NAME  

HP-85

MANUFACTURER  

Hewlett Packard

TYPE  

Professional Computer

ORIGIN  

U.S.A.

YEAR  

1980

END OF PRODUCTION 

1984

BUILT IN LANGUAGE 

HP Basic interpreter

KEYBOARD  

Full stroke 93 keys with numeric keypad and user definable keys

CPU  

'Capricorn' custom HP 8-bit CPU

SPEED  

0.625 MHz

COPROCESSOR  

Custom HP I/O circuits

RAM  

16 KB (14.5 KB for the user, expandable to 32 KB)

VRAM  

8 KB

ROM  

32 KB

TEXT MODES 

32 chars x 16 lines

GRAPHIC MODES 

256 x 192 dots

COLORS  

Monochrome

SOUND  

Tone Generator

I/O PORTS 

Four I/O Ports

BUILT IN MEDIA 

Built-in DC 100 cartridge drive

OS  

Built-in BASIC language. Optional CP/M O.S. with external FD/HD unit

POWER SUPPLY 

Built-in power supply unit 110V - 240V switchable

PERIPHERALS  

Various extension cards: GP-IB, Serial, FDD controller, I/O routines, Parallel, BASIC extensions

 

HP-85

HP-85

 The HP-85 was a famous all-in-one computer, which met a great worldwide success thanks to its high reliability and ease of use. It featured a 8 bit processor, 16 KB of RAM, a built-in 5" CRT display, tape drive, thermal printer and four I/O ports.

The HP custom processor had 64 8-bit registers but no accumulators. Even slow, it offered outstanding performances in math calculations.


The display offered a full screen editor and a ROLL key allowing to scroll the screen window up and down through a 48 line (three full screens) buffer.

The quiet and quite fast printer could print a hard copy of the screen in text or graphic mode as well as direct program outputs.

The built-in tape cartridge system used a common DC100 data cartridge that could hold 195 KB of program files, binary files or data files. Up to 42 file names could be stored in the directory of the tape. A searching function made a file to be found in less than 1 min. When the system was switched on, the tape drive automatically searched a program called 'Autost' and ran it if found.

HP also provided a large range of interface modules to be plugged in the expansion slots. The system could then manage several peripherals through GPIB or Serial ports such as FDD unit, printers, plotters, etc. A 'ROM Drawer' module allowed up to six ROM chips to be inserted. They expanded the capabilities of the internal BASIC interpreter, provided additional languages (Assembler, Pascal), and I/O routines for external devices.

A quite special "feature" of the HP-85 was that the screen blanked whenever the printer was printing or the cartridge was accessed!