stevev@greylady.uoregon.edu (steve vandevender) (10/23/90)
I have recently acquired an HP 9100A calculator that was otherwise going to be thrown away. I originally posted the following questions in in comp.sys.hp, but considering that the real calculator enthusiasts are here I thought it might work better to ask in this group as well. How could I help but fall in love with a calculator that's almost as old as I am and built entirely with discrete components and what appears to be core memory? However, the only documentation I have is the "cheat sheet" that slides out of a slot in the bottom; it would probably be enough to let me figure everything else out (just a little hacking told me the memory format and how floating-point numbers are stored) but I'd really like to find an owner's manual for this thing. There appears to be a magnetic card reader, but I've been unsuccessful so far in finding them through the original owner of the calculator. I'd like to have at least one or two magnetic cards to play with. I'd also like to fix the light that illuminates the "z temporary/y accumulator/x keyboard" display to the right of the CRT display, and possibly obtain a new plastic protector that separates the cheat sheet from the bottom of the card cage (obviously a good idea to have, since if you spill coffee on the cheat sheet and slide it back in you'll short out things on the bottom of the card cage). The original plastic protector had some sort of foam or fuzz coating that over the years disintegrated and ended up largely as rolls of gummy black stuff inside the case. -- Steve VanDevender stevev@greylady.uoregon.edu "Bipedalism--an unrecognized disease affecting over 99% of the population. Symptoms include lack of traffic sense, slow rate of travel, and the classic, easily recognized behavior known as walking."
rrd@hpfcso.HP.COM (Ray Depew) (10/24/90)
I learned to program RPN on an old 9810 calculator. It was alreay obsolete when I started working on it in '75. We actually spent a couple of weeks in class learning it, and by the time I was done, I was converted to RPN. The HP-65 was too expensive for a poor frosh back then, but when I finally got to borrow a friend's HP-67, I was delighted to find that I didn't even need to crack open the Owner's Manual. It turns out that those old desktop HP calculators are remarkably similar in function to the early handheld programmables. You should be able to program your 9100A just fine without a manual, if you just think pre-HP41 RPN. You actually have an advantage over the handhelds, in that you get to see the x, y & z registers directly. As far as parts go, I think you're sunk. Most of that stuff disappeared in employee auctions years ago. HOWEVER, someone at HP may have some old magnetic cards still floating around. Enjoy your toy. Ray
akcs.dnickel@hpcvbbs.UUCP (Derek Scott Nickel) (10/24/90)
Steve,
I believe that the HP-9100 uses the same cards as an HP-75 or HP-71.
If you want, I can mail you a few to try out...
Derek S. Nickeljimd@hpcvra.CV.HP.COM (Jim Donnelly) (10/25/90)
The HP 9100 uses a wide, fat card that was unique to only a few products in the HP line. These cards are probably four to five times as wide, and somewhat shorter than the cards used by the HP 71 and the HP 75. Jim Donnelly jimd@cv.hp.com