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Hello all,

I'm in the UK and am new to the group, though have seen messages here when doing web searches for information on HP equipment.

I'm looking for help with a 16500A logic analysis system. I have both a 16500B and a 16500A in good working condition and am trying to make two useful machines, each with both DSO and logic analyser modules. The 16500B is no problem and supports everything. The problem comes with the 16500A. I've fitted it with 16530A/16531A DSO modules and a 16550A logic analyser module. Sadly, as reported by others in this group (back in spring of this year, I think) some examples of the 16500A only have 1MB of RAM which isn't enough to accommodate the 16550A system software. Mine is one of these, and it complains when loading the SYSTEM_.032 module.

Examining the CPU board, it has 8 44C256 1Mbit DRAM chips soldered to it. I've done a bit of reverse engineering and established that the board is in fact wired for 4Mbit parts, which is promising for an upgrade. However, 4Mbit DRAMs (44400 and so on) sadly don't seem to be available in the DIL package that the board is laid out for. I am contemplating all sorts of hackery involving wiring SIMM slots up, or adapter boards to take surface-mount RAM chips stolen from old SIMMs, but it would be time-consuming and the space available on the CPU board is limited. There's no guarantee of success, either, since the ROMs on the CPU board might not support more than 1MB of RAM.

I'd like to hear what peoples' opinions are of ways to proceed. Has anyone ever upgraded an early 16500A CPU board with more RAM? Do the ROMs support it? Might I need to change the ROMs to the later version? Or should I simply swap out the CPU board for a later one? In which case where would I find one?

I know the 16500A is pretty old, but it would still be a useful machine to me. The 16500 series don't seem to be all that plentiful in the UK so I haven't found a ready source of donor machines to pull parts from.

Thanks in advance
Chris

Am 04.01.2013 14:55, schrieb cmjones012003:

I'd like to hear what peoples' opinions are of ways to proceed. Has
anyone ever upgraded an early 16500A CPU board with more RAM? Do the
ROMs support it? Might I need to change the ROMs to the later version?
Or should I simply swap out the CPU board for a later one? In which
case where would I find one?

I have bought one of the very first HP16500A when it just came out and
the scope board later, also new
only to discover that the machine could not run its software.
Only remedy was to change the cpu board at a high price. :-(

Gerhard

On Fri, 04 Jan 2013 13:55:20 -0000, you wrote:

Hello all,

I'm in the UK and am new to the group, though have seen messages here when doing web searches for information on HP equipment.

I'm looking for help with a 16500A logic analysis system. I have both a 16500B and a 16500A in good working condition and am trying to make two useful machines, each with both DSO and logic analyser modules. The 16500B is no problem and supports everything. The problem comes with the 16500A. I've fitted it with 16530A/16531A DSO modules and a 16550A logic analyser module. Sadly, as reported by others in this group (back in spring of this year, I think) some examples of the 16500A only have 1MB of RAM which isn't enough to accommodate the 16550A system software. Mine is one of these, and it complains when loading the SYSTEM_.032 module.

You could make it work with a 16510, I think. The 16550 is very long,
but in comparison, the 16510 is much shorter, and much more rapid to
respond to positioning and scanning commands.

Examining the CPU board, it has 8 44C256 1Mbit DRAM chips soldered to it. I've done a bit of reverse engineering and established that the board is in fact wired for 4Mbit parts, which is promising for an upgrade. However, 4Mbit DRAMs (44400 and so on) sadly don't seem to be available in the DIL package that the board is laid out for. I am contemplating all sorts of hackery involving wiring SIMM slots up, or adapter boards to take surface-mount RAM chips stolen from old SIMMs, but it would be time-consuming and the space available on the CPU board is limited. There's no guarantee of success, either, since the ROMs on the CPU board might not support more than 1MB of RAM.

IIRC, there's an upgrade kit, it at least would do a 16500B to C, and
that frees up your 16500B motherboard for use in the 16500A, should
you care to go that way. I've seen the upgrade kits on ebay from time
to time, IIRC, it's a new CPU board.

I'd like to hear what peoples' opinions are of ways to proceed. Has anyone ever upgraded an early 16500A CPU board with more RAM? Do the ROMs support it? Might I need to change the ROMs to the later version? Or should I simply swap out the CPU board for a later one? In which case where would I find one?

See above for new CPU board. I think that I've seen 1 and 2 megs for
the A, 4 and 8 for the B, and I think 8 and 16 for the C, although I
could be completely wrong on the figures, it does go up with model.

I know the 16500A is pretty old, but it would still be a useful machine to me. The 16500 series don't seem to be all that plentiful in the UK so I haven't found a ready source of donor machines to pull parts from.

I have a 16500B, for that matter....

Best of luck on this,

Harvey

Thanks in advance
Chris

There used to be an upgrade kit available (HP E2479a) that let you turn
an A or B into a C model. It was essentially a motherboard swap. I
used to see them on ebay the other year going for around $100-150.
Unfortunately, by the time I decided I wanted one, they were no
longer being offered.

I'm on a low intensity hunt for a 16500C chassis now to do the
equivalent for my B. I hear rumours of them selling for $50, but
I have yet to see that for myself.

--
Paul Amaranth, GCIH | Rochester MI, USA
Aurora Group, Inc. | Security, Systems & Software
paul@... | Unix & Windows

On Fri, Jan 4, 2013 at 6:47 AM, Paul Amaranth <paul@...> wrote:

There used to be an upgrade kit available (HP E2479a) that let you turn
an A or B into a C model. It was essentially a motherboard swap. I
used to see them on ebay the other year going for around $100-150.
Unfortunately, by the time I decided I wanted one, they were no
longer being offered.

I'm on a low intensity hunt for a 16500C chassis now to do the
equivalent for my B. I hear rumours of them selling for $50, but
I have yet to see that for myself.

Finding them at the ~$50 price point isn't the issue so much as what
you might have to pay for decent packing and shipping if they are not
local to you.

I saw some recently go unsold around that price somewhere in Ohio, but
for that sale you might pay around three times that for the shipping
situation if you were not local enough to pickup yourself.

Hi,

I have 4 16500A's, 2 16500B's, 2 16500C's, & 1 16700A in my garage. tell
me what your cpu pcb # is and what cpu pcb # you need for the 16500A and
I'll go look...additionally I have the software disks for the A, B & C as
well.

Best Regards,

Brian Bergantz
bergantz95118@...

On Fri, Jan 4, 2013 at 5:55 AM, cmjones012003 <chris@...> wrote:

**


Hello all,

I'm in the UK and am new to the group, though have seen messages here when
doing web searches for information on HP equipment.

I'm looking for help with a 16500A logic analysis system. I have both a
16500B and a 16500A in good working condition and am trying to make two
useful machines, each with both DSO and logic analyser modules. The 16500B
is no problem and supports everything. The problem comes with the 16500A.
I've fitted it with 16530A/16531A DSO modules and a 16550A logic analyser
module. Sadly, as reported by others in this group (back in spring of this
year, I think) some examples of the 16500A only have 1MB of RAM which isn't
enough to accommodate the 16550A system software. Mine is one of these, and
it complains when loading the SYSTEM_.032 module.

Examining the CPU board, it has 8 44C256 1Mbit DRAM chips soldered to it.
I've done a bit of reverse engineering and established that the board is in
fact wired for 4Mbit parts, which is promising for an upgrade. However,
4Mbit DRAMs (44400 and so on) sadly don't seem to be available in the DIL
package that the board is laid out for. I am contemplating all sorts of
hackery involving wiring SIMM slots up, or adapter boards to take
surface-mount RAM chips stolen from old SIMMs, but it would be
time-consuming and the space available on the CPU board is limited. There's
no guarantee of success, either, since the ROMs on the CPU board might not
support more than 1MB of RAM.

I'd like to hear what peoples' opinions are of ways to proceed. Has anyone
ever upgraded an early 16500A CPU board with more RAM? Do the ROMs support
it? Might I need to change the ROMs to the later version? Or should I
simply swap out the CPU board for a later one? In which case where would I
find one?

I know the 16500A is pretty old, but it would still be a useful machine to
me. The 16500 series don't seem to be all that plentiful in the UK so I
haven't found a ready source of donor machines to pull parts from.

Thanks in advance
Chris

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

There used to be an upgrade kit available (HP E2479a) that let you turn
an A or B into a C model. It was essentially a motherboard swap. I
used to see them on ebay the other year going for around $100-150.
Unfortunately, by the time I decided I wanted one, they were no
longer being offered.

These are easy to find in Ebay, but it isn't "a motherboard swap". As a matter of fact, the only things you keep on your A system is the aluminium chassis and fans, the monitor, power supply and connector board. Everything (cables, floppy drive, front panel [!], back panel, motherboard) are changed and some bits added (hard disk support tray, hard disk cables, hard disk itself)

I'm on a low intensity hunt for a 16500C chassis now to do the
equivalent for my B. I hear rumours of them selling for $50, but
I have yet to see that for myself.

In ebay you can find it, The nice chap who helped me getting my "upgrade kit" (in fact he got a complete 16500C, disassembled it and sent me the parts) paid around $70 on mine if I'm not mistaken

Brian,

Can you give me the details of the software disks for the C?

Joe

I'm looking for help with a 16500A logic analysis system. I have both a

16500B and a 16500A in good working condition and am trying to make two
useful machines, each with both DSO and logic analyser modules. The 16500B
is no problem and supports everything. The problem comes with the 16500A.
I've fitted it with 16530A/16531A DSO modules and a 16550A logic analyser
module. Sadly, as reported by others in this group (back in spring of this
year, I think) some examples of the 16500A only have 1MB of RAM which isn't
enough to accommodate the 16550A system software. Mine is one of these, and
it complains when loading the SYSTEM_.032 module.

You could make it work with a 16510, I think. The 16550 is very long,
but in comparison, the 16510 is much shorter, and much more rapid to
respond to positioning and scanning commands.

That's an idea, but I already have a stack of 16550s and the speed and
memory depth are useful to me.
>

I know the 16500A is pretty old, but it would still be a useful machine

to me. The 16500 series don't seem to be all that plentiful in the UK so I
haven't found a ready source of donor machines to pull parts from.

I have a 16500B, for that matter....

I'm glad I'm not the only one!

Chris

I have 4 16500A's, 2 16500B's, 2 16500C's, & 1 16700A in my garage. tell
me what your cpu pcb # is and what cpu pcb # you need for the 16500A and
I'll go look...additionally I have the software disks for the A, B & C as
well.

Thank you, that's a kind offer. Are you in the UK? I'll check the number

of the PCB my 16500A has in on Monday, and I'll try and find out what the
number of the newer board is, maybe from the service manual.

Chris

On Sat, 5 Jan 2013 12:03:58 +0000, you wrote:

I'm looking for help with a 16500A logic analysis system. I have both a

16500B and a 16500A in good working condition and am trying to make two
useful machines, each with both DSO and logic analyser modules. The 16500B
is no problem and supports everything. The problem comes with the 16500A.
I've fitted it with 16530A/16531A DSO modules and a 16550A logic analyser
module. Sadly, as reported by others in this group (back in spring of this
year, I think) some examples of the 16500A only have 1MB of RAM which isn't
enough to accommodate the 16550A system software. Mine is one of these, and
it complains when loading the SYSTEM_.032 module.

You could make it work with a 16510, I think. The 16550 is very long,
but in comparison, the 16510 is much shorter, and much more rapid to
respond to positioning and scanning commands.

That's an idea, but I already have a stack of 16550s and the speed and
memory depth are useful to me.

As I remember it, the 16510 or so is about the same depth as the 166x
or 165x series, and the 16550 (which I also have one of) is the same
as the 167x series.

The problem is that you need the faster processor to make the 16550
more responsive.

I know the 16500A is pretty old, but it would still be a useful machine

to me. The 16500 series don't seem to be all that plentiful in the UK so I
haven't found a ready source of donor machines to pull parts from.

I have a 16500B, for that matter....

I'm glad I'm not the only one!

Oh, there are others. I have some 165x which are mostly for sale or
for parts, a 1661C which is definitely used, and the 16500 which is
the major logic analyzer when needed. The 1661C is, of course,
portable with the 16500B wanting to be the bench unit. I'm
considering upgrading the 16500B to a C, just to get the compatibility
with IBM mice and keyboards. I'd be looking for a cheap 16500C, and
that 50$ price sounds good.

One of these days, I'd like to get a 1672G or a 16700 of some variety,
but that's down the line a bit.

I primarily use it for I2C debugging (at the moment), and have an
adaptor that is designed to convert the serial I2C into parallel for
the state machine to grab. Much more storage that way.

Harvey

Chris

On Fri, Jan 4, 2013 at 9:57 PM, Brian Bergantz <bergantz95118@...>wrote:

I have 4 16500A's, 2 16500B's, 2 16500C's, & 1 16700A in my garage. tell
me what your cpu pcb # is and what cpu pcb # you need for the 16500A and
I'll go look...additionally I have the software disks for the A, B & C as
well.

I've looked at my machine and the service manual and found the following.

My 16500A has CPU board part number 16500-66503, which makes it an early
one (ROM version 00.00 according to the manual). To upgrade the machine, I
need a CPU board part number 16500-66507 (ROM version 00.02). The part
number seems to be written in the bottom right corner of the board, close
to the HP logo.

I am also interested in the idea of putting a 16500B CPU board in there
(16500-66509) and doing the wiring hackery to make it all work in my 16500A
chassis. That would be a worthwhile upgrade for me.

What do you have?

Thank you
Chris

I've made a bit of progress on upgrading the memory in my 16500A. I looked at the parts I had available, and decided I had little to lose by trying to hack 4MB onto the CPU board myself. I've removed the original 1Mbit DRAM chips and wired up a modified 4MB SIMM. The machine still works, remarkably, but doesn't find the extra memory. I'm hoping a ROM software upgrade (to V00.20) will fix it, but that'll have to wait until I'm near my EPROM programmer.

You can read the full gory tale on my blog:



Chris

Chris, probably you're missing two addressing lines to upgrade it to 4mb. I think i have a newer board with
More memory, but it is some 600km away, i'll take a look at it as soon as i can

Enviado pelo meu telemovel

Em 18/01/2013, às 09:10, Chris Jones <chris@...> escreveu:

I've made a bit of progress on upgrading the memory in my 16500A. I
looked at the parts I had available, and decided I had little to lose by
trying to hack 4MB onto the CPU board myself. I've removed the original
1Mbit DRAM chips and wired up a modified 4MB SIMM. The machine still
works, remarkably, but doesn't find the extra memory. I'm hoping a ROM
software upgrade (to V00.20) will fix it, but that'll have to wait until
I'm near my EPROM programmer.

You can read the full gory tale on my blog:



Chris

On 04/01/2013 23:58, Alexandre Souza wrote:

There used to be an upgrade kit available (HP E2479a) that let you turn
an A or B into a C model. It was essentially a motherboard swap. I
used to see them on ebay the other year going for around $100-150.
Unfortunately, by the time I decided I wanted one, they were no
longer being offered.

These are easy to find in Ebay, but it isn't "a motherboard swap". As a
matter of fact, the only things you keep on your A system is the aluminium
chassis and fans, the monitor, power supply and connector board. Everything
(cables, floppy drive, front panel [!], back panel, motherboard) are
changed
and some bits added (hard disk support tray, hard disk cables, hard disk
itself)

I'm on a low intensity hunt for a 16500C chassis now to do the
equivalent for my B. I hear rumours of them selling for $50, but
I have yet to see that for myself.

In ebay you can find it, The nice chap who helped me getting my "upgrade
kit" (in fact he got a complete 16500C, disassembled it and sent me the
parts) paid around $70 on mine if I'm not mistaken

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

On 18/01/2013 11:24, Alexandre "tabajara" Souza wrote:

Chris, probably you're missing two addressing lines to upgrade it to
4mb. I think i have a newer board with
More memory, but it is some 600km away, i'll take a look at it as soon
as i can

The DRAM chips only need one more address line to be 4Mbit rather than 1Mbit (they're a matrix, not a linear array), and that address line (pin 5) is definitely wired up (to one of the PALs, if I remember rightly) on this CPU board, which is what made me think the upgrade was worth a try. The full story is here, complete with wiring details:



I would be interested to know what a newer 16500A CPU board looks like. I've seen distant photos of them on eBay which appear to show SIL memory chips.

Chris

On Fri, Jan 18, 2013 at 11:34 AM, Chris Jones <chris@...> wrote:

On 18/01/2013 11:24, Alexandre "tabajara" Souza wrote:

Chris, probably you're missing two addressing lines to upgrade it to
4mb. I think i have a newer board with
More memory, but it is some 600km away, i'll take a look at it as soon
as i can

The DRAM chips only need one more address line to be 4Mbit rather than
1Mbit (they're a matrix, not a linear array), and that address line (pin 5)
is definitely wired up (to one of the PALs, if I remember rightly) on this
CPU board, which is what made me think the upgrade was worth a try. The
full story is here, complete with wiring details:

<>

I would be interested to know what a newer 16500A CPU board looks like.
I've seen distant photos of them on eBay which appear to show SIL memory
chips.

Now I've installed ROMs version 00.02, and the 16500A has developed a new

fault: the self-tests 'HIL Controller', 'Front Panel' and 'Touch Screen'
all fail. I thought it was a software problem but putting the old 00.00
ROMs back in the problem is still there. I'm hoping it's just a bent pin on
the backplane connector or something but it's very annoying to get this far
and have a new fault to deal with, apparently unrelated to the RAM.

Has anyone got experience of what's likely to cause these three self-test
failures?

Chris

On Sat, Jan 19, 2013 at 7:50 AM, Chris Jones <chris@...> wrote:

Now I've installed ROMs version 00.02, and the 16500A has developed a
new fault: the self-tests 'HIL Controller', 'Front Panel' and 'Touch Screen'
all fail. I thought it was a software problem but putting the old 00.00
ROMs back in the problem is still there. I'm hoping it's just a bent pin
on the backplane connector or something but it's very annoying to get this
far and have a new fault to deal with, apparently unrelated to the RAM.

Has anyone got experience of what's likely to cause these three self-test
failures?

Chris

Don't all of those things connect through the same ribbon cable
between the front panel and the CPU board? Are you sure that cable
was reconnected correctly at both ends when you reinstalled the CPU
board? Or does that cable connect between the front panel and the
backplane board? It's been a while since I opened up a 16500.

-Glen

On Sat, Jan 19, 2013 at 4:05 PM, Glen Slick <glen.slick@...> wrote:

**
On Sat, Jan 19, 2013 at 7:50 AM, Chris Jones chris@...> wrote:

Now I've installed ROMs version 00.02, and the 16500A has developed a
new fault: the self-tests 'HIL Controller', 'Front Panel' and 'Touch

Screen'

all fail. I thought it was a software problem but putting the old 00.00
ROMs back in the problem is still there. I'm hoping it's just a bent pin
on the backplane connector or something but it's very annoying to get

this

far and have a new fault to deal with, apparently unrelated to the RAM.

Has anyone got experience of what's likely to cause these three self-test
failures?

Chris

Don't all of those things connect through the same ribbon cable
between the front panel and the CPU board? Are you sure that cable
was reconnected correctly at both ends when you reinstalled the CPU
board? Or does that cable connect between the front panel and the
backplane board? It's been a while since I opened up a 16500.

Yes, I think they do - there's a 10-way ribbon with IDC connectors between

the backplane and the front panel which looks like it carries the data. I
checked that it was properly seated, and unplugged and reinserted it, but
with no effect. I think on the later machines this 10-way ribbon is somehow
associated with the display cable, isn't it? Anyhow, since it comes from
the backplane in the 16500A, I'm assuming that the signals to it must cross
the CPU board/backplane connector at some point, and I hope that the
problem is simply a bent pin or similar there.

Chris

On 19/01/2013 16:05, Glen Slick wrote:

On Sat, Jan 19, 2013 at 7:50 AM, Chris Jones chris@...
<mailto:chris%40stumpie.com>> wrote:
>
> Now I've installed ROMs version 00.02, and the 16500A has developed a
> new fault: the self-tests 'HIL Controller', 'Front Panel' and 'Touch
Screen'
> all fail. I thought it was a software problem but putting the old 00.00
> ROMs back in the problem is still there. I'm hoping it's just a bent pin
> on the backplane connector or something but it's very annoying to get
this
> far and have a new fault to deal with, apparently unrelated to the RAM.
>
> Has anyone got experience of what's likely to cause these three self-test
> failures?
>
> Chris

Don't all of those things connect through the same ribbon cable
between the front panel and the CPU board? Are you sure that cable
was reconnected correctly at both ends when you reinstalled the CPU
board? Or does that cable connect between the front panel and the
backplane board? It's been a while since I opened up a 16500.

I've sorted out that problem:


It was a broken ceramic resonator providing the clock to the custom HP chip which handles the interface to the front panel. Having fixed that, it passes the self tests...but doesn't see the discs in the floppy drives. This time, putting software version 00.00 back in makes the floppy drives work again, but something about the floppy disc hardware seems incompatible with software 00.02. This is annoying now...

Chris

On Fri, Jan 18, 2013 at 3:35 AM, Chris Jones <chris@...> wrote:

I would be interested to know what a newer 16500A CPU board looks like.
I've seen distant photos of them on eBay which appear to show SIL memory
chips.

Chris

I just pulled one of my 16500A mainframes out of storage. It has a
4MByte sticker on the rear panel of the CPU card. It looks like it
has (8x) ZIP package memory chips
(), with
unpopulated pads for another set of 8. If you are curious I could
pull the board out of the mainframe and try to take decent high
resolution photos, or try to scan the board on a flatbed scanner if
that would produce a decent image.

-Glen