HP 2116 on ebay

[Jay West]

I had written....
>> Something else caught my eye upon re-visiting that ad. Either that 
>> machine
>> never ran HP2000 TSB, or someone has pulled a lot more cards than just 
>> the
>> memory.

To which Brent replied....
> I'm really not familiar with the hardware requirements for TSB but what 
> about
> the possibility of it being the I/O processor half of a dual-processor
> configuration?

Well, I am *very* familiar with the hardware requirements for TSB, and I'm 
obviously insane. Ok, this is especially embarassing - since HP2000 TSB is 
my specialty and also the centerpiece of my collection. OBVIOUSLY senility 
has set in, probably coupled with the fact that I have focused on restoring 
the DEC pieces in my collection as of late and demonstrably have forgotten 
everything about my 3 beloved HP TSB machines. Perhaps it's time for an 
exorcism, to have my DEC daemons cast out so I can get back to my beloved 
HP2100 machines :)

Brent is again completely correct - this does seem to be a valid 
configuration for the I/O processor in several different versions of TSB. 
The only thing amiss to me is Brent said there were two GND TRU boards, but 
I only see one listed in the auction. You would have to have two for sure as 
the IPCK was always four 12566 boards with 2 on each end. One pair used for 
sending and one pair used for receiving.

> Wasn't there a TSB which used two 2116's, one for computation
> and one for I/O?
Virtually all TSB variants required 2 cpus. 2000B, 2000C, 2000C', 2000F, 
2000F', and 2000/Access all required two cpus. 2000A and 2000E required only 
one cpu. There are docs for each version stating which processors are valid 
for the main cpu and which are valid for the IO cpu. I have long suspected 
that those specifications are incorrect, and that the main and I/O cpu's can 
be any combination. While C, E, F, and Access OS's are around - 2000A and B 
don't seem to be so I'm not sure.

> and the amount of memory which would be implied by the remaining memory 
> module cards.
I would wager that 2000/Access makes the most demands of the IOP due to the 
IBM/CDC MRJE stuff, and it's requirements for memory in the IOP are anywhere 
from 16kw to 32kw depending on software options selected at IOP generation 
time. I would think that the prior versions of TSB would certainly not need 
more than Access so I'd have to suspect the memory indicated by the non-SSA 
cards in the memory subsystem is adequate.

> Bob Shannon informed me a while ago that there is a company still 
> retailing
> the core memory module cards, but I have no idea of the price.
If someone needs them let me know. I have a pretty huge number of spare 
HP2100/21MX cards, including the SSA boards that are used by the 2116C. In 
addition the SSA boards are generally pretty easy to repair.

Ok, I'm going to go sit in the corner and hide now!

Jay