HP250

HP 250 model 45252A (option 004,012)

• 256K RAM
• Internal 8" drive
• External 9133 (3,5" floppy + 15MB hard disk)
• 2631B Line printer

Condition

• Generally works, boots system A.03.04 and B.7.00, can print and access HD
• Monitor has mold spots under the front glass making text hard to read
• 8" drive fails intermittent (boot fails)
• Utilities disk is missing (needed to copy disks)
• Currently no way to exchange programs/data with outside world.

To Do

• Fix the mold spots. This is a known problem and has been discussed on the cctech mailing list. E.g. here and here.

• Find a way to transfer software from the outside world. HP Museum has a number of disk images with software for the 250/260. But you need a 260 to copy them from 3,5" to 8".

Notes

• The 3,5" floppy cannot be used. The media test program included on the B.7.00 system disk shows an X2,3,0 device, but says it is unsupported. Also the hpmuseum.net claims a 250 cannot use 3,5" disks.

• The ROM can only boot from 8" flex disc (see page 351/11 of the HP 250 Service Handbook found on HP Museum). Setting the thumbwheel switch on the processor board to 8. => it ran a memory test. So it must have the old ROMs for which there is no setting to boot anything else than the "floppy" or a 7910 hard disk (which I don't have)