99
votes
Accepted
How much better was DEC Alpha than contemporaneous x86?
The Alpha team set out to create a high-performance architecture, planned to last for 25 years and allow for 1000-fold performance increase over those 25 years. So they placed some long bets, starting ...
- 118k
71
votes
How much better was DEC Alpha than contemporaneous x86?
Stephen Kitt has done what seems to me an excellent job of outlining features and when they were introduced. I'll take a slightly different tack, instead picking a single point in time, and pointing ...
- 4,742
28
votes
Accepted
Were printed manuals for HP PCL or GL ever published?
My bookshelf says yes, they definitely were:
They don't appear to have ISBNs but there are HP part numbers:
PCL 5 Printer Language Technical Reference Manual is 5961-0509 (1999 edition? Part 1, Part ...
- 396
23
votes
How to transfer file(s) between modern Linux host and HP48 handheld calculator?
Prepare hardware
Gather hardware
Get or make a serial cable from HP48 to DB9 (most common) or DB25 (instructions on https://www.hpcalc.org/hp48/docs/faq/48faq-12.html, the core of it being: looking ...
16
votes
Accepted
How was it possible to run IBM mainframe software in emulation on HP?
I don't know what environment they installed to run their software on the HP. The vendor did all the work. For all I know it was just raw COBOL with an IBM compatible runtime running on top of HP-UX. ...
- 12.2k
15
votes
How much better was DEC Alpha than contemporaneous x86?
I was at HP when the Alpha cancellation decision was made. In fact I was part of a team that ran comparative HPC benchmarks on Alpha and x86. The fact was that by 1999 the x86 Pentium-II was ...
- 151
14
votes
How much better was DEC Alpha than contemporaneous x86?
Alpha fizzled in the face of the HP/Intel partnership pushing their
Itanium 64-bit architecture
I think it's important to note that during this period, there was a widespread belief that the VLIW ...
- 19.5k
14
votes
Accepted
Early programmable calculators with RS-232
In the early seventies, companies like HP and Wang sold 'programmable desktop calculators' that were really personal computers
Not really, as they stood firmly on the calculator side. If at all, ...
- 213k
13
votes
Accepted
Why don't manufacturers make handheld computers like the Jornada 720 any more?
This answer is not quite about retrocomputing, but anyway...
They are making them, though it is a bit of a niche market.
One of the newer ones (designed by the original Psion designer!) is the Gemini ...
- 4,953
11
votes
Accepted
How to access old laptop IDE hard drive
The easiest way is to get an external USB enclosure or USB-to-IDE adapter. IDE-to-SATA adapters exist, but they require opening up your computer to install.
When selecting hardware, keep in mind ...
- 8,550
11
votes
Were printed manuals for HP PCL or GL ever published?
Books? Manuals!
Both are simply the command language for specific HP products, which all had their detailed manuals printed and put in the box. Them becoming de facto standards is history at work :))
...
- 213k
10
votes
Accepted
When did computers stop needing to be marketed as calculators?
Hewlett-Packard marketed some of their computers as calculators for some marketing related reason like you stated.
Similarly, DEC called their computers "Programmable Data Processors", to avoid the "...
- 38.2k
10
votes
Early programmable calculators with RS-232
The de facto – and indeed de jure – standard interface for computers controlling random equipment was RS-232.
Some would argue with that, at least in certain industries — Hewlett-Packard’s HPIB (GPIB,...
- 118k
9
votes
When did computers stop needing to be marketed as calculators?
Hewlett Packard in the 1980s-1990s had two divisions. The Calculator Division and the Computer Division.
These two divisions each made their own products without reference to each other.
The ...
- 8,031
9
votes
Accepted
What CPU did the HP85 have?
The CPU in the 85 was the Capricorn, which was used for the Series 80 systems. The Wikipedia article linked there gives an overview of the CPU, and the July 1980 and August 1980 issues of HP Journal ...
- 118k
9
votes
How much better was DEC Alpha than contemporaneous x86?
One little known fact is that what become PostgreSQL was done on Alpha workstations with 64MB of RAM. I forget the model number of the workstations but they were small desktop machines. I was the ...
- 91
9
votes
How much better was DEC Alpha than contemporaneous x86?
I worked in service at DEC from the '80s to 2003.
Regarding the public implementation of Alpha chips: on DEC boxes it was fine.
My POV as related to Intel / Microsoft relationship: it was a deal-...
- 91
9
votes
Should I install Gentoo i586 packages on my PC?
The original Pentium, which succeeded the i80486, was indeed the original definition of the i586 instruction set - and not x86_64. But the Pentium was introduced in 1993, and your HP machine is much ...
- 16.7k
9
votes
How was it possible to run IBM mainframe software in emulation on HP?
There were a number of companies offering IBM 'compatible' mainframes - Hitachi, Fujitsu and Amdahl come to mind. IBM got slapped with an anti-trust suit when it tried to limit their operating systems ...
- 285
8
votes
Accepted
Instruction set support for multiplication with a constant
In the original ARM instruction set there are no dedicated shift and roll instructions; instead the second operand of each instruction always passes through the barrel shifter, so shifts and rolls are ...
- 36k
8
votes
Early programmable calculators with RS-232
RS-232 became "standard peripheral interface" later, when most of these "peripheral devices" adopted microprocessors.
In early days, parallel ports were more common because they:
can read-write data ...
- 323
8
votes
How much better was DEC Alpha than contemporaneous x86?
I was working at the time porting a large system from Unix to Windows NT, we had a few Intel Windows NT machines and a DEC Alpha running Windows NT. (Along with Sun, Dec, IBM, etc Unix workstations)
...
- 405
8
votes
How did the HP 9100 use base 14?
Note: I have no personal experience with this calculator. Also, a lot of this has appeared already in comments.
References: the main HP 9100A/B page and the programming page at hpmuseum.org.
The 9100A/...
- 1,951
7
votes
Accepted
Sources for HP's A Graphics Language?
AGL was an extension to BASIC and FORTRAN, which was implemented on several HP systems. It was used to describe what you wanted drawn, and the BASIC/FORTRAN system would generate HP-GL to drive a ...
- 12.4k
6
votes
Instruction set support for multiplication with a constant
The VAX, sold first in 1977, has a scaled indexed addressing mode, which offers indexReg*constScale+baseReg address computation. When used with an LEA instruction (load effective address), this ...
- 3,317
6
votes
Copying disk image from HP 9122D drive
(Some background: the 9122D uses Sony OA-D32W floppy drives. Here's a service manual and a discussion about repairing these drives.)
If you want a perfect 1:1 image of the floppy disk at the magnetic ...
- 17.4k
6
votes
How much better was DEC Alpha than contemporaneous x86?
My personal experience with the Alpha AXP was when I attended a presentation in the Detroit area during the introduction of the product many years ago. It was a video presentation and it showed the ...
- 61
6
votes
Accepted
What does HP Omnibook 300 error code 0302h mean?
0AAh is the Basic Assurance Test code (BAT). See BIOS Diagnostic - keyboard
This error code means that the keyboard does not respond to this command.
1.0.3. Keyboard controller test.
A keyboard ...
- 5,487
Only top scored, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible