The HP 9800 is a family of what were initially called programmable
calculator
An electronic calculator is typically a portable electronic device used to perform calculations, ranging from basic arithmetic to complex mathematics.
The first solid-state electronic calculator was created in the early 1960s. Pocket-sized ...
s and later
desktop computer
A desktop computer (often abbreviated desktop) is a personal computer designed for regular use at a single location on or near a desk due to its size and power requirements. The most common configuration has a case that houses the power supply ...
s that were made 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 ...
, replacing their first
HP 9100 calculator. It is also named "98 line". The 9830 and its successors were true computers in the modern sense of the term, complete with a powerful BASIC language interpreter.
Models
Second generation
![Hp9815a](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/cb/Hp9815a.jpg)
Chronologically, the models of the family were:
* HP 9810A, a keystroke programmable computer with
magnetic cards and
LED
A light-emitting diode (LED) is a semiconductor Electronics, device that Light#Light sources, emits light when Electric current, current flows through it. Electrons in the semiconductor recombine with electron holes, releasing energy i ...
display, introduced in 1971,
*
HP 9820A
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Businesses and organisations
* HP Inc., an American technology company
** Hewlett-Packard, the predecessor to HP Inc.
* HP Foods
** HP Sauce, formerly made by HP Foods
* Handley Page, an aircraft company
* Hindustan Petrole ...
, introduced in 1972, was the first HP model that deals with algebraic input (not only RPN) featured a high level language simpler than
BASIC
BASIC (Beginners' All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code) is a family of general-purpose, high-level programming languages designed for ease of use. The original version was created by John G. Kemeny and Thomas E. Kurtz at Dartmouth College ...
that was later named
high performance language (HPL),
*
HP 9821A, similar to the HP 9820A, however, with
Compact Cassette
The Compact Cassette or Musicassette (MC), also commonly called the tape cassette, cassette tape, audio cassette, or simply tape or cassette, is an analog magnetic tape recording format for audio recording and playback. Invented by Lou Ottens ...
tape drive with clear leaders instead of using magnetic cards. Tapes created on the HP 9821A could be read by the HP 9830A. Unlike later home computers which used standard cassette audio recorders which had to be manually put into record or play mode, it was completely controlled by software command, and could save and load to a file by number.
*
HP 9830A
The HP 9800 is a family of what were initially called programmable calculators and later desktop computers that were made by Hewlett-Packard, replacing their first HP 9100 calculator. It is also named "98 line". The 9830 and its successors wer ...
, introduced in 1972, was the top of the 9800 line, with the addition of a
BASIC interpreter
A BASIC interpreter is an interpreter that enables users to enter and run programs in the BASIC language and was, for the first part of the microcomputer era, the default application that computers would launch. Users were expected to use the BAS ...
in
read-only memory
Read-only memory (ROM) is a type of non-volatile memory used in computers and other electronic devices. Data stored in ROM cannot be electronically modified after the manufacture of the memory device. Read-only memory is useful for storing sof ...
(ROM). HP itself referred to it as a "calculator".
All 98x0 and 9821 systems used the same I/O interfaces. A 400 line per minute 80-column
thermal line printer was designed to fit on top of the 9820 and 9830.
Third generation
![HP-HP9825B 25](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/eb/HP-HP9825B_25.jpg)
The success of the HP9830 led to a next generation with faster logic:
*
HP 9805A, the least expensive model using the same chassis as the HP46 (scientific) and HP81 (business) pocket calculators. This was a Programmable Calculator and had plug-in personality modules. It was introduced in 1973.
*
HP 9815A/S
HP may refer to:
Businesses and organisations
* HP Inc., an American technology company
** Hewlett-Packard, the predecessor to HP Inc.
* HP Foods
** HP Sauce, formerly made by HP Foods
* Handley Page, an aircraft company
* Hindustan Petroleum
...
, the HP 9815A was HP's third generation high end RPN desktop and was introduced in 1975. It was much smaller, lighter and less expensive than its predecessor. It provided only a single line display but replaced the earlier card drives with a tape drive.
*
HP 9825A/B
HP may refer to:
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** Hewlett-Packard, the predecessor to HP Inc.
* HP Foods
** HP Sauce, formerly made by HP Foods
* Handley Page, an aircraft company
* Hindustan Petroleum
...
, introduced in 1976, and retired in 1983, featured HPL, a single-line alphanumeric display, and optional thermal printer,
*
HP 9831
HP may refer to:
Businesses and organisations
* HP Inc., an American technology company
** Hewlett-Packard, the predecessor to HP Inc.
* HP Foods
** HP Sauce, formerly made by HP Foods
* Handley Page, an aircraft company
* Hindustan Petroleum
...
, an HP9825 with BASIC instead of HPL,
*
HP 9835
HP may refer to:
Businesses and organisations
* HP Inc., an American technology company
** Hewlett-Packard, the predecessor to HP Inc.
* HP Foods
** HP Sauce, formerly made by HP Foods
* Handley Page, an aircraft company
* Hindustan Petroleum
...
, featured BASIC. There were two models, the A and B. The A had a CRT, and the B had a single-line display,
*
HP 9845 introduced first as a monochrome (9845A/S), then a high-performance monochrome (9845B/T) and a high performance color (
9845C/T) model. The 9845 came with one tape drive, and optional second tape drive and 80 column wide thermal printer integrated into the base under the pillar-mounted display unit.
All the 98x5, with the exception of the 9805, used DC200 cartridge tapes, instead of cassette tapes. The 9825, 9831, 9835, and 9845 all used the same I/O interfaces. the 9815 had a unique I/O interface.
An ancestor of modern personal computers
The HP 9800 series were developed by HP's
Loveland division (Calculator Products Division), and later
Fort Collins
A fortification is a military construction or building designed for the defense of territories in warfare, and is also used to establish rule in a region during peacetime. The term is derived from Latin ''fortis'' ("strong") and ''facere'' ...
division (Desktop Computer Division). Early desktop computers were marketed as "Calculators" to make purchasing easier. At the time, some companies had different procedures for purchasing "Computers".
They spawned development of HP series 80, namely
HP 85
The Hewlett-Packard series 80 of small scientific desktop computers was introduced in 1980, beginning with the popular HP-85 targeted at engineering and control applications. They provided the capability of the HP 9800 series desktop computers wi ...
and
HP 87
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Businesses and organisations
* HP Inc., an American technology company
** Hewlett-Packard, the predecessor to HP Inc.
* HP Foods
** HP Sauce, formerly made by HP Foods
* Handley Page, an aircraft company
* Hindustan Petroleum
...
, that were smaller BASIC language computers with CRT displays. They came from HP's Advanced Products Division based in
Corvallis.
For a short time in the late 1970s and early 1980s there was a class of similar desktop computers, such as the
Tektronix 4051,
IBM 5100
The IBM 5100 Portable Computer is a portable computer (one of the first) introduced in September 1975, six years before the IBM Personal Computer, and eight before the first successful IBM compatible portable computer, the Compaq Portable. It ...
and
Wang 2200
The Wang 2200 was an all-in-one minicomputer released by Wang Laboratories in May 1973. Unlike some other desktop computers, such as the HP 9830, it had a cathode-ray tube (CRT) in a cabinet that also included an integrated computer-controlled ...
- before they were replaced in the marketplace by
personal computer
A personal computer (PC) is a multi-purpose microcomputer whose size, capabilities, and price make it feasible for individual use. Personal computers are intended to be operated directly by an end user, rather than by a computer expert or tec ...
s such as the Apple and IBM PC.
HP 9830
HP 9830 uses
HP 9830s were commonly employed at aerospace companies such as
Boeing
The Boeing Company () is an American multinational corporation that designs, manufactures, and sells airplanes, rotorcraft, rockets, satellites, telecommunications equipment, and missiles worldwide. The company also provides leasing and product ...
. They were also used by some school systems such as
Arlington, Virginia
Arlington County is a county in the Commonwealth of Virginia. The county is situated in Northern Virginia on the southwestern bank of the Potomac River directly across from the District of Columbia, of which it was once a part. The county is ...
, and
Renton, Washington
Renton is a city in King County, Washington, and an inner-ring suburb of Seattle. Situated southeast of downtown Seattle, Renton straddles the southeast shore of Lake Washington, at the mouth of the Cedar River. As of the 2020 census, the ...
, which used pencil mark-sense cards with card readers to accommodate classroom use. An HP 9830 system with an integrated hard drive was also provided by HP in the early 1970s to National Real Estate Exchange, Inc., a small company in Florida, for its use in developing early real estate software. The U.S. Coast Guard devised a teletype message-forwarding system based on 9825As which were deployed as a working prototype for a subsequent purpose-built system, and also used them in the coordination of LORAN radionavigation transmitter chains. HP9825s were used in conjunction with Oscor software to score one-design yachting regattas in remote locations, such as the 1976 World Fireball championships in Nova Scotia, the World
Windsurfing
Windsurfing is a wind propelled water sport that is a combination of sailing and surfing. It is also referred to as "sailboarding" and "boardsailing", and emerged in the late 1960s from the aerospace and surf culture of California. Windsurfing ga ...
championships in 1976/1977 in Cancún and Bahamas, and also Laser championships. The HP9825 was selected because it was portable – the only alternatives were phone access to time sharing computers which was not reliable from these locations.
HP 9830 description
9830s were built with a processor similar in architecture to the
HP 1000
HP may refer to:
Businesses and organisations
* HP Inc., an American technology company
** Hewlett-Packard, the predecessor to HP Inc.
* HP Foods
** HP Sauce, formerly made by HP Foods
* Handley Page, an aircraft company
* Hindustan Petroleum
...
/
2100 series
minicomputer
A minicomputer, or colloquially mini, is a class of smaller general purpose computers that developed in the mid-1960s and sold at a much lower price than mainframe and mid-size computers from IBM and its direct competitors. In a 1970 survey, ...
with 16-bit memory address, and an AX and BX general
processor register
A processor register is a quickly accessible location available to a computer's processor. Registers usually consist of a small amount of fast storage, although some registers have specific hardware functions, and may be read-only or write-only. ...
. They ran at a speed comparable to the first IBM PCs. They could draw a mesh of a ''3D SIN(X)/X'' function with no hidden lines over the course of several minutes, a technological breakthrough for the time.
Because programs were designed to run from ROM (read only memory) the call subroutine instruction had to be changed because in the HP211x the return location was written in the first location of the subroutine. Instead, another register was created to keep track of return locations on a separate stack area, like more modern processors.
This made
recursion
Recursion (adjective: ''recursive'') occurs when a thing is defined in terms of itself or of its type. Recursion is used in a variety of disciplines ranging from linguistics to logic. The most common application of recursion is in mathematics ...
possible.
Some models (e.g. 9835B) used a 32-character 1 line uppercase
LED
A light-emitting diode (LED) is a semiconductor Electronics, device that Light#Light sources, emits light when Electric current, current flows through it. Electrons in the semiconductor recombine with electron holes, releasing energy i ...
display, which on the one hand might seem limiting, but on the other hand had the same effect as one-line window into a full screen editor which did not become common until the 1980s, with controls to go up or down a line, and cursor left and right, inserting or deleting characters. They powered on ready to do math in "immediate mode", where you would type in an expression such as ''PRINT 2 + 3'', and you would get an answer when you hit enter, without the complication of logging in, or the overhead of maintaining a big computer room and operator.
A computer controlled cassette drive using audio cassettes with clear leaders for optical detection of end of tape was used for storage. Random access to a file was by number, but a hard drive could also be attached.
The matching line
thermal printer
Thermal printing (or direct thermal printing) is a digital printing process which produces a printed image by passing paper with a thermochromic coating, commonly known as thermal paper, over a print head consisting of tiny electrically heated ...
was quite fast, printing one horizontal line of dots at once. The speed of a page was faster than later dot matrix printers, and not much worse than modern
ink jet printers. HP incorporated thermal printers into many plotting and terminal products later.
Programming
Although the processor used was only a slight adaptation from that used on HP minicomputers, the system software would be completely redesigned for a computer with its
operating system
An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware, software resources, and provides common services for computer programs.
Time-sharing operating systems schedule tasks for efficient use of the system and may also in ...
and language system built into read-only memory.
BASIC
BASIC (Beginners' All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code) is a family of general-purpose, high-level programming languages designed for ease of use. The original version was created by John G. Kemeny and Thomas E. Kurtz at Dartmouth College ...
was similar to
FORTRAN used by engineers on the
HP 1000
HP may refer to:
Businesses and organisations
* HP Inc., an American technology company
** Hewlett-Packard, the predecessor to HP Inc.
* HP Foods
** HP Sauce, formerly made by HP Foods
* Handley Page, an aircraft company
* Hindustan Petroleum
...
minicomputer, but much simpler to use as an interpreted language. Arrow cursor keys were provided which could scroll up and down lines, and interactively insert or delete characters which was unheard of with most CRT or printing terminals until the advent of the
screen editor
Screen or Screens may refer to:
Arts
* Screen printing (also called ''silkscreening''), a method of printing
* Big screen, a nickname associated with the motion picture industry
* Split screen (filmmaking), a film composition paradigm in which m ...
in the late 1970s, and the programmer could single-step or check values of variables.
Two rows of user-defined
function key
A function key is a key on a computer or terminal keyboard that can be programmed so as to cause an operating system command interpreter or application program to perform certain actions, a form of soft key. On some keyboards/computers, function ...
s with paper labels were some of the earliest implementation of general function keys. They would be the basis for later
screen labeled function keys
A soft key is a button flexibly programmable to invoke any of a number of functions rather than being associated with a single fixed function or a fixed set of functions. A softkey often takes the form of a screen-labeled function key located al ...
used in later Hewlett Packard (and IBM) terminals and computers, and now widely adopted in calculators, bank terminals, and gas pumps.
It was programmable in BASIC, which could be extended with
ROMs to do graphics plotting, matrix math and string variables. The ROM cartridges were designed to extend the BASIC language, and were very similar to the cartridges later used by video game consoles.
The Plotter ROM added commands which made creating a chart much more simple than is possible with C++ or C#, and used either user or world coordinates rather than integer plotter units. These commands would later become the basis for the device-independent HP
AGL graphics language standard implemented on other HP computers such as the HP 1000 minicomputer and
HP 2647
The HP 2640A and other HP 264X models were block-mode "smart" and intelligent ASCII standard serial terminals produced by Hewlett-Packard using the Intel 8008 and 8080 microprocessors.
History
The HP 2640A was introduced in November 1974 at a l ...
intelligent graphics terminal.
10 REMARK DRAW A PARABOLA
20 SCALE -1.0, 1.0, -1.0, 1.0
30 FOR X = -1.0 TO 1.0 STEP 0.10
40 PLOT X, X*X
50 NEXT X
60 END
Also available for programming the HP 9800 series was a bootable development environment based on
UCSD Pascal
UCSD Pascal is a Pascal programming language system that runs on the UCSD p-System, a portable, highly machine-independent operating system. UCSD Pascal was first released in 1977. It was developed at the University of California, San Diego (UCS ...
.
HPL Language description
In HPL instead of variables such as A1 and J2, there were numbered registers r1, r2, up to r199999.
The following HPL program for the HP 9825 generates a list of prime numbers:
0: fxd 0
1: prt 1
2: prt 2
3: 1→P
4: for C=2 to 1000000
5: P+2→P
6: for N=3 to P/3
7: if int(P/N)*N = P; gto 4
8: next N
9: prt P
10: next C
Another unique characteristic of HPL was the right arrow. This arrow was known as the gazinta (slang for "goes into"). The statement 1→P would be pronounced "One gazinta P".
Other BASIC computers
The Data Terminals Division also produced a BASIC programmable version of the
HP2640
The HP 2640A and other HP 264X models were block-mode "smart" and intelligent ASCII standard serial terminals produced by Hewlett-Packard using the Intel 8008 and 8080 microprocessors.
History
The HP 2640A was introduced in November 1974 at a ...
series terminal, the
HP 2647a
HP may refer to:
Businesses and organisations
* HP Inc., an American technology company
** Hewlett-Packard, the predecessor to HP Inc.
* HP Foods
** HP Sauce, formerly made by HP Foods
* Handley Page, an aircraft company
* Hindustan Petroleum
* ...
, which also featured AGL, an HP standardization of the HP 9830 plotter commands.
HP 2647 BASIC was essentially Microsoft BASIC with HP 9830-style plotting commands added, and was one of Microsoft's first big contracts with a mainstream computer company.
HP also produced a series of handheld pocket computers with a one-line display such as the HP-75, although such devices were not popular for long.
The HP 9835 was also used as the basis for a business computing system, and later the
HP 250
The HP 250 was a multiuser business computer by Hewlett-Packard running HP 250 BASIC language as its OS with access to HP's IMAGE database management. It was produced by the General Systems Division (GSD), but was a major repackaging of desk ...
which lives on as an application platform.
In 1979 the 85, the first of the
80 series
The was an electric multiple unit (EMU) train type operated by Japanese National Railways (JNR) from 1950 until 1983. A total of 652 vehicles were built.
Variants
* 80-0 series
* 80-100/200 series: Trains introduced from 1956 with increased se ...
of personal desktop scientific computers, was produced.
It had a powerful BASIC interpreter, and was affordable by individuals whose employers might have expensive 9845s.
That division evolved to produce
UNIX
Unix (; trademarked as UNIX) is a family of multitasking, multiuser computer operating systems that derive from the original AT&T Unix, whose development started in 1969 at the Bell Labs research center by Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, and ot ...
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 ...
series workstations, also acquiring the
Apollo Computer
Apollo Computer Inc., founded in 1980 in Chelmsford, Massachusetts, by William Poduska (a founder of Prime Computer) and others, developed and produced Apollo/Domain workstations in the 1980s. Along with Symbolics and Sun Microsystems, Apollo wa ...
Company. HP Basic would later evolve into
Rocky Mountain BASIC
Rocky Mountain BASIC (also RMB or RM-BASIC) is a dialect of the BASIC programming language created by Hewlett-Packard. It was especially popular for control of automatic test equipment using GPIB. It has several features which are or were unus ...
for workstations, which is still in use today to support legacy applications.
See also
*
HP BASIC (disambiguation) HP BASIC may refer to any of several different BASIC dialects, of distinct lineages, created at either Hewlett-Packard (HP) or Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC).
* HP Time-Shared BASIC, created at HP in the 1960s; for HP 2100 series minicomputers ...
*
XYZZY (hidden command)
*
MAME
MAME (formerly an acronym of Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator) is a free and open-source emulator designed to recreate the hardware of arcade game systems in software on modern personal computers and other platforms. Its intention is to preserve ...
provides emulators for the 9825 and 9845.
Notes
External links
*
hp9825.com – The Second-Generation HP Desktop Calculatorshp9831.com: HP 9831 BASIC computer like HP 9825by industrial designer Leroy Lacelle
* HP 9845 – the top line of the 9800 series]
*
*
*
*
*
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hp 9800 Series Desktop Computers
HP calculators, 9830
Computer-related introductions in 1972
9800 series