HEWLETT-PACKARD HP 2000 TIME SHARED BASIC
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I am interested in any Hewlett-Packard computing equipment and related material of this era that you might have. Computers, disc drives, tapes (magnetic and paper), documentation, manuals, newsletters, sales literature and so on are all of interest. Please don't throw it out!

Computers (2114, 2115, 2116, 2100A, 2100A, 21MX, etc.) and software (Time-Shared BASIC program listings, documentation, and so) are very much desired.

If you have any of this, or know where related items might be lurking, please send me an e-mail!

TIMELINE

Hewlett-Packard introduced the HP 2000A Time-Shared BASIC System in 1968, a multi-user system dedicated to running a BASIC interpreter. It first ran on a 2116B processor.
Model   Year
2000A 1969
2000B 1970
2000C 1971
2000C' 1972
2000E 1972
2000F 1972
2000F-200 1973
2000/Access 1975
2000 System 1976

HP 2000 sales were discontinued in June of 1978, but third-party vendors continued to sell systems and software well into the 1980's.

Also, if anyone knows the whereabouts of Mike Green and/or Steve Porter, perhaps they'd be willing to jot down some history of HP2000 TimeShared BASIC?

LANGUAGE
TSB has some interesting commands and functions that provide the programmer with some useful options. I've listed a few of them here.

The following program demonstrates a few of the unique features of the Timeshared BASIC operating system: 

GET-PRINAC
LIST
PRINAC

10  REMARK  --  A PROGRAM TO FIND OUT HOW MANY PORTS ARE IN CURRENT ACCOUNT
20  DIM A$[100],B$[100]
30  SYSTEM A$,"TIM"
40  SYSTEM B$,"TIM"
50  IF A$=B$ THEN 40
60  CONVERT A$[34,38] TO A
70  CONVERT B$[34,38] TO B
80  C=B-A
90  IF C=1 THEN 130
100  PRINT  USING 110;C
110  IMAGE "There are ",D," users currently logged into this account."
120  STOP
130  PRINT "You are the only user of this account, at this time."
140  END

LEN
00175 WORDS = 01 RECORDS.  00576 RECORDS USED OF 00600 PERMITTED.

TREK73

One family of very popular games on the HP were related to the television show Star Trek. One of the most detailed games was written by William Char and others at the City College of San Francisco in the early 1970's called TREK73. You can see a listing of that program here.

Here are the comments at the beginning of the program: 

9  REM    TREK73:  AN ADVANCED STAR TREK BATTLE SIMULATION
10  REM  PROGRAMMED BY WILLIAM K. CHAR AND ASSOCIATES, WILSON
11  REM  EDP, 400 MANSELL, SAN FRAN, CA 94134, (415) 230-6460
12  REM  26 NOVEMBER 1973 ***FOR AUTHORISED PERSONNEL ONLY***

SPACE

I have a listing of a program called SPACE with the following remarks: 

130  REM ***
140  REM ***    SPACE : Startrek battle simulation for
150  REM ***             two players --- part 1 of 3
160  REM ***
170  REM ***    SPACE programmed by ALAN HEIRICH
180  REM ***
190  REM ***  Created by ALAN HEIRICH & CHRIS MIDGLEY
200  REM ***          Sophomores at Community High School
210  REM ***          Ann Arbor, Mich. 4/26/76
220  REM ***

It provided a game very similar to TREK73 but allowed two users to play each other. It included a rudimentary function for the two users to send text messages to each other.

I did eventually hear from Alan Heirich:

Dan,
My wife showed me your web site today -- I can hardly believe that old SPACE game that I wrote with Chris Midgley in the 70's still exists anywhere. It was a simple multi-user game that used the filesystem as a communications channel. I am responsible for the "Ionic ping-pong storm" and other hilarity. Chris and I were students at Community High, Roland Meade was the system administrator at the school district computing center.

Chris and I wrote that program after seeing Trek73. We were playing around with the idea of multiuser communication. We were using an HP 2000 at the Washtenaw Intermediate School District near Ann Arbor. It's thrilling to me to hear that someone actually played that game! You are the first person who has ever contacted me about it.

The last time I heard Chris was the chief technical officer of a company that makes backup and storage software somewhere in Massachussets.

STTR1

A more rudimentary Star Trek game was part of the HP Contributed Library, which made it a part of nearly every HP 2000 system. 

1  REM ****  HP BASIC PROGRAM LIBRARY  ******************************
2  REM
3  REM       STTR1: STAR TREK
4  REM
5  REM       36243  REV B  --  10/73
6  REM
7  REM ****  CONTRIBUTED PROGRAM ************************************
100  REM ***************************************************************
110  REM ***                                                           *
120  REM ***     STAR TREK: BY MIKE MAYFIELD, CENTERLINE ENGINEERING   *
130  REM ***                                                           *
140  REM ***        TOTAL INTERACTION GAME - ORIG. 20 OCT 1972
150  REM ***                                                           *
160  REM ***************************************************************

Click here for the listing of the entire game.

WIZARD'S CASTLE

Another popular game on (some) HP 2000 systems was WIZARD, a dungeon exploration game based loosely on the paper-and-pencil game Dungeons and Dragons and the written works of J.R.R. Tolkein. You ran around the eight levels looking for the Orb of Zot, fighting monsters and collecting treasure. There are later versions translated (and shrunk) to fit on early microcomputers. 

                    The Wizard's Castle

     Many cycles ago, in the kingdom of N'dic, the gnomic wizard,
Zot, forged his great orb of power.  Soon after, he vanished,
leaving behind his vast subterranean castle filled with esurient
monsters, priceless treasures, and the incredible ORB OF ZOT.
From that time hence, many a bold youth has ventured into the
Wizard's Castle.   As of yet, none has ever emerged victorious...
     The object of the game is to acquire and leave the castle
with the ORB OF ZOT.  Dying, quitting, or leaving the castle
without the ORB OF ZOT are all losses.

The HP 2000 implementation had four programs. The first, WIZARD, was the main program. CASTLE handled game saves and loads as well as purchasing supplies and basic monster combat. WCINST printed the instructions and explanations, which ran several pages. WINNER provided the congratulatory messages for successful game play.

All of these programs were linked together with the TSB CHAIN command, like this: 

7930  CHAIN "CASTLE.F420",4690

This line of code instructs the computer to continue execution in the CASTLE program, which is stored in account F420. The final number, 4690, is an optional argument that specifies the line number at which execution continues.

Chaining was a way to run large programs in a limited memory environment, by loading only those parts of the program that were needed at the time.

TALK

On the HP system I used in the late 1970's we had a program called TALK that worked almost exactly like today's Instant Messenger. The program allowed up to 32 users (the maxmimum number of users on our HP 2000) to send text messages to each other in real-time. It also supported private messaging and a rudimentary "warning" system that allowed a privileged user to silence or even log off other users. I have a listing of this program and will type it in as soon as I have some spare time.

OREGON TRAIL

A popular game that has carried forward (with upgrades!) to the present day is Oregon Trail, a simulation of the trek across the North American continent in the 1800's to reach California. All of the input and output was text, of course. There was an attempt at ASCII art -- if you died the program would print a tombstone (of sorts) with your name on it. Hunting for meat was done by typing the word BANG as quickly as possible. Since TSB has a timed input function (the ENTER function), the faster you typed BANG the better your "score" and the more likely you'd have a successful hunt.

I thought I had a listing of it but I haven't been able to locate it.

The May-June 1978 (volume 3, number 4) issue of Creative Computing magazine has a BASIC language listing for a CDC Cyber 70 which appears to be similar to the HP version. The article also includes the following background:

In 1971, Don Rawitsch and Bill Heinemann were participating together in a practice teaching program as students at Carleton College, Northfield, Minnesota. Don was teaching a class on the history of the American West and providing the preliminary information which Bill, a math teacher, used to construct the OREGON program. The program was first implemented on the Minneapolis Schools timesharing system. On the completion of the practice teaching program, the program was removed from the Minneapolis system and remained only as a curled up listing until until Don joined the MECC (Minnesota Educational Computer Consortium) staff in 1974 and loaded it onto the MECC system. Don then proceeded to do further research on the Oregon Trail and modified the program for historical accuracy to produce the present version. The program has been implemented on Hewlett-Packard, UNIVAC, and Control Data systems.

SKY BATTLE

Another two-player game available on some TSB systems was SKYBAT, a two-player grid-based combat game. It used TSB's file system to transfer game information between the two players. You can see a listing of the program here.

TIME

Time and date functions are often unique to a particular operating system. TSB was no exception. I wrote TIME to produce readable time and date strings from TSB's available functions. You can see a listing of the program here.

 

 

If you have any HP 2000 program listings (or paper tapes or magnetic tapes), please send me an e-mail!

PHOTOGRAPHS
These photos are taken from the following references:
  • A Pocket Guide to Hewlett-Packard Computers
    HP Publication 5950-8313

  • A Pocket Guide to Interfacing the HP 2100 Computer
    HP Publication 5951-4498, Printed March 1973

HP 2000 MEMORIES
TSB is one of the first time-sharing systems I ever worked on. It ran a form of BASIC ("Time Shared Basic", or TSB) and had accounts of the form lnnn where l ran from A to Z and nnn from 000 to 999. The account A000 was the rough equivalent to root access under UNIX.

I interviewed with HP in the early 1980's and the subject of TSB came up. The interviewer recalled that, to his knowledge, it was the only HP software product that had zero outstanding bug reports.

Every so often someone will find this page and write to me with memories of using HP TSB. I've started to collect them here.

MACHINES
Hewlett-Packard introduced the 2116A computer in November of 1966. It was the first 16-bit minicomputer in the industry.

I am interested in any Hewlett-Packard computing equipment and related material of this era that you might have. Computers, disc drives, tapes (magnetic and paper), documentation, manuals, newsletters, sales literature and so on are all of interest. Please don't throw it out!

Computers (2114, 2115, 2116, 2100A, 2100A, 21MX, etc.) and software (Time-Shared BASIC program listings, documentation, and so) are very much desired.

If you have any of this, or know where related items might be lurking, please send me an e-mail!

21XX Family
Model   Year
2116A 1966
2115A 1967
2114A 1968
2114B 1968
2116B 1967
2116C 1970

2100A
The HP 2100A computer was introduced introduced in 1971 with the following features:

M-SERIES
HP introduced the 21MX processor in 1974, which may have been the first minicomputer to use semiconductor memory instead of magnetic core.

The product line was later renamed as "M-Series."

Model   Year
2105A   1974
2108A   1974
2112A   1974
2108B   1976
2112B   1976
2108M   1979
2112M   1979
E-SERIES
HP announced the 21MX-E processors in 1976, although the hardware was available at the end of 1975. These machines executed code 40% faster than the 21MX products.

The product line was later renamed as "E-Series."

Model   Year
2109A   1975
2113A   1975
2109B   1976
2113B   1976
2109E   1979
2113E   1979

NEWS ARTICLES
Probably because of it's familiarity and commonality, the HP 2000 was the target of a number of "cracking" attempts. You can read a news report of one such attack here.
USENET SNIPPETS
Some snippets of USENET postings related to the HP 2000 can be found here.

Jay West, you're a hero for getting a HP 2000 Access system up and running!

Comments to Dan Veeneman

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Click here for the wanted page.

Last updated January 20, 2007