The HP-HIL (''Hewlett-Packard Human Interface Link'') is the name of a

computer bus In computer architecture, a bus (shortened form of the Latin '' omnibus'', and historically also called data highway or databus) is a communication system that transfers data between components inside a computer, or between computers. This ex ...

used by

Hewlett-Packard The Hewlett-Packard Company, commonly shortened to Hewlett-Packard ( ) or HP, was an American multinational information technology company headquartered in Palo Alto, California. HP developed and provided a wide variety of hardware components ...

to connect keyboards, mice, trackballs, digitizers, tablets, barcode readers, rotary knobs, touchscreens, and other human interface peripherals to their

HP 9000 HP 9000 is a line of workstation and server computer systems produced by the Hewlett-Packard (HP) Company. The native operating system for almost all HP 9000 systems is HP-UX, which is based on UNIX System V. The HP 9000 brand was introduced in ...

workstations. The bus was in use until the mid-1990s, when HP substituted

PS/2 The Personal System/2 or PS/2 is IBM's second generation of personal computers. Released in 1987, it officially replaced the IBM PC, XT, AT, and PC Convertible in IBM's lineup. Many of the PS/2's innovations, such as the 16550 UART (serial po ...

technology for HIL. The PS/2 peripherals were themselves replaced with

USB Universal Serial Bus (USB) is an industry standard that establishes specifications for cables, connectors and protocols for connection, communication and power supply (interfacing) between computers, peripherals and other computers. A broad v ...

-connected models. The HIL bus is a daisy-chain of up to 7 devices, running at a raw clock speed of 8 MHz. Each HIL device typically has an output connector, and an input connector to which the next device in the chain plugs; the exception is the mouse which has only the output connector. HIL buses can be found on HP

PA-RISC PA-RISC is an instruction set architecture (ISA) developed by Hewlett-Packard. As the name implies, it is a reduced instruction set computer (RISC) architecture, where the PA stands for Precision Architecture. The design is also referred to as ...

and

m68k The Motorola 68000 series (also known as 680x0, m68000, m68k, or 68k) is a family of 32-bit complex instruction set computer (CISC) microprocessors. During the 1980s and early 1990s, they were popular in personal computers and workstations and w ...

based machines, some early

HP Vectra HP Vectra was a line of business-oriented personal computers manufactured by Hewlett-Packard (now HP Inc.). It was introduced in October 1985 as HP's first IBM-compatible PC. Hewlett-Packard, which originally made its name through selling test e ...

computers, as well as in some HP/Agilent

Logic Analyzers A logic analyzer is an electronic instrument that captures and displays multiple signals from a digital system or digital circuit. A logic analyzer may convert the captured data into timing diagrams, protocol decodes, state machine traces, ass ...

HP-UX HP-UX (from "Hewlett Packard Unix") is Hewlett Packard Enterprise's proprietary implementation of the Unix operating system, based on Unix System V (initially System III) and first released in 1984. Current versions support HPE Integrity Ser ...

OpenBSD OpenBSD is a security-focused, free and open-source, Unix-like operating system based on the Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD). Theo de Raadt created OpenBSD in 1995 by forking NetBSD 1.0. According to the website, the OpenBSD project em ...

Linux Linux ( or ) is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged as a Linux distribution, which ...

and

NetBSD NetBSD is a free and open-source Unix operating system based on the Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD). It was the first open-source BSD descendant officially released after 386BSD was forked. It continues to be actively developed and is a ...

include drivers for the HIL bus and HIL devices. The HP-HIL bus uses specific 4-pin, 6-pin, or 8-pin SDL connectors, somewhat similar to the

8P8C A modular connector is a type of electrical connector for cords and cables of electronic devices and appliances, such as in computer networking, telecommunication equipment, and audio headsets. Modular connectors were originally developed for ...

8-pin

modular connector A modular connector is a type of electrical connector for cords and cables of electronic devices and appliances, such as in computer networking, telecommunication equipment, and audio headsets. Modular connectors were originally developed fo ...

commonly (though incorrectly) called the

RJ-45 A registered jack (RJ) is a standardized telecommunication network interface for connecting voice and data equipment to a service provided by a local exchange carrier or long distance carrier. Registration interfaces were first defined in t ...

. The bus can reportedly also use a 9-pin

D-subminiature The D-subminiature or D-sub is a common type of electrical connector. They are named for their characteristic D-shaped metal shield. When they were introduced, D-subs were among the smallest connectors used on computer systems. Description, n ...

DE-9 connector. A HIL to PS/2 converter is available, namely the HP A4220-62001.

Specification

HP-HIL Technical Reference Manual
HP P/N 45918A

External links

* * *
HP HIL Linux driver suiteVectra RS/20 with HIL
Serial buses Hewlett-Packard products {{Compu-hardware-stub