This is identified as a ET-8355, a "HP 9825 Monitor." Behind the front you see here is a power supply and six plug-in slots. There are also two DIP plug-ins and a larger multi-way connector. From a couple of former HP engineers who used the Monitor: This is essentially a front panel control for an HP 9825 processor. It gave the processor a minicomputer-like front-panel interface that allowed you to examine and change data in individual memory locations, single step and run programs, and basically watch and control the processor's operation by hand. It was used to troubleshoot processors and computers. It was needed because the HP 9825 booted directly into the HPL interpreter, so it wasn't designed to give you access to the bare-metal hardware from the 9825's keyboard and display. and This is a hand-coded state machine that was used to debug the BPC hybrid processor used in the development of the 9825, there is a 40 pin (20 pin double sided) connector that plugs onto the processor board that provides access to the multiplexed address/data bus and bus control (request/grant). It was possible to halt, step and run the processor as well as examine the contents of memory.

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The slots accept three cards: MNTR-66501 (display), MNTR-66502 (logic) and MNT-66503 (logic).

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Here is an example program to generate a list of prime numbers:

0: fxd 0
1: prt 1
2: prt 2
3: 1->P
4: for C=2 to 1000000
5: P+2->P
6: for N=3 to P/3
7: if int(P/N)*N = P; gto 4
8: next N
9: prt P
10: next C

Question:
I recently got an HP 9825A calculator from about 1982. I still have tape cartridges with some HPL programs that I would like to transfer to a PC. So, now I am searching an emulator to run HPL on a standard PC. Does there exist anything like that ?

Thomas.Schmidt
Germany

Answer 1:
Back in the late 80's or early 90's, a company called Oswego Software marketed a series of translation utilities to convert from various proprietary and/or obsolete languages to more readily available platforms. They had, among other things, an HPL to HP Series 200/300 BASIC converter, described in their literature as a "four pass translator." They claimed it would translate about 90% of an HPL program. I figure they were implying that the remaining 10% had to be hand coded. It also included a utility to send HPL code from a 9825 to a Series 200/300 machine over the HP-IB interface. I would imagine that one could also use HT BASIC or HP BASIC for Windows on a PC to run the resulting Series 200/300 program (more or less) directly.

Alas, I do not have this utility, so I cannot tell you any more about it.

Regards,
Stan

Answer 2:
A company in Salt Lake was once going to create a version of HPL that ran on a personal computer (before IBM introduced the PC). They advertised the product. As one of the later developers of the HPL language, I flew from Colorado to Salt Lake to investigate. Turns out the ad was a tickler to see if there was a demand for such a product. They never even started work on the project. To my knowledge, that was the only third party to ever even consider moving HPL to a different computer.

Steve Leibson

The 1985 book Kinetic Energy Storage by G. Genta contains Appendices with program listings:

Programs are written in HPL language and are usually implemented on a HP 9825T computer with a HP 9895A floppy-disc unit, a HP 9871A printer and a HP 9862A plotter.

Structured Software Systems, Inc. has offered Mass-Storage Read-Only Memory (ROM) for the Hewlett-Packard Co. HP 9825T desktop computer.

The product reportedly replaces the HP 9822A Flexible Disk Drive ROM and 9895 8-in. double-sided drive. It is said to plug into one of the HP micro's four expansion slots in the same manner as the HP option ROMs.

The Mass-Storage ROM also interfaces to all Hewlett-Packard disks, including the 9221 and 9122 3-1/2-in. microdiskette drives, according to the vendor.

The Mass-Storage ROM is priced at $600.

Structured Software Systems, Box 1072, Irick Road, Mount Holly, N.J. 08060.