: TSR's, keyboard enhancers, any disk utility program (the disk layout is slightly different than an IBM clone). All is not lost however. If you want to do your own programming, TURBO- C will will run on the HP150 (an so will the complied programs) if you make one change to TURBO-C. You must remove the INT 1ah in CC.ASM and reassemble it before you run any program compiled with TURBO-C. Also, do not call any of the graphic functions et al that are marked as IBM only in the reference manual. Hope this helps.
sharon@asylum.SF.CA.US (Sharon Fisher) (10/11/89)
In article <706@tijc02.UUCP> seb022@tijc02.UUCP (Scott Bemis ) writes: > >October 9, 1989 > > I am trying to determine if a Hewlett Packard 150 >microcomputer is IBM compatible or can be "made" IBM compatible via a >few tricks. It is not IBM-compatible. I understand there's a piece of software kicking around that allows it to run some IBM software, but I'm not sure how complete it is. If you have CompuServe access, the HP forum is a good place to ask. What do you need it to do? It does run basic software such as WordStar, Lotus 1-2-3, etc. And it's a lovely terminal emulation machine.