5890/5971 resurrection

[benhutcherson]

Interesting work with the alternate OSs.

Does anyone know what instruments worked with the old HP Unix version of Chemstation? I am sure it was still available with the 5970, possibly the 5971 but not sure about that. It would be interesting to see someone get that running on a modern Linux box.

I wonder if the RTE-A HPUX version would work somehow under Linux. That was the first version I used in 1991 when I started working with GCMS, although at my first job they had a bunch of 5890s running on a version on a old VAX mainframe system, but it was similar to the RTE-A if I remember correctly.

I'd actually be interested in knowing myself.

UNIX, of course, is a group of OSs with a common lineage and a lot of the ones out there(including my preferred MacOS) are derived from BSD UNIX.

Most of the instruments I've used on UNIX run on Solaris, but Solaris can run on a bunch of different hardware. I once used an ancient ICP-MS(Perkin-Elmer) that ran on a special version of an IBM 486. I have an old Sun UltraSparc that runs Solaris and has VNMRj on it for older Varian NMRs.

It would be a project of interest to me just for proof-of-concept to get a 5890 and or 5970/5971 running via HP software on UNIX.

[flowster]

Hi Dirk, hi Ben, hi James,
Sorry I was also gone for some time and just returned to my project now.

That whole process of patching the files to make the old chemstation B work on Win7/10 seems brilliant. I got hold of a 82350 PCI Card on a 32bit system so I’m practically ready to go. Still a bit scary with all the steps needed, I am better with pliers than with software, but ready to break my system if that is necessary. Good backups in place )) If by any chance dirk you happen to have some time for a video call - I am in Germany For the time zone Maybe you could let me know?

Meanwhile on top of the 5971 I got hold of a 5972 (Lots of Dif oil in the chamber but to try to see if it comes up I would need a way of access as my old system doesn’t like it - So this adds nicely to all the problems faced )))
Thanks so much for all the help and the hints in the right direction!

Flo

[benhutcherson]

Hi Dirk, hi Ben, hi James,
Sorry I was also gone for some time and just returned to my project now.

That whole process of patching the files to make the old chemstation B work on Win7/10 seems brilliant. I got hold of a 82350 PCI Card on a 32bit system so I’m practically ready to go. Still a bit scary with all the steps needed, I am better with pliers than with software, but ready to break my system if that is necessary. Good backups in place )) If by any chance dirk you happen to have some time for a video call - I am in Germany For the time zone Maybe you could let me know?

Meanwhile on top of the 5971 I got hold of a 5972 (Lots of Dif oil in the chamber but to try to see if it comes up I would need a way of access as my old system doesn’t like it - So this adds nicely to all the problems faced )))
Thanks so much for all the help and the hints in the right direction!

Flo

With an 82350 and Chemstation B, you should be good to go with a 5972. It will run a 5972 and 5973 plus a GCD, and if patched can do a 5970 or 71.

At least on a 5972, you can actually clean out the vac chamber with solvent and not have to wait a month heated under vacuum for the background to go away. I really wish I'd had a 72 vac manifold to fit when I upgraded my 71 to a 72...

If nothing else, as a rudimentary check on the 5972, if you put a blank ferrule on the transfer line then power it up(assuming of course you have refilled the diff pump to the correct level) and power it up with a roughing pump on the foreline, you should feel the diffusion pump warming up in 10 minutes or so. When powered on, whether connected to a data system or not, the instrument will initiate a pump down cycle. Once the foreline falls below 300mTorr(you should also feel the convectron gauge getting hot) the diff pump heater comes on.

[flowster]

Hey Ben I did exactly that and it keeps the vacuum nicely - but after switching the MSD on I had the three lights blinking and the manual saying it needs to talk to a controller system before it will actually do anything, so I switched it off again thinking it might not do anything, or me actually ruining more if continuing - not that this hasn't happened before ) Will check again and see if it heats up.

Wasn't sure about which solvents to clean the vac chamber with. Wiped it down a couple of times with methanol, but expecting the santovac to be tough stuff I thought about removing the chamber and all seals and thoroughly rinse it with DCM and Acetone, too, but then again first I wanted to get an idea whether the system is actually working before diving into that bigger operation.

First I will try to hook everything up, as you mentioned Version B will be able to talk to it. I thought I only saw a 5973 when installing it, but I might not have looked well enough.
The B will only run under XP though, if I have that right, unless Dirk found the magic solution to patch it under Win7 or even 10 on top of controlling the 5971. Being able to control both systems with a current PC would be ideal, knowing how the old ones love to have their issues from time to time, and at least having an alternate to switch to seems like a dream.

[benhutcherson]

B will definitely run a 72 with no issues-I know the last I set up(again, 5972 eMod in a 5971 chassis, but the data system sees it as a 5972).

I've always used methanol on the light backstreaming/splattering that seems to happen in most diff pump instruments and it does the job, but for heavier jobs it's worth using whatever solvent will do the job. There again, the 72 manifold won't suck up solvents like a sponge the way a 71 manifold will, so you have a bit more freedom.

There's a patch in common circulation to make it run a 70/71, but there again 5972 should be one of the options there when you set up a new instrument.

I'm hopefully this coming week getting an install of G1701BA set up to run a 5973(I know i can go newer, but I'm also on a shoestring budget so you use what you have) and I will check.

I know I ran into the 3 light thing also when doing a quick check-out of this 5973, even though I did verify the diff pump getting hot. The full 3-line display(or however many it is) and keypad of the 5973N and newer is definitely a welcome addition.

[flowster]

I just figured out why the software didn't want to give me the option of installing a 5972. I have the wrong chemstation. The CDs I own contain different versions of chemstation software, and also there is a digital image of chemstation B.03.01, but not the G1701BA which after googling for hours now I believe I need? .... A colleague has version G1701DA but apparently that won't talk to the 5890 anymore, too modern. He used to run a BA on an older system before it died, and he says the installation cd went missing along with the PC that controlled it. He still has the key though, so now he says I would have to find the original CDRom or the corresponding .iso-file. This is all pretty confusing, the whole thing about the software versions, naming, running OS... and Agilent apparently is not supporting the "antique" versions of their software. Is there anyone who could point me in the right direction of how to proceed? Any help is greatly appreciated!

[James_Ball]

https://www.agilent.com/cs/library/Supp ... F05030.pdf

This is a link to the official Agilent Software/Hardware compatibility matrix.

As Ben has mentioned there has been some mods and patches made to make newer versions backwards compatible but I am not sure any were made to be forward compatible. Some of the versions can be installed on newer OSs, but not all.

I remember there was one of the D versions that broke when installing XP SP3 I think it was. Ours autoupdated and everything stopped working, and when we tried to install on a computer with SP3 it would not even run the install program so we have to find a computer with SP2 still installed.

Another ancient version I have been thinking about was the one that ran on the Pascal Workstation. It was the light version of the Unix software if I remember. We had a 5970 in college that ran on it. Of course this was pre-Windows era for sure.

[James_Ball]

Oh and I just found this

http://www.hpmuseum.net/collection_software.php

It has a link to the HPUX1000 RTE-A system software, that is so cool.

http://www.hpmuseum.net/display_item.php?hw=594

I think this is the version we had, except it was in the micro/1000 case, but we also had several of those black and white monitors shown in the lower photo. With all those monitors running and the reel to reel tape drive for data storage it felt like I was working at NASA back then

[benhutcherson]

Re: Version D

There's a company out there that will either patch it(you have to have the license/media) or modify the electronics so the 71/72 work with it and run reliably in Win10. That same company will also put metal quads in those instruments, which is nice since the old ceramic/silver quads can be a little worse for wear after ~30 years.

With that said, unlike the 70/71 patch for version B(which has been passed around the independent repair circuit enough that someone will give it to you if you ask), they charge a decent amount of money to get version D going with those instruments(understandably so) and I believe also lock it to the system on which it's first installed so it doesn't get pirated/shared.

James, thanks for that link. Still something I'd like to play with!

[flowster]

I found a G1701BA install with a license while going through every old box I could find in the basement. Now I have it running and controlling the 5972, but not the 5971. Also whenever I try to enter data analysis it fails to open (running it on a german WnXP SP2, although I changed the permissions as required - maybe I will try getting an english XP2 or a NT4 as this is what it was originally written for?), but this issue has been reported as a problem here before, with no solution so far. But as long as it controls my 5890/5972 combo I am happy enough, as I do my analysis with OpenChrom, anyway.
Ben, as you mentioned the 70/71 patch, would you possibly know someone I could maybe ask? :)

Re: Version D

With that said, unlike the 70/71 patch for version B(which has been passed around the independent repair circuit enough that someone will give it to you if you ask), they charge a decent amount of money to get version D going with those instruments(understandably so) and I believe also lock it to the system on which it's first installed so it doesn't get pirated/shared.

So cool the HP museum!

[benhutcherson]

Email me at hutchersongcservice AT icloud.com

I can send you a copy of the patch, although it's going to be a few days before I can get back into the office and get it to you. It covers the 5970 and 5971.

Just note that you MUST have a SmartCard II in your 5971 for it to work. The original SmartCard I will not work with BA.

Also, I've tinkered with BA in XP, but usually end up back at Win2K.

[dirkn]

Late to the party, I'm afraid.

Couple of answers for everyone:

1) I have G1701BA running on both XP and 7. 7 definitely needs the make the c:\ root directory un-writeable hack to make it work.

2) Never played with G1701DA. I thought it had had all support for HPIB removed but I appear to be mistaken. I also don't have a valid license for this version.

3) If MSDA won't start it may very well be because the c:\ directory is writeable if it complains about a macro file called <something>.tmp not found.

4) The 82357 supports a whole daisy-chain of instruments. It wouldn't work with a separate 82357 for each instrument as the interface names would all have to be the same. Chemstation understands only one SICL interface ID/name, which must be 'hp82341'.

4) I have G1701BA running on Wine both on mac and linux. Needs a very recent version of wine and a 32-bit capable mac (i.e. not Catalina). I have a special sicl32 shim DLL that sends sicl commands via TCP/IP to a little RPC server process that can be compiled for any unix system that supports an ni488-style API. This works with linux GPIB on x86 and raspberry pi, both 82357 and NI GPIB-USB-HS. There is a way to just about get it working with an 82357 on mac but it's painful. I've not managed it with the NI USB card on mac because it wouldn't do 32-bit but the little server should work just fine compiled for 64-bit so that would be feasible.

5) If you're very brave you can find my python 5890/5971 control program on GitHub.

[benhutcherson]

Late to the party, I'm afraid.

Couple of answers for everyone:

1) I have G1701BA running on both XP and 7. 7 definitely needs the make the c:\ root directory un-writeable hack to make it work.

2) Never played with G1701DA. I thought it had had all support for HPIB removed but I appear to be mistaken. I also don't have a valid license for this version.

3) If MSDA won't start it may very well be because the c:\ directory is writeable if it complains about a macro file called <something>.tmp not found.

4) The 82357 supports a whole daisy-chain of instruments. It wouldn't work with a separate 82357 for each instrument as the interface names would all have to be the same. Chemstation understands only one SICL interface ID/name, which must be 'hp82341'.

4) I have G1701BA running on Wine both on mac and linux. Needs a very recent version of wine and a 32-bit capable mac (i.e. not Catalina). I have a special sicl32 shim DLL that sends sicl commands via TCP/IP to a little RPC server process that can be compiled for any unix system that supports an ni488-style API. This works with linux GPIB on x86 and raspberry pi, both 82357 and NI GPIB-USB-HS. There is a way to just about get it working with an 82357 on mac but it's painful. I've not managed it with the NI USB card on mac because it wouldn't do 32-bit but the little server should work just fine compiled for 64-bit so that would be feasible.

5) If you're very brave you can find my python 5890/5971 control program on GitHub.

Thanks for the answers.

Re: 1, I'll have to play around a bit with that. Right now, I'm scrambling to get anything running to operate my 6890/5973 on next to no budget. All I had on hand was an 82314c, which meant I dusted off a 233mhz PII and started clean on it. I have some PIIIs with ISA, but can't readily access any now. I wish I could drop in my pre-made(and pre-patched) Win2K/G1701BA install onto an Optiplex GX620, which seems to be kind of the standard config now for keeping HPIB instruments current, but it was a choice between buying a 82350B card or a new source temp sensor, and I chose the latter.

In any case in all of that, I'm doing well to run Win2K now. I'd initially put XP on it(well, not proper XP, but POS2009), but it was so miserably slow that I rolled back to Win2K before playing with getting BA running. I want to play with XP, though, and if I can get a PIII box going I will(maybe this week).

2. Support for the 5972(and apparently the easy ability to patch it to run a 5970/5971) was dropped with BA. The 5973 "bridged" the HPIB/Ethernet gap, and DA supports HPIB 5973s. I had BA on hand, which will work fine with the 5973. I talked to the independent service engineer who I source a lot of parts through and who advises me on stuff, and since I'm going to try and have him do a full N upgrade at the end of the fiscal year, I decided not to pursue $750 for a copy of DA(his price on the N upgrade includes a pre-built/preconfigured Win10 system with EA E.02.02 installed). He said basically DA gets me to Win7(I think) in a "supported" config and has a few bugs worked out of BA, but honestly I'm "at home" both with BA and EA(those are the two main versions I've used-the latter on my 7820/5975 at my last school) so figured it was best to stick with BA now.

4. That's good info on the 82357, and actually really valuable to know. That's something I'll file away for future use, and if I can get a 82357 I certainly want to play with it. Thank you! That cuts the need for adapters by a lot.

As to Wine/Mac, I'm a full time Mac user for general computing needs, and nothing newer than Mojave exists in my world. I'm actually still running High Sierra on my main computer(been too busy for the down time to upgrade), but do have Mojave on one that I've used for a while. I actually pulled out a 2012 13" back-up to my back-up the other day because it's one of the few reasonably current laptops I have that both has a place for an optical drive and has one installed(my main one, a 2012 15", lost its optical drive a long time ago for additional storage). I actually used it to burn some Windows images to play with OSs, and was...less than happy..to find that I had stupidly upgraded it to Catalina. That was made doubly bad since there are only a handful of officially-supported Catalina computers that also have built in ODDs(I think offhand just the 2012 non-retina MBPs...although I think Apple is trying to flush out those of us who are stubbornly holding on to those) and disk burning is really buggy compared even to High Sierra.

[dirkn]

Hi,

Managed to do a DA install for test purposes.

Looks like i was wrong- EA is the version that removes all SICL GPIB support. DA still has GPIB in it but it seems to have dropped all support for anything older than a plain 5973. There may be a way of patching it but it's certainly not like BA which simply has the functionality disabled and requires only a few tweaks to win.ini and the macro files to make the 5970/71/72 work again.

You might be able to car-crash an install of BA and DA together to get working MSDs but i still think you'll not be able to run a 5890/7673 with it as the BA libraries for 5890/7673 are all 16-bit and DA is all-32bit AFAICT. They've also apparently removed standalone autosampler support though it my be possible to add it back in msdchem.ini by hand.

I think we're going to have to stick to G1701BA to run 5970/71/72 and 5890 systems unless I really feel like poking around in DA or EA, or build a TCP/IP to GPIB adapter for older instruments (the command language is going to be similar across the different instruments). That's annoying, as BA is the last mixed 16/32bit version and i'd really like to be able to drop the 16-bit requirement.

As to mac support, I have Mojave running on a 2011 MBP with dos1dude's patcher. Can't upgrade to Catalina as it breaks wine at present.

Wine is going to be scuppered for 32bit and 16-bit apps on Catalina until somebody fully ports the 64bit Codeweavers changes which is not a small job.

82357B cards (probable clones, but it doesn't matter as long as you have the original firmware/drivers) are readily available for around $100 on eBay so I'd really recommend going down that route rather than trying to keep an 82341 card working in an ISA PC or even finding a working 82350B and a PCI machine. You avoid all the hassle of internal interface cards, so you can choose a small form factor, modern, fast PC and save bench space, power and headaches around dying disks and PSUs.

If anybody needs help at getting G1701BA installed on win10, please shout. I can do a screen share to talk you through it. Flowster?

[flowster]

I'm here Dirk, you're genius. After trying and trying and reinstalling XP and messing and breaking everything else (removing the 82350 what feels like 300 times) now I finally figured it out thanks to your genius tip. On XP at least I now have my 5890/5972 running!! Also I can access a 6980 with a 5972 attached, plus autosampler, and control everything, and with the new user with restricted (denied) write permissions on C:/ but ONLY the root directory on C:/ (no inheritances or other directories) MSDA comes up just fine! WHAT A RELIEF!
I haven't tried installing 1701BA on 7 or 10, but I imagine it works sort of that way, but yes, a walkthrough by screensharing would surely be of great help, as I think you mentioned the tweaking of the win.ini and other hacks? In the meantime - thanks again for pointing me in the right direction )))