HP 2100
Encyclopedia
The HP 2100 was a series of minicomputer
s produced by Hewlett-Packard
(HP) from the mid-1960s to early 1990s. The 2100 was also a specific model in this series. The series was renamed HP 1000 by the 1970s and sold as real-time computer
s, complementing the more complex IT
-oriented HP 3000
, and would be the starting point for a line of desktop computer
s. They would eventually be phased out in favor of UNIX
-based RISC workstations.
HP entered the minicomputer
market in 1966, along with Varian Data Machines
. Later, General Automation, Computer Automation
, Data General
, Micro Systems, and Lockheed
would also be competitors. The 2116A was the first model of the series. It was designed by HP's Dymec division, after absorbing Data Systems Inc. (DSI), a subsidiary of Union Carbide
. DSI had designs for a 16-bit minicomputer called the DSI-1000, which would eventually evolve into the 2116A through HP's involvement.
The 2116A is a 16-bit
word-addressed
general purpose computer
. Main memory is 4096 words (4K), expandable to 8K of magnetic core
in the chassis, or 16K with a memory extender. The 2116A features 16 I/O
slots in the chassis, a 10 MHz
clock and a memory cycle time
of 1.6 microsecond
s. The 2116A had two subsequent revisions: the 2116B added support for up to 32K with a memory extender, and the 2116C incorporated a more compact model of core memory
, allowing the full 32K to be housed within the computer chassis.
The HP 2116A’s software
, with a FORTRAN
compiler
, assembler
, linker, loader
, operating system
, and I/O drivers
were ready at the same time as the hardware. This was quite unusual when most computer vendors would roll out the hardware first with little software. The 1967 issue of the Hewlett-Packard Journal called the HP 2116A "an unusual new instrumentation computer".
The HP 2116A had an over-sized cabinet with 16 empty card slots for interface cards. Up to 48 could be fitted with one or more add-on I/O extender chassis. At introduction, HP engineers had interfaces for more than 20 instruments including "counters, nuclear scalers, electronic thermometer
s, digital voltmeter
s, ac/ohms converters, data amplifiers, and input scanners." The HP 2116A's introduction began the age of modern automated test systems
.
When HP discovered it sold more HP 2116A minicomputers for business applications than for instrumentation, HP introduced the short-lived 2115A in 1967, a cost-reduced variant of the 2116A with only 8 I/O slots, a bulky external power supply, and a 2116-style front panel. The HP 2116A of 1968 was stripped of DMA
and extended arithmetic. The 2114A featured a redesigned front panel, with reduced register displays and illuminated touch switch
es. The 2114 saw two further revisions: the 2114B added single-channel DMA
and HSIO options at the expense of a single I/O slot, and 2114C supported up to 16K maximum core in mainframe, at the expense of yet another I/O slot. The 2115A and 2114A/B/C have an 8 MHz clock and a 2.0 µs cycle time.
HP's Data Systems Division, initially based in Cupertino, California
and later moved to nearby Santa Clara
, produced a long series of successful HP 21xx minicomputers that HP would not be able to kill despite five serious attempts to introduce successors, including the HP 3000
. By 1978, HP was the fourth largest minicomputer manufacturer, trailing only DEC
, IBM
, and Data General
. The 16-bit instrumentation-oriented HP 21xx architecture survived and evolved for more than 20 years, setting the stage for HP's growth to world's largest technology vendor, surpassing IBM, and the leading personal computer
supplier.
, called A and B which could do most instructions such as load or add, and two 1-bit flags, called Overflow and Extend, although the A register had a few more instructions. The program counter
, 15 bits, was called P. All instructions in the standard instruction set
were 16 bits long. The earlier PDP-8
from DEC
had just one accumulator and a 12-bit address. Memory was word accessible, unlike the later PDP-11
, which was addressable by byte. Conditional branching was done with a conditional skip followed by a jump instruction. There was no dedicated stack register.
The processor instruction-set architecture was very efficient, predating RISC architectures with some similar features 20 years later, as there were only 68 instructions. All instructions are fixed width, 16 bits wide, and all instructions executed in one memory cycle (1.6 microseconds). However, instructions could address both memory and a register, it had only two accumulators instead of a series of general registers (such as the PDP-11
). The register-reference instructions could execute multiple operations per instruction (RISC processors generally execute only one operation per instruction)
The smallest addressable unit of memory was a 16-bit word, and the maximum possible address was 32,767, which would fit in a word with one bit left over. The most significant bit of any memory-reference instruction indicated indirect addressing: The word addressed by the instruction, instead of being the operand, contained the operand address. In early members of the series the most significant bit of that word could be set to indicate an additional level of indirect addressing, and this could be iterated any number of times.
With no stack for saving procedure return points, indirect addressing was used to implement procedure call and return: The first word of a procedure was reserved for the return address, and the jump to subroutine instruction would store the return address there. The return to caller was performed via a jump indirect through that word. This design also appeared in other machines of the era, such as the CDC 3000
series.
The early machines in the series (including the 2116) were direct-execution machines but the 2100 and later machines were microprogrammed. The 2100 offered a writable control store allowing the user to extend and change the vertical microcode.
The 2100-series of processors is one of the systems on which the SIMH
multi-system emulator is able to run.
desktop computers used a slow, serialized TTL
version of the 2116 CPU, although they did not ultimately use any of the operating system or application software, instead relying on user-friendly ROM
-based interpreters
such as BASIC
which worked when powered up and integrated keyboards and displays rather than disk
s or standard terminals
. In 1975, HP introduced the BPC, the world's first 16-bit microprocessor, using HP's NMOS
-II process. The BPC was usually packaged in a ceramic hybrid module with the EMC and IOC chips, which added extended math and I/O instructions. The hybrid was developed as the heart of the new 9825 desktop computer. The later 9845 workstation added an MMU
chip. These were the forerunners of personal computer
s and technical workstations.
The major differences between the original 2116 architecture and the BPC microprocessor are a completely redesigned I/O structure, the removal of multiple levels of indirect addressing, and the provision of a stack register for subroutine call and return. The elimination of multiple indirection made an additional bit available in a memory word containing an indirect address, allowing the maximum memory capacity to be increased from 32K 16-bit words to 64K. The BPC also added an input allowing the "current page" to be relative to the location of the current instruction, rather than a power-of-two aligned page.
The BPC was used in a wide range of HP computers, peripherals, and test equipment, until it was discontinued in the late 1980s.
The HP 2100 is one of many 8 and 16 bit machine architectures said to be inspired by the PDP-8
. These can be characterized by use of RAM instead of registers, and a small number of accumulators
(such as A and B) rather than a relatively large number of regular registers
(such as R0-R7 or R15) found on the PDP-11
. This philosophy can save money when RAM is less expensive than registers.
Poland
manufactured an HP 2114B clone since 1973. The Polish clones were called MKJ-28 (prototype, 1973), SMC-3 (pilot production, 17 machines, 1975-1977) and PRS-4 (production in series over 150 machines, 1978-1987).
Czechoslovakia
produced its own HP 1000 compatible clones, designated ADT4000 (4300, 4500, 4700, 4900). More than 1000 units were delivered by the vendors Aritma Prague (development), ZPA Čakovice and ZPA Trutnov between 1973 and 1990. Those computers served in power plants, including nuclear ones, other industry, military, at universities, etc., for their high reliability and real-time features. Operating systems were DOS/ADT (several versions) and Unix. The oldest hybrid ADT7000 (1974) was composed of digital ADT4000 and analog ADT3000 parts, but only the digital part was interesting for customers. ADT4316 (1976) had 16K words of ferrite core memory, the ADT4500 (1978) up to 4M words of semiconductor RAM. The ADT 4900 was designed as a single-board computer
, but its mass production did not start yet. Czechoslovak People's Army used ADT based MOMI 1 and MOMI 2 mobile minicomputers, built into a container carried by the Tatra 148 truck.
that has been pumped up to 16 bits and two accumulators.
that burned out with use. Dark lights did not bother regular users, who knew the 1 and 0 sequences to load the paper tape "loader-loader" instructions without seeing the panel's lights.
memory expandable to 1,048,576 words (one megaword). The bit displays on the front panel buttons used small red LEDs
, instead of the incandescent bulbs used in earlier versions.
The 21MX ran the HP RTE (Real Time) Operating System (OS). They started out as refrigerator-sized rack computers with lights and switches on the front panels. The last models would use a 1-chip processor and fit under a desk using a console rather than front panel.
The new L and A series models had HP-IB
interface ability, but as with all HP systems at that time, the blinking LED lights were removed from the front panel. Despite customer demands for a real-time ability and HP R&D's efforts using an installable real-time card, the RTE-A OS was not as good at real-time operations as RTE on a 21MX. This was an important reason this computer was hard to kill. Many companies use real-time operations to take a measurements and control processes — turn on or off a pump, heater, a valve, speed up or slow down a motor, etc.
1981:
1982??:
1984:
1986:
1992:
. For example, the command to run a FORTRAN
compiler would be as follows:
ru, f77, &test,'test,%test
meaning run the f77 program, using special characters to distinguish between source file, object, and executable files for older FMGR files. A modern Unix
command line uses an implied run, and files have dot extensions or internally stored characteristics ("magic numbers") to distinguish between different file types for a given project. It may have been the most primitive shell of any competitive minicomputer at the time.
The HP 1000 also was one of the few minicomputers that restricted file names to only five characters, rather than the six common at the time, which made porting and even writing programs a challenge. Newer RTE-A operating system for HP 1000 provided conventional directory structure with 16.4 file names, and made the ru command optional.
GRAPHICS/1000 was a FORTRAN 5 character name implementation of AGL, which was based on the HP 9830 graphics commands.
Alternatively, a specific dual processor configuration was sold (The HP2000 system) that could run HP Time-Shared BASIC. In this system, a well-equipped 2116 acted as the main processor while a 2114 acted as the communications multiplexer, simulating many UART
channels in software. Later, 2100-series processors were substituted for the 2114. The HP2000 was the forerunner of the Tandem NonStop
architecture, Tandem being created when HP management stopped the HP2000 product and its champions disagreed.
Minicomputer
A minicomputer is a class of multi-user computers that lies in the middle range of the computing spectrum, in between the largest multi-user systems and the smallest single-user systems...
s produced by Hewlett-Packard
Hewlett-Packard
Hewlett-Packard Company or HP is an American multinational information technology corporation headquartered in Palo Alto, California, USA that provides products, technologies, softwares, solutions and services to consumers, small- and medium-sized businesses and large enterprises, including...
(HP) from the mid-1960s to early 1990s. The 2100 was also a specific model in this series. The series was renamed HP 1000 by the 1970s and sold as real-time computer
Real-time computing
In computer science, real-time computing , or reactive computing, is the study of hardware and software systems that are subject to a "real-time constraint"— e.g. operational deadlines from event to system response. Real-time programs must guarantee response within strict time constraints...
s, complementing the more complex IT
Information technology
Information technology is the acquisition, processing, storage and dissemination of vocal, pictorial, textual and numerical information by a microelectronics-based combination of computing and telecommunications...
-oriented HP 3000
HP 3000
The HP 3000 series is a family of minicomputers released by Hewlett-Packard in 1973. It was designed to be the first minicomputer delivered with a full featured operating system with time-sharing. The first models were withdrawn from the market until speed improvements could be made. It ultimately...
, and would be the starting point for a line of desktop computer
Desktop computer
A desktop computer is a personal computer in a form intended for regular use at a single location, as opposed to a mobile laptop or portable computer. Early desktop computers are designed to lay flat on the desk, while modern towers stand upright...
s. They would eventually be phased out in favor of UNIX
Unix
Unix is a multitasking, multi-user computer operating system originally developed in 1969 by a group of AT&T employees at Bell Labs, including Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, Brian Kernighan, Douglas McIlroy, and Joe Ossanna...
-based RISC workstations.
HP entered the minicomputer
Minicomputer
A minicomputer is a class of multi-user computers that lies in the middle range of the computing spectrum, in between the largest multi-user systems and the smallest single-user systems...
market in 1966, along with Varian Data Machines
Varian Data Machines
Varian Data Machines was a division of Varian Associates which sold minicomputers. It entered the market in 1966, but met stiff competition and was bought by Sperry Corporation in 1977....
. Later, General Automation, Computer Automation
Computer Automation
Computer Automation Inc. was a computer manufacturer founded by David H Methvin in 1968, based originally in Irvine, California, USA.In 1981 they moved to Boulder, Colorado, and in 1985 moved back to Irvine, California...
, Data General
Data General
Data General was one of the first minicomputer firms from the late 1960s. Three of the four founders were former employees of Digital Equipment Corporation. Their first product, the Data General Nova, was a 16-bit minicomputer...
, Micro Systems, and Lockheed
Lockheed Corporation
The Lockheed Corporation was an American aerospace company. Lockheed was founded in 1912 and later merged with Martin Marietta to form Lockheed Martin in 1995.-Origins:...
would also be competitors. The 2116A was the first model of the series. It was designed by HP's Dymec division, after absorbing Data Systems Inc. (DSI), a subsidiary of Union Carbide
Union Carbide
Union Carbide Corporation is a wholly owned subsidiary of The Dow Chemical Company. It currently employs more than 2,400 people. Union Carbide primarily produces chemicals and polymers that undergo one or more further conversions by customers before reaching consumers. Some are high-volume...
. DSI had designs for a 16-bit minicomputer called the DSI-1000, which would eventually evolve into the 2116A through HP's involvement.
The 2116A is a 16-bit
16-bit
-16-bit architecture:The HP BPC, introduced in 1975, was the world's first 16-bit microprocessor. Prominent 16-bit processors include the PDP-11, Intel 8086, Intel 80286 and the WDC 65C816. The Intel 8088 was program-compatible with the Intel 8086, and was 16-bit in that its registers were 16...
word-addressed
Word-addressable
Word-addressable is a Computer Architecture term.In computer architecture, a word is an ordered set of bytes or bits that is the normal unit in which information may be stored, transmitted, or operated on within a given computer....
general purpose computer
Computer
A computer is a programmable machine designed to sequentially and automatically carry out a sequence of arithmetic or logical operations. The particular sequence of operations can be changed readily, allowing the computer to solve more than one kind of problem...
. Main memory is 4096 words (4K), expandable to 8K of magnetic core
Magnetic core memory
Magnetic-core memory was the predominant form of random-access computer memory for 20 years . It uses tiny magnetic toroids , the cores, through which wires are threaded to write and read information. Each core represents one bit of information...
in the chassis, or 16K with a memory extender. The 2116A features 16 I/O
Input/output
In computing, input/output, or I/O, refers to the communication between an information processing system , and the outside world, possibly a human, or another information processing system. Inputs are the signals or data received by the system, and outputs are the signals or data sent from it...
slots in the chassis, a 10 MHz
Hertz
The hertz is the SI unit of frequency defined as the number of cycles per second of a periodic phenomenon. One of its most common uses is the description of the sine wave, particularly those used in radio and audio applications....
clock and a memory cycle time
Memory timings
Memory timings refer collectively to a set of four numerical parameters called CL, tRCD, tRP, and tRAS, commonly represented as a series of four numbers separated with dashes, in that respective order . However, it is not unusual for tRAS to be omitted, or for a fifth value, the Command rate, to...
of 1.6 microsecond
Microsecond
A microsecond is an SI unit of time equal to one millionth of a second. Its symbol is µs.A microsecond is equal to 1000 nanoseconds or 1/1000 millisecond...
s. The 2116A had two subsequent revisions: the 2116B added support for up to 32K with a memory extender, and the 2116C incorporated a more compact model of core memory
Magnetic core memory
Magnetic-core memory was the predominant form of random-access computer memory for 20 years . It uses tiny magnetic toroids , the cores, through which wires are threaded to write and read information. Each core represents one bit of information...
, allowing the full 32K to be housed within the computer chassis.
The HP 2116A’s software
Computer software
Computer software, or just software, is a collection of computer programs and related data that provide the instructions for telling a computer what to do and how to do it....
, with a FORTRAN
Fortran
Fortran is a general-purpose, procedural, imperative programming language that is especially suited to numeric computation and scientific computing...
compiler
Compiler
A compiler is a computer program that transforms source code written in a programming language into another computer language...
, assembler
Assembly language
An assembly language is a low-level programming language for computers, microprocessors, microcontrollers, and other programmable devices. It implements a symbolic representation of the machine codes and other constants needed to program a given CPU architecture...
, linker, loader
Loader (computing)
In computing, a loader is the part of an operating system that is responsible for loading programs. It is one of the essential stages in the process of starting a program, as it places programs into memory and prepares them for execution...
, operating system
Operating system
An operating system is a set of programs that manage computer hardware resources and provide common services for application software. The operating system is the most important type of system software in a computer system...
, and I/O drivers
Device driver
In computing, a device driver or software driver is a computer program allowing higher-level computer programs to interact with a hardware device....
were ready at the same time as the hardware. This was quite unusual when most computer vendors would roll out the hardware first with little software. The 1967 issue of the Hewlett-Packard Journal called the HP 2116A "an unusual new instrumentation computer".
The HP 2116A had an over-sized cabinet with 16 empty card slots for interface cards. Up to 48 could be fitted with one or more add-on I/O extender chassis. At introduction, HP engineers had interfaces for more than 20 instruments including "counters, nuclear scalers, electronic thermometer
Thermometer
Developed during the 16th and 17th centuries, a thermometer is a device that measures temperature or temperature gradient using a variety of different principles. A thermometer has two important elements: the temperature sensor Developed during the 16th and 17th centuries, a thermometer (from the...
s, digital voltmeter
Voltmeter
A voltmeter is an instrument used for measuring electrical potential difference between two points in an electric circuit. Analog voltmeters move a pointer across a scale in proportion to the voltage of the circuit; digital voltmeters give a numerical display of voltage by use of an analog to...
s, ac/ohms converters, data amplifiers, and input scanners." The HP 2116A's introduction began the age of modern automated test systems
Automatic test equipment
Automatic or Automated Test Equipment is any apparatus that performs tests on a device, known as the Device Under Test , using automation to quickly perform measurements and evaluate the test results...
.
When HP discovered it sold more HP 2116A minicomputers for business applications than for instrumentation, HP introduced the short-lived 2115A in 1967, a cost-reduced variant of the 2116A with only 8 I/O slots, a bulky external power supply, and a 2116-style front panel. The HP 2116A of 1968 was stripped of DMA
Direct memory access
Direct memory access is a feature of modern computers that allows certain hardware subsystems within the computer to access system memory independently of the central processing unit ....
and extended arithmetic. The 2114A featured a redesigned front panel, with reduced register displays and illuminated touch switch
Touch switch
A touch switch is a type of switch that only has to be touched by an object to operate. It is used in many lamps and wall switches that have a metal exterior as well as on public computer terminals...
es. The 2114 saw two further revisions: the 2114B added single-channel DMA
Direct memory access
Direct memory access is a feature of modern computers that allows certain hardware subsystems within the computer to access system memory independently of the central processing unit ....
and HSIO options at the expense of a single I/O slot, and 2114C supported up to 16K maximum core in mainframe, at the expense of yet another I/O slot. The 2115A and 2114A/B/C have an 8 MHz clock and a 2.0 µs cycle time.
HP's Data Systems Division, initially based in Cupertino, California
Cupertino, California
Cupertino is an affluent suburban city in Santa Clara County, California in the U.S., directly west of San Jose on the western edge of the Santa Clara Valley with portions extending into the foothills of the Santa Cruz Mountains. The population was 58,302 at the time of the 2010 census. Forbes...
and later moved to nearby Santa Clara
Santa Clara, California
Santa Clara , founded in 1777 and incorporated in 1852, is a city in Santa Clara County, in the U.S. state of California. The city is the site of the eighth of 21 California missions, Mission Santa Clara de Asís, and was named after the mission. The Mission and Mission Gardens are located on the...
, produced a long series of successful HP 21xx minicomputers that HP would not be able to kill despite five serious attempts to introduce successors, including the HP 3000
HP 3000
The HP 3000 series is a family of minicomputers released by Hewlett-Packard in 1973. It was designed to be the first minicomputer delivered with a full featured operating system with time-sharing. The first models were withdrawn from the market until speed improvements could be made. It ultimately...
. By 1978, HP was the fourth largest minicomputer manufacturer, trailing only DEC
Digital Equipment Corporation
Digital Equipment Corporation was a major American company in the computer industry and a leading vendor of computer systems, software and peripherals from the 1960s to the 1990s...
, IBM
IBM
International Business Machines Corporation or IBM is an American multinational technology and consulting corporation headquartered in Armonk, New York, United States. IBM manufactures and sells computer hardware and software, and it offers infrastructure, hosting and consulting services in areas...
, and Data General
Data General
Data General was one of the first minicomputer firms from the late 1960s. Three of the four founders were former employees of Digital Equipment Corporation. Their first product, the Data General Nova, was a 16-bit minicomputer...
. The 16-bit instrumentation-oriented HP 21xx architecture survived and evolved for more than 20 years, setting the stage for HP's growth to world's largest technology vendor, surpassing IBM, and the leading personal computer
Personal computer
A personal computer is any general-purpose computer whose size, capabilities, and original sales price make it useful for individuals, and which is intended to be operated directly by an end-user with no intervening computer operator...
supplier.
2100 series architecture
There were two 16-bit accumulatorsAccumulator (computing)
In a computer's central processing unit , an accumulator is a register in which intermediate arithmetic and logic results are stored. Without a register like an accumulator, it would be necessary to write the result of each calculation to main memory, perhaps only to be read right back again for...
, called A and B which could do most instructions such as load or add, and two 1-bit flags, called Overflow and Extend, although the A register had a few more instructions. The program counter
Program counter
The program counter , commonly called the instruction pointer in Intel x86 microprocessors, and sometimes called the instruction address register, or just part of the instruction sequencer in some computers, is a processor register that indicates where the computer is in its instruction sequence...
, 15 bits, was called P. All instructions in the standard instruction set
Instruction set
An instruction set, or instruction set architecture , is the part of the computer architecture related to programming, including the native data types, instructions, registers, addressing modes, memory architecture, interrupt and exception handling, and external I/O...
were 16 bits long. The earlier PDP-8
PDP-8
The 12-bit PDP-8 was the first successful commercial minicomputer, produced by Digital Equipment Corporation in the 1960s. DEC introduced it on 22 March 1965, and sold more than 50,000 systems, the most of any computer up to that date. It was the first widely sold computer in the DEC PDP series of...
from DEC
Digital Equipment Corporation
Digital Equipment Corporation was a major American company in the computer industry and a leading vendor of computer systems, software and peripherals from the 1960s to the 1990s...
had just one accumulator and a 12-bit address. Memory was word accessible, unlike the later PDP-11
PDP-11
The PDP-11 was a series of 16-bit minicomputers sold by Digital Equipment Corporation from 1970 into the 1990s, one of a succession of products in the PDP series. The PDP-11 replaced the PDP-8 in many real-time applications, although both product lines lived in parallel for more than 10 years...
, which was addressable by byte. Conditional branching was done with a conditional skip followed by a jump instruction. There was no dedicated stack register.
The processor instruction-set architecture was very efficient, predating RISC architectures with some similar features 20 years later, as there were only 68 instructions. All instructions are fixed width, 16 bits wide, and all instructions executed in one memory cycle (1.6 microseconds). However, instructions could address both memory and a register, it had only two accumulators instead of a series of general registers (such as the PDP-11
PDP-11
The PDP-11 was a series of 16-bit minicomputers sold by Digital Equipment Corporation from 1970 into the 1990s, one of a succession of products in the PDP series. The PDP-11 replaced the PDP-8 in many real-time applications, although both product lines lived in parallel for more than 10 years...
). The register-reference instructions could execute multiple operations per instruction (RISC processors generally execute only one operation per instruction)
The smallest addressable unit of memory was a 16-bit word, and the maximum possible address was 32,767, which would fit in a word with one bit left over. The most significant bit of any memory-reference instruction indicated indirect addressing: The word addressed by the instruction, instead of being the operand, contained the operand address. In early members of the series the most significant bit of that word could be set to indicate an additional level of indirect addressing, and this could be iterated any number of times.
With no stack for saving procedure return points, indirect addressing was used to implement procedure call and return: The first word of a procedure was reserved for the return address, and the jump to subroutine instruction would store the return address there. The return to caller was performed via a jump indirect through that word. This design also appeared in other machines of the era, such as the CDC 3000
CDC 3000
The CDC 3000 series computers from Control Data Corporation were mid-1960s follow-ons to the CDC 1604 and CDC 924 systems. Over time, a range of machines were produced - divided into the 'upper 3000 series' and the 'lower 3000 series'. CDC phased out production of the 3000 series in the early 1970s...
series.
The early machines in the series (including the 2116) were direct-execution machines but the 2100 and later machines were microprogrammed. The 2100 offered a writable control store allowing the user to extend and change the vertical microcode.
The 2100-series of processors is one of the systems on which the SIMH
SIMH
SIMH is a highly portable, multi-system emulator which runs on Windows, Linux, Mac OS X, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD, OpenVMS, and other operating systems...
multi-system emulator is able to run.
Descendants and variants
The HP 9810, 9820 and 9830HP 9830
The HP 9800 was a family of what were initially called programmable calculators and later desktop computers made by Hewlett-Packard, replacing their first HP 9100 calculator...
desktop computers used a slow, serialized TTL
Transistor-transistor logic
Transistor–transistor logic is a class of digital circuits built from bipolar junction transistors and resistors. It is called transistor–transistor logic because both the logic gating function and the amplifying function are performed by transistors .TTL is notable for being a widespread...
version of the 2116 CPU, although they did not ultimately use any of the operating system or application software, instead relying on user-friendly ROM
Read-only memory
Read-only memory is a class of storage medium used in computers and other electronic devices. Data stored in ROM cannot be modified, or can be modified only slowly or with difficulty, so it is mainly used to distribute firmware .In its strictest sense, ROM refers only...
-based interpreters
Interpreter (computing)
In computer science, an interpreter normally means a computer program that executes, i.e. performs, instructions written in a programming language...
such as BASIC
BASIC
BASIC is a family of general-purpose, high-level programming languages whose design philosophy emphasizes ease of use - the name is an acronym from Beginner's All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code....
which worked when powered up and integrated keyboards and displays rather than disk
Disk storage
Disk storage or disc storage is a general category of storage mechanisms, in which data are digitally recorded by various electronic, magnetic, optical, or mechanical methods on a surface layer deposited of one or more planar, round and rotating disks...
s or standard terminals
Computer terminal
A computer terminal is an electronic or electromechanical hardware device that is used for entering data into, and displaying data from, a computer or a computing system...
. In 1975, HP introduced the BPC, the world's first 16-bit microprocessor, using HP's NMOS
NMOS logic
N-type metal-oxide-semiconductor logic uses n-type metal-oxide-semiconductor field effect transistors to implement logic gates and other digital circuits...
-II process. The BPC was usually packaged in a ceramic hybrid module with the EMC and IOC chips, which added extended math and I/O instructions. The hybrid was developed as the heart of the new 9825 desktop computer. The later 9845 workstation added an MMU
Memory management unit
A memory management unit , sometimes called paged memory management unit , is a computer hardware component responsible for handling accesses to memory requested by the CPU...
chip. These were the forerunners of personal computer
Personal computer
A personal computer is any general-purpose computer whose size, capabilities, and original sales price make it useful for individuals, and which is intended to be operated directly by an end-user with no intervening computer operator...
s and technical workstations.
The major differences between the original 2116 architecture and the BPC microprocessor are a completely redesigned I/O structure, the removal of multiple levels of indirect addressing, and the provision of a stack register for subroutine call and return. The elimination of multiple indirection made an additional bit available in a memory word containing an indirect address, allowing the maximum memory capacity to be increased from 32K 16-bit words to 64K. The BPC also added an input allowing the "current page" to be relative to the location of the current instruction, rather than a power-of-two aligned page.
The BPC was used in a wide range of HP computers, peripherals, and test equipment, until it was discontinued in the late 1980s.
The HP 2100 is one of many 8 and 16 bit machine architectures said to be inspired by the PDP-8
PDP-8
The 12-bit PDP-8 was the first successful commercial minicomputer, produced by Digital Equipment Corporation in the 1960s. DEC introduced it on 22 March 1965, and sold more than 50,000 systems, the most of any computer up to that date. It was the first widely sold computer in the DEC PDP series of...
. These can be characterized by use of RAM instead of registers, and a small number of accumulators
Accumulator (computing)
In a computer's central processing unit , an accumulator is a register in which intermediate arithmetic and logic results are stored. Without a register like an accumulator, it would be necessary to write the result of each calculation to main memory, perhaps only to be read right back again for...
(such as A and B) rather than a relatively large number of regular registers
Processor register
In computer architecture, a processor register is a small amount of storage available as part of a CPU or other digital processor. Such registers are addressed by mechanisms other than main memory and can be accessed more quickly...
(such as R0-R7 or R15) found on the PDP-11
PDP-11
The PDP-11 was a series of 16-bit minicomputers sold by Digital Equipment Corporation from 1970 into the 1990s, one of a succession of products in the PDP series. The PDP-11 replaced the PDP-8 in many real-time applications, although both product lines lived in parallel for more than 10 years...
. This philosophy can save money when RAM is less expensive than registers.
Poland
Poland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
manufactured an HP 2114B clone since 1973. The Polish clones were called MKJ-28 (prototype, 1973), SMC-3 (pilot production, 17 machines, 1975-1977) and PRS-4 (production in series over 150 machines, 1978-1987).
Czechoslovakia
Czechoslovakia
Czechoslovakia or Czecho-Slovakia was a sovereign state in Central Europe which existed from October 1918, when it declared its independence from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, until 1992...
produced its own HP 1000 compatible clones, designated ADT4000 (4300, 4500, 4700, 4900). More than 1000 units were delivered by the vendors Aritma Prague (development), ZPA Čakovice and ZPA Trutnov between 1973 and 1990. Those computers served in power plants, including nuclear ones, other industry, military, at universities, etc., for their high reliability and real-time features. Operating systems were DOS/ADT (several versions) and Unix. The oldest hybrid ADT7000 (1974) was composed of digital ADT4000 and analog ADT3000 parts, but only the digital part was interesting for customers. ADT4316 (1976) had 16K words of ferrite core memory, the ADT4500 (1978) up to 4M words of semiconductor RAM. The ADT 4900 was designed as a single-board computer
Single-board computer
A single-board computer is a complete computer built on a single circuit board, with microprocessor, memory, input/output and other features required of a functional computer. Unlike a typical personal computer, an SBC may not include slots into which accessory cards may be plugged...
, but its mass production did not start yet. Czechoslovak People's Army used ADT based MOMI 1 and MOMI 2 mobile minicomputers, built into a container carried by the Tatra 148 truck.
Instruction overview
- ArithmeticFixed-point arithmeticIn computing, a fixed-point number representation is a real data type for a number that has a fixed number of digits after the radix point...
— Add, Increment, And, Or, Exclusive or - Program ControlControl unitA control unit in general is a central part of the machinery that controls its operation, provided that a piece of machinery is complex and organized enough to contain any such unit. One domain in which the term is specifically used is the area of computer design...
— Skip, Jump, Jump to SubroutineSubroutineIn computer science, a subroutine is a portion of code within a larger program that performs a specific task and is relatively independent of the remaining code.... - Shift/Rotate — Arithmetic and Logical Shifts, 16- and 17-bit Rotates
- Optional — Multiply, Divide, 32-bit Load and Store, 32-bit Shifts
Early models (1966-1970)
Core memory, hardwired CPU. Similar to a PDP-8PDP-8
The 12-bit PDP-8 was the first successful commercial minicomputer, produced by Digital Equipment Corporation in the 1960s. DEC introduced it on 22 March 1965, and sold more than 50,000 systems, the most of any computer up to that date. It was the first widely sold computer in the DEC PDP series of...
that has been pumped up to 16 bits and two accumulators.
- 2116A
- 2116B
- 2116C
- 2115A
- 2114A
- 2114B
- 2114C
Second generation (1970-1974)
Core memory, microprogrammed CPU. An option allowed user microprogramming. Front panel buttons were illuminated by small incandescent lampsIncandescent light bulb
The incandescent light bulb, incandescent lamp or incandescent light globe makes light by heating a metal filament wire to a high temperature until it glows. The hot filament is protected from air by a glass bulb that is filled with inert gas or evacuated. In a halogen lamp, a chemical process...
that burned out with use. Dark lights did not bother regular users, who knew the 1 and 0 sequences to load the paper tape "loader-loader" instructions without seeing the panel's lights.
- 2100A
- 2100S
21MX (1975-1979)
The 21MX series featured a memory management unit and semiconductorSemiconductor
A semiconductor is a material with electrical conductivity due to electron flow intermediate in magnitude between that of a conductor and an insulator. This means a conductivity roughly in the range of 103 to 10−8 siemens per centimeter...
memory expandable to 1,048,576 words (one megaword). The bit displays on the front panel buttons used small red LEDs
LEDS
LEDS can be initials for:* Law Enforcement Data System* Link Eleven Display System* Low Energy Dislocation Structure* Land Electronic Defence System * LEDs * Life-Events and Difficulties Schedule...
, instead of the incandescent bulbs used in earlier versions.
- M-series — 2105A, 2108A, 2112A (blue line on front panel)
- E-series — 2109A, 2113A (yellow line on front panel; E for Extended)
- F-series — 2111F, 2117F (red line on front panel; F for Floating pointFloating pointIn computing, floating point describes a method of representing real numbers in a way that can support a wide range of values. Numbers are, in general, represented approximately to a fixed number of significant digits and scaled using an exponent. The base for the scaling is normally 2, 10 or 16...
)
The 21MX ran the HP RTE (Real Time) Operating System (OS). They started out as refrigerator-sized rack computers with lights and switches on the front panels. The last models would use a 1-chip processor and fit under a desk using a console rather than front panel.
The new L and A series models had HP-IB
IEEE-488
IEEE-488 is a short-range digital communications bus specification. It was created for use with automated test equipment in the late 1960s, and is still in use for that purpose. IEEE-488 was created as HP-IB , and is commonly called GPIB...
interface ability, but as with all HP systems at that time, the blinking LED lights were removed from the front panel. Despite customer demands for a real-time ability and HP R&D's efforts using an installable real-time card, the RTE-A OS was not as good at real-time operations as RTE on a 21MX. This was an important reason this computer was hard to kill. Many companies use real-time operations to take a measurements and control processes — turn on or off a pump, heater, a valve, speed up or slow down a motor, etc.
A-Series (1981-1996)
Each addressable up to 32 MB of RAM.1981:
- A600 - based on Am2900AMD Am2900Am2900 is a family of integrated circuits created in 1975 by Advanced Micro Devices . They were constructed with bipolar devices, in a bit-slice topology, and were designed to be used as modular components each representing a different aspect of a computer control unit...
bit-sliceBit slicingBit slicing is a technique for constructing a processor from modules of smaller bit width. Each of these components processes one bit field or "slice" of an operand...
processor, 1 MIPS, 53kFLOPSFLOPSIn computing, FLOPS is a measure of a computer's performance, especially in fields of scientific calculations that make heavy use of floating-point calculations, similar to the older, simpler, instructions per second... - A600+ - based on Am2900 bit-slice processor, supports code and data separation, optional ECC (error correcting) memory. Codename: LIGHTNING
1982??:
- A700 - HP own CPU, optional hardware floating point processor, 1MIPS, 204kFLOPS, microprogramming, optional ECC memoryECC memoryError-correcting code memory is a type of computer data storage that can detect and correct the more common kinds of internal data corruption...
. Codename: PHOENIX
1984:
- A900 - Provides pipelinedInstruction pipelineAn instruction pipeline is a technique used in the design of computers and other digital electronic devices to increase their instruction throughput ....
data path, 3MIPS, 500kFLOPS, ECC memory. Codename MAGIC
1986:
- A400 - first single-board CPU including 4 serial lines; CPU fabricated by VLSI TechnologyVLSI TechnologyVLSI Technology, Inc was a company which designed and manufactured custom and semi-custom ICs. The company was based in Silicon Valley, with headquarters at 1109 McKay Drive in San Jose, California...
with their CMOS-40 process, 512kB RAM on board. Codename Yellowstone
1992:
- A990 - CPU implemented with two 208-pin CMOS application-specific integrated circuitApplication-specific integrated circuitAn application-specific integrated circuit is an integrated circuit customized for a particular use, rather than intended for general-purpose use. For example, a chip designed solely to run a cell phone is an ASIC...
s (ASICs), 298 instructions, supports up to 512 MB of memory.
Operating systems
The operating system shell, even in the late 1970s, was very primitive, with a single-level file systemFile system
A file system is a means to organize data expected to be retained after a program terminates by providing procedures to store, retrieve and update data, as well as manage the available space on the device which contain it. A file system organizes data in an efficient manner and is tuned to the...
. For example, the command to run a FORTRAN
Fortran
Fortran is a general-purpose, procedural, imperative programming language that is especially suited to numeric computation and scientific computing...
compiler would be as follows:
ru, f77, &test,'test,%test
meaning run the f77 program, using special characters to distinguish between source file, object, and executable files for older FMGR files. A modern Unix
Unix
Unix is a multitasking, multi-user computer operating system originally developed in 1969 by a group of AT&T employees at Bell Labs, including Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, Brian Kernighan, Douglas McIlroy, and Joe Ossanna...
command line uses an implied run, and files have dot extensions or internally stored characteristics ("magic numbers") to distinguish between different file types for a given project. It may have been the most primitive shell of any competitive minicomputer at the time.
The HP 1000 also was one of the few minicomputers that restricted file names to only five characters, rather than the six common at the time, which made porting and even writing programs a challenge. Newer RTE-A operating system for HP 1000 provided conventional directory structure with 16.4 file names, and made the ru command optional.
GRAPHICS/1000 was a FORTRAN 5 character name implementation of AGL, which was based on the HP 9830 graphics commands.
Alternatively, a specific dual processor configuration was sold (The HP2000 system) that could run HP Time-Shared BASIC. In this system, a well-equipped 2116 acted as the main processor while a 2114 acted as the communications multiplexer, simulating many UART
Universal asynchronous receiver/transmitter
A universal asynchronous receiver/transmitter, abbreviated UART , is a type of "asynchronous receiver/transmitter", a piece of computer hardware that translates data between parallel and serial forms. UARTs are commonly used in conjunction with communication standards such as EIA RS-232, RS-422 or...
channels in software. Later, 2100-series processors were substituted for the 2114. The HP2000 was the forerunner of the Tandem NonStop
NonStop
NonStop can refer to the line of HP Integrity NonStop computers, the line of Tandem NonStop computers that preceded them, or the NonStop OS operating system that is designed for them. NonStop systems are based on an integrated hardware/software stack...
architecture, Tandem being created when HP management stopped the HP2000 product and its champions disagreed.
Introduction dates
- HP 2116A — Nov 1966
- HP 2115A — Nov 1967
- HP 2116B — Sep 1968
- HP 2114A — Oct 1968
- HP 2000A — Nov 1968 (2116-based timesharing system)
- HP 2114B — Nov 1969
- HP 2116C — Oct 1970
- HP 2114C — Oct 1970
External links
- Jeff Moffat's HP2100 Archive, software and manuals
- Simulator, with executable binaries and source in C
- HP: The Accidentally, On-Purpose Computer Company
- 1972 HP 2100 Brochure
- rack mounted HP2100 system Guilherme Bittencourt's site image showing from top to bottom, left: a 21MX E-series computer, 2100A computer, 2100 power supply (PS), 7905 disc drive, 13037 drive controller; right: paper tape reader, paper tape punch, 7900 disk drive, 7900 PS.
- HP Computer Museum: 2000F Timeshare System
- HP Computer Museum: 1000-L & A Series
