HP 5890 Series II dumpster find

[wss]

I've just acquired an old HP 5890 Series II, which is pretty worn and will probably just be used for spares if I get another one, but I'm vaguely thinking of trying to get it going. It appears to have an FID installed with some bits missing but I might have spares somewhere in my lab at work.

I'm not very familiar with the 5890, having only used 6890s and 7890s and then mainly with 5975/5977 MSDs, but I was wondering what might be the best version of Chemstation to use with it? I'm not sure when Agilent stopped supporting these units. I have a few GP-IB PC cards and enough PCs of a suitable vintage, and it doesn't need to connect to a network or anything so anything from Windows 3.1 onwards is a go. Is it worth getting it going? Even just to do something like TPH or alcohols or something similar.

[rb6banjo]

I'm still using a 5890 Series II (HPIB data communications). It's running Win95 and Chemstation Rev A.06.01 [403].

I have Win95 on floppies but I don't have the Chemstation software because I inherited it from another lab, years ago. If the PC fails, I'm pretty much in trouble on that instrument. I recently had the FID detector board die. I found one on Ebay and I was back in business for ~$50.

It's still a very reliable instrument. I think mostly I'm at risk if the PC fails. I doubt I'll be able to find another like it.

[KM-USA]

I'm retired now, we had several 5890 units, really great instruments.

For your unit, I would suggest A.06.03 for which I can supply software by E-mail if you post your E-mail address (such as in form abc at 123 dot com). You would need to use your own Agilent license number.

I can also supply replacement media for A.07, A.08, A.09, and A.10 but the differences in those are primarily for the version of Windows one uses.

[wss]

For your unit, I would suggest A.06.03 for which I can supply software by E-mail if you post your E-mail address (such as in form abc at 123 dot com). You would need to use your own Agilent license number.

Thanks! I think I have a licence for A series Chemstation lying around somewhere. My email address is wss [dot] ion [dot] trap [at] gmail [dot] com.

I have some old GP-IB ISA cards in storage somewhere, but I've never actually used instruments with GP-IB, only over LANs. Does the 5890 II and Chemstation require a specific HP-branded HP-IB card (such as an 82341) or would other branded cards work if I have the drivers?

[antonk]

Our UniChrom supports 5890 all flavours for Windows/Linux

General info about communication boards
https://www.unichrom.com/hpx890/hpx890e.shtml

Download
https://www.unichrom.com/chrom/ucdle.php

Demo mode allows 3 min of online data collection for testing

[KM-USA]

I have some old GP-IB ISA cards in storage somewhere, but I've never actually used instruments with GP-IB, only over LANs. Does the 5890 II and Chemstation require a specific HP-branded HP-IB card (such as an 82341) or would other branded cards work if I have the drivers?

I am not computer literate enough to answer your question. The older computers used an 82335 board and the "newer" ones 82341 or 82350.

I will try to send A.06.03 electronically later today to your E-mail; you can edit out/delete the E-mail address from your earlier post if you wish.

[antonk]

I have some old GP-IB ISA cards in storage somewhere, but I've never actually used instruments with GP-IB, only over LANs. Does the 5890 II and Chemstation require a specific HP-branded HP-IB card (such as an 82341) or would other branded cards work if I have the drivers?

I am not computer literate enough to answer your question. The older computers used an 82335 board and the "newer" ones 82341 or 82350.

I will try to send A.06.03 electronically later today to your E-mail; you can edit out/delete the E-mail address from your earlier post if you wish.

82335 (ISA) would work only for win9x and Linux, it uses memory mapping.

82341 (ISA), 82350 (PCI) would work under all NT platforms and Linux too

[wss]

I also have a few Agilent AGES1A RS-232 to LAN interfaces - we have loads of these surplus at work but I'm not sure what they were ever used for since we've never used RS-232 with any of our instruments. Does anyone know if I can interface to the 5890 Series II with one of these?

[antonk]

I also have a few Agilent AGES1A RS-232 to LAN interfaces - we have loads of these surplus at work but I'm not sure what they were ever used for since we've never used RS-232 with any of our instruments. Does anyone know if I can interface to the 5890 Series II with one of these?

Terminal servers just map incoming TCP connection to serial port.
Like this https://www.unichrom.com/psw/xpswe.shtml

Terminal server serial port has to be configured to exact port rate of instrument.

Sometimes these port servers have virtual comp-port drivers. In such case software sets port rate at virtual com-port side, and the port-server side configures it's hardware serial to specified rate.

[James_Ball]

If you have one of the MSDChemstation versions before I believe D.02 that will work also. I always ran the MSD software even on 5890 alone, just liked the interface and especially how it handles calibrations much better than the Chemstation A versions.