HP/Agilent 16500B Software?

[hamspot]

Our local makerspace recently acquired a HP 16500B mainframe with one 96 channel LA module installed.  After checking it out briefly I bought a 16500A on ebay loaded up with 1GHz timing module, Digital Storage Scope module, and some different LA modules.  The 500B came with one floppy which is an inverse compiler for a test jig that was included with it.  The 500A comes with no floppies at all...

I have searched Google and found 7-8 year old forum posts about additional software and other resources for it being available on the Agilent FTP site.  I poked around on there and didn't see anything but it is vast.  I was able to download the latest firmware images and some documents for the 500B and 500A from the website.

What software do I need or may want, if any, to run on the 500B (or 500A) with all the various modules installed?  Also, where might I obtain such software these days?  I will be using the system with LabView, also.

[philpem]

Bit late to the party but I'll jump in regardless

I used to have a 16500B - fully loaded with RAM and with the LAN card and a bunch of nice modules too. I ended up upgrading to a 16700A OPT003 and moved most of the modules across. As a result, there's a fair bit of 16500B info on my website -- http://www.philpem.me.uk/elec/testgear/hp16500b/

If your 16500B works fine, use it. The problem with the 16500A is that it requires LIF-formatted floppies (which PCs can't easily read) and boots from floppy disk. The 16500B uses MS-DOS format floppy disks (which a PC with a USB floppy drive can read) and boots from the hard disk (assuming the HDD still works). If your HDD has died, you can install a CompactFlash card (anything 32MB or larger should work, I used an Apacer 1GB industrial card from BG Micro). For that, you need a CF to IDE adapter.

If you install a CF card or a new hard disk, it's entirely normal for the HDD to report as failed on boot - that error disappears after you format the HDD and install the system software.

Notably there's some information on how much RAM you can install in the mainframe and a full tutorial for reinstalling the system software. The system software includes drivers for all the modules which can be installed in the 16500B analyser. The SYSTEM file is the system software itself, the SYS_nnn files are the expansion card drivers.

If you've got the LAN card, you can connect to the 16500B from your PC using an X server or FTP client. This makes it a bit easier to download capture data from the analyser, but it's only 10Mbit Ethernet and you may need an AUI transceiver (the manuals suggest a HP EtherTwist) depending on which LAN card you have (one is 10Base2 + AUI, another is 10BaseT).

[PaulAm]

Nice page, thanks for the link.  I immediately ordered a couple of 32MB SIMMs from ebay :-)

[hamspot]

Excellent information!  Thanks!  I received the 500A I ordered and parted out what I could (modules, missing trim pieces and hardware, etc) and installed it into the 500B.  It recognized all the modules, they passed all their tests and I was able to calibrate the various instruments with no problem.  So I think we will definitely use this until something better comes along. 

I have located a IDE-CF adapter and 2 GB card.  Someone is also bringing me a bag of 32MB EDO modules.

The floppy drive fails the CRC test with a new, blank floppy inserted.  Any idea if this is a standard Sony-style PC floppy drive?  I have not seen much info on replacing that and obviously the 500A floppy drives are of no use in the 500B.

Before we even powered it up we pulled the hard disk and imaged it to file with dd just so we have a backup of the system as we got it.  I also found a driver to read/write the byte swapped FAT filesystem on the hard disk under Linux (OpenGPIB).  So I think I can construct the new CF card filesystem from scratch on a Linux host without needing the floppy drive.  The system software is something like version 1.x dated 1992; which seems old enough to be the factory firmware.  When I switch to the CF card I will use the latest version from Agilent.

Someone kindly wrote some nice mainframe-enabled LabView VISA drivers for the 500B, 500C, 501A, and newer which are available from the LabView 3rd party drivers website.

The Ethernet card in it is twisted pair, thankfully. 

I intend to setup a rolling service cart with an analog scope, GPIB-based multimeter, PC (Labview, etc), Wifi bridged ethernet switch, UPS (2000VA), etc.

[rf-loop]

The system software is something like version 1.x dated 1992; which seems old enough to be the factory firmware.  When I switch to the CF card I will use the latest version from Agilent.

Here in normal Agilent web sides are all what need.

System software 2.03  (1994) (need with some 16555A module)

http://www.home.agilent.com/agilent/software.jspx?ckey=1173910&lc=eng&cc=US&nid=-11143.0.00&id=1173910

In all other cases most new version is  3.14  (1997)

http://www.home.agilent.com/agilent/software.jspx?ckey=695683&lc=eng&cc=US&nid=-11143.0.00&id=695683

(Just copy (from disks or other way)  all system software files to /SYSTEM directory of the 16500B Hard Disk  and boot.)

And, from old HD, system do not need anything (this is not PC crap). It is best to first format and check and just make /SYSTEM directory where all system files. (exept if there is some user stored things what need keep)

[hamspot]

Is there a version of the Agilent Logic Analysis software for Windows which supports the 16500B?  I found 3764-14119-1008.iso and B3764-14200-AM-05600001.iso which both support the newer 16800, 16900 LA mainframes.  But the release notes for those two versions specifically mention that an older version somewhere around 3.x supported the 16500B.  I was not able to locate that older version, though.  What do people use to decode, for example, I2C data from the 16500B?

[PaulAm]

I would be very interested in this as well.

ALD makes adapters for serial protocols (I2C, CAN, SPI, etc) that translate the serial protocol into a  parallel data stream for the LA.  An I2C adapter for the 16500 is around $2500 (2200 for the base + $300 for the I2C option).  Seems a little pricey.

You could probably write a decoder that runs on a 16505a prototype analyzer.  If I ever get mine set up I'll have to look at that.

[free_electron]

there is a protocol decoder toolkit. this allows you to create decoders for any protocol you want. but this is an option and a licence is required tied to the serial number of your machine

[PaulAm]

Was there a product code for that?  I haven't found anything that looks like that yet. It would be interesting to look at the manual.

Edit --
Dang, looks like that was B4601A.  No info available.  The B version has a manual but that's for the 16700 series.

[AndersG]

The Inverse assembler Develoment kit:

10391B_Inverse_Assembler_Development_Package_v2.0.zip
HP_10391B_Inverse_Assembler_Manual_10391903.pdf

[PaulAm]

Thanks for that link.

Here's a fellow who built an IA for the GPIB bus, along with some usage hints.

http://www.rudiswiki.de/wiki/HP1652InverseAssembler