Talk:HP-150
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Various particulars
[edit]This wasn't, however, the first HP machine to use 3.5" Sony floppies. I'm afraid I can't remember the model name offhand. Four digits, beginning with a 9, I think.
It was billed as a computer, not a calculator.
It came out circa 1983, maybe late 1982. It cost about $10,000 with 65K of RAM. It had a full bitmap-addressable CRT screen and built-in IEEE-488 interface. It was based on a 68000 processor, and aimed at the scientific and engineering market. It used a very nice, very sophisticated version of BASIC with all the usual control structures, optional line numbers, etc. Programs executed at very, very roughly 1000 lines of BASIC per second. A dual-floppy unit was the main form of storage; I don't believe a hard drive was a common option.
Oh, and it supported version of Context MBA, the now-forgotten program which completely out-featured 1-2-3 but had been written in Pascal and was therefore unusably slow on a PC, though perfectly acceptable on this HP machine. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Dpbsmith (talk • contribs) 01:25, 25 October 2004 (UTC)
Video RAM
[edit]I don't think the amount of graphics RAM is correct. This machine has two video buffers: a 12KB buffer for alphanumeric mode and a 32KB one for graphics mode, it uses two different controllers, each controller (alpha and graphics) is independent and the two video sources are mixed together before presented to the user. Fabio-nmi (talk) 12:32, 7 November 2025 (UTC)
| Hex Address | Usage |
|---|---|
| E0000–FFFFF | Terminal and Graphics ROM |
| D4000– | 48K Alpha RAM / CRTC Register Image |
| D0000– | 12K Alpha RAM / 4K CRTC Registers / VATT |
| C8000– | Graphics RAM Image |
| C0000– | 32K Graphics RAM |
| BC000– | 256 x 4 CMOS RAM |
| B8000– | System Status LEDs |
| B0000– | System Status LEDs |
| A0000– | Acessory Slot #2 |
| 90000– | Acessory Slot #1 |
| ↓ ROM Expansion ↓ | |
| 40000– | ↑ RAM Expansion ↑ |
| 30000– | 64K User RAM |
| 20000– | 64K User RAM |
| 10000– | 64K User RAM |
| 06000– | 40K User RAM |
| 00000– | 24K Terminal Variables |
"Figure 10-3 HP 150 Memory Map". HP 150 Service Manual. Hewlett-Packard. September 1983. pp. 10-5 (171 of PDF). 45611-90002.
RDBrown (talk) 00:31, 10 November 2025 (UTC)
- Thanks, yes my comment is based on the service manual and schematics. Fabio-nmi (talk) 19:00, 17 November 2025 (UTC)