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)

• The HP Drive Project may be another possibility to exchange data ? It uses a PC with HPIB card to act as a mass storage device for old HP computers. Not sure about the filesystem used by the 250, you still need something on the PC side that understands the filesystem, there is no 250 emulator)