HP1000/A600 Help and docs and sw needed!

[Philipp Hachtmann]

Hi folks,

I have a HP1000/A600 machine sitting here at my place. And no clue where 
to start using it.
I have the following stuff:

- A600CPU, containing:
	* 2 serial interfaces (12005/...10)
	* 1 sandwich "32 channel MUX/12 bit ADC"
	* parallel port
	* HPIB interface
	* some other serial MUXes

- 7908 HPIB Tape cartridge/Disk combination

- 9133 HPIB 3,5" Floppy (with disk inside as well??)

- 3292A serial Terminal (newer)

- 2648A serial Terminal (older)
- 12966-60008 serial cable for the terminal (is that right?)

- 7978 HPIB 9-Track 1/2" tape drive

- 7958B HPIB disk drive

- HP6000 670H HPIB disk drive

- A LOT of software manuals but no hardware manual.

I have already found the only document at hp.com that told me something 
about select codes, switch settings etc. But nothing about cable pinouts 
etc.

I tried my 2648 terminal with the cable, without success. Perhaps my 
terminal is broken or - what I think - the cable pinout is incompatible 
to the "new" A600.

What should I do with all that stuff? I will have to decide what to do 
with my HP stuff, because I need to reassign my collection's priorities 
with respect to the LAB 8/e that will drop in next week. If I don't have 
any fun with the stuff, it will go to eBay/scrapyard (the latter is 
where I got most of it).

Who knows how to make a serial cable?
Who has software for me?
Who knows how to get software from my PC/Sparc (short: modern world) 
into the HP gear?
Who has docs? Bitsavers seems to have nothing about the A series.

I powered up the CPU. Depending on the switch settings, the diagnostic 
LEDs say "bootloader running" or "VCP running". So the system should be 
in a somewhat usable state. Further when I remove the first serial card 
(which is in nearly factory settings, including VCP break enabled), the 
diagnostic LEDs tell me about some error. So I hope that the system 
already talks to the right port.

I also powered up the 7906 tape/disk cobination. It makes some funny 
sounds and after a while, it shows me a "P" on its little LED display in 
the back. Some HP manual told me that this is a good sign, "P" for "passed".
Also I have been told that there is an installed RTE on the disk. But I 
have no GPIB cable yet. And the GPIB connector looks rather different 
than on my HP1000/E (for which I have a cable).

Thank you for every kind of information, I am excitedly looking forward 
for replies.

Best wishes from Alfeld/Germany,

Philipp :-)

P.S.: I also have two HP1000/E machines and a lot of cards sitting 
around here. Perhaps I could hook the disks up to them? I never did 
anything useful with them - except hooking up a terminal and entering 
4-word test programs via front panel (which worked).
Any other ideas what to do with these machines?