0x0034 - GPIB Data Logging Like It's 1982

Let's take a look at how you would use GPIB/HPIB/IEEE-488 for data logging in the 80's.
No excuse is too small for me to bring out my HP-86A and play with it.
This was a really fun exercise in how technology changes in someways, but not others. HPIB was created in the 1960's and you can still buy equipment with that port on it. It doesn't need complex handshaking like TCP/IP, it is more flexible than USB, and it is more reliable than bluetooth.
My 34401a Interface software: github.com/AkBKukU/34401AGUI
Here's a transcript of the BASIC program I wrote: gist.github.com/AkBKukU/dfc03...
Playlists of more stuff like this:
Computers: • Computers
Electrical Engineering: • Electrical Engineering
1980s: • 1980s
Other Links
KZbin: / akbkuku
Github: github.com/AkBKukU
Thingiverse: www.thingiverse.com/AkBKukU
Patreon: / akbkuku
Discord: / discord

[@moth.monster]

The reason some of this stuff still gets supported just a little, is because it still works for those who use it.

[@eduardoavila646]

Yeah, same with the old fanuc cnc program (even tho idk if its still supported)

[@MrWaalkman]

Just "a little"? For my 1670x's HP-Agilent sent me the install CDs free of charge. As well as the ROMs for my HP 3852A's. My friend got his sent to him in Finland. I don't know of any other company that supports their obsolete products (of which they have got to know that the current owner of them is not the original owner) to this level.

[@videooblivion]

Lots of labs and research universities use HP Basic to this day! I worked on a project in 2017 porting a test app written for the HP-85 into Python script.

[@arjanvuik2004]

Thank you for this video. It's like EEVblog meets LGR, I love it. It's fun to note that now a days with handheld DSO's and Arduino's, Raspberry pi's and such it is good to see where we came from. Having multi thousand Euro/Dollar equipment just to get a graph of a resistance/heat measurement which you can now get from a 'simple' multimeter. Good stuf! Keep up the good work. (Even though this video is more then 2 years old at time of writing, I still like it ;) )

[@cocusar]

Man, I know that it might not be your entire audience interest, but I would love to see more videos about interfacing old gear with era-correct PCs or whatever. Maybe even newer devices with old gear. I really like your content!

[@TrolleyMC]

I second this.

[@Pixelvore1]

Yes bring it man. thanks

[@markgreco1962]

Me too

[@CyricFTW]

That’s a beatiful terminal. Whole setup is beautiful infact.

[@eduardoavila646]

Yeah! I and i wouldnt even retrobrite that hp, it looks nice yellowed, it seems that it has history

[@BertGrink]

Back then, HP made some truly good stuff.

[@maaaaandeh]

@@BertGrink Ah the OG HP left us with quite a lot of interesting stuff, and even better, some content for AkBKukU's channel

[@smallmoneysalvia]

Now you have to get more gpib electronics test gear and get a whole 80s lab going!

[@TechTangents]

That's my plan!

[@nickm5419]

AkBKukU idk why but 2018 tech across the board looks so boring and lame or is it just me? XD

[@Adamsnadler214]

I have friends who work in amplifier building and repair and they only use tools this old. They actually use that multimeter all the time

[@smallmoneysalvia]

It’s a seriously killer multimeter, and I haven’t seen one go more than a count or two off factory calibration either.

[@chrstphrchvz]

Maybe add a GPIB-capable DC power supply for turning the LED on and off. Then the whole measurement setup can be automated.

[@safetydoge]

Thank you druaga2, very cool!

[@LightTheUnicorn]

Wonderful, as you say, to see machines like this doing "real work". Dare I say interfacing to test equipment from HP basic seems... rather nice and straightforward? Really enjoyed seeing the HP drawing the graph and giving out useful data, very cool!

[@darrenjkendall]

Nice demonstration, it's really satisfying to watch someone who knows what they're doing. Thanks AkBKukU.

[@runrin_]

that computer and monitor are so handsome, even in their yellowed state. also, love the video, its always cool to see people using "obsolete" tech for practical applications

[@BlackEpyon]

I was thinking it could use a retr0briteing, but given the type of plastic, it's probably brittle at this point

[@timthompson468]

Great video. I’ve been playing around with this using HP 87 and HP 85 computers. It is fun playing around with this old gear. I like the way it boots up in seconds ready to run built in BASIC. You gotta love the high-speed, high-res early ‘80s graphics.

[@twipsy2047]

Well, you mention that even in the 2000ends they still supported HP Basic, but that's not without a reason. Even though HP Basic is not around anymore, there is a "modern" version of it: HT Basic. The company making HT Basic (Transera) bought the rights to make "HP Basic" and now calls it HT Basic which means "HighTech Basic" and it is officially supported to run under Windows 10 and so on. We use HT Basic for many of our testing machines in the company I work for and because it can interface to DLL-Files and has drivers for interfacing with the Keysight IO-Suite you can easily talk to almost everything. One of my colleagues for example wrote a driver to talk to any Modbus device you can imagine via Ethernet and so on. So: HT/HP Basic isn't dead - it's still in use in it's niche market for which it was supposed for. You can't find much on the internet about it, but it's still alive and happy. And with a small amount of work you can even make programs from the 80ies work on modern systems.

[@TechTangents]

That's awesome! I think that's the first I've heard of a direct lineage from an ancient BASIC to something still in use.

[@hanro50]

Its beautiful when modern and ancient software/hardware works together

[@lawrencedoliveiro9104]

I notice with BASIC you cannot dynamically dimension arrays (e.g. 10:52 in the video). Has this been fixed? This is one area where a more modern language like Python would be beneficial. Especially running on a modern multi-tasking system.

[@Ryges]

Man, I really like your approach of grabbing your oldest equipment to get the job done. It’s so much more fun like that.

[@Handskemager]

This was amazing, ty! Vintage computer gear is so cool

[@wiebowesterhof]

Wow that brings back memories from my Uni days... Serious bit of kit

[@CraigPetersen12f36b]

Been contemplating to get either a HP 85 or 86B to do just this. I have this very same meter and lots of other HPIB based HP test and measurement gear in my home T&M lab. Great video!

[@lispmachine9687]

Was always curious on real life usage of those very very sexy HP machines. So far this has been the first youtube video to show it. Amazing really. Awesome machines. Great video too.

[@leisergeist]

You have an HP86?! I knew I subscribed for a good reason haha I just "finished" fixing my 85B, such nice little machines they are

[@srfrg9707]

LeiserGeist HP85 is not a machine, it's a legend.

[@ethanspaziani1070]

Hell yes I love these videos I also like seeing you making those custom boards it's really cool and all of these DIY Solutions I really do appreciate you making this videos they are all really interesting I hope one day I can do this stuff myself

[@mlmmt]

Its always so interesting to see this old tech still work, it shows how far tech has come, that poor HP took 20 seconds just to draw the graph.

[@soundguydon]

That was VERY interesting !!! Great video !

[@cellularmitosis2]

Thanks so much for making this video!

[@electron7373]

Supporting HP BASIC in 2000! If it ain't brock don't fix it :) Happy new year 2023! They must be using Python by now, surely?

[@pixelflow]

awesomeness overload.

[@TrebleWing]

Absolutely love this

[@noahparishy]

This is awesome insight thank you

[@colinstu]

Awesome work

[@Manawyrm]

Great video! I've always wanted to play with IEEE488 on my test equipment, but never had a machine for it (well, and no real usecase). Thanks for showing, really interesting :)

[@eduardoavila646]

I've done a lighting but with some cheap led lighbulbs, to avoid flickering i use them in 2 separated 110v phases. They were really cheap and use directly ac power, so i just got a box to be a reflector to each of these, made a difusor with a similar cloth as yours and they seem to work pretty well. I just need to get more powerfull led blubs to film after 17:00-18:00, as my 4w light bulbs arent enough. The advantage is that they are pretty darn cheap, dont require cooling and make no noise.

[@Carstuff111]

This just made my nerd side pass out...... this was awesome to watch :D I have always wanted to see more stuff like this!!

[@edgeeffect]

I suppose, in 1982, you could have taken a couple of Polaroids of the screen to join the two graphs together..... or used one of those gorgeous old HP flat bed plotters.

[@zaprodk]

Mmmmm, old test gear, i love it! - I have my 34401a here, but no interface card in my computers. I do have some HP inkjet printers and plotters too with HPIB, but no way to make them talk together without a computer orchestrating the work.

[@vendybirdsvadl7472]

for some reason i like seeing old computers at work that may had been used in

[@AleksandarGrozdanoski]

I love Basic. Wish it could be used nowadays.

[@videooblivion]

And as I’m sure you know, this bus was simplified and serialized by Commodore and became their serial bus on VIC, C64, 128, etc... P.S. Awesome videos!!!

[@outagas2008]

I miss the old days.

[@akkudakkupl]

You can hook up the thermistor between ground and the no. 5 pin on the 555 that is configured as an astable. It will decrease the pulse width as the resistance decreases (and also increase the frequency but that doesn't matter probably for your application). I used this a few times in quick and dirty boost converters (using a NPN as the feedback regulator and a MOSFET switch).

[@christianholmstedt8770]

I still use GPIB/HPIB/IEEE-488. Works great.

[@johneygd]

Weird,cumbersome but nice cool stuff, and this is all you could,ve ask for back in 1982, the year when i was born,haha.

[@mechadrake]

It is like a greybeard from 82 is incarnated into drauga2, very retro, amazing.

[@BlackEpyon]

I've been using my HP 16500B as a standalone device since I got it, but I really need to play around with using that serial interface. I don't have anything else that uses HP-IB, so serial it is.

[@TomisaburoRMizugawa]

Nerdgasm right there ... BTW full system review pretty please ;-)

[@jacekjagosz]

How did you wrote your software to control your multimeter? Did you have any documentation? And could you post it to Github? Edit: So you had documentation. Still, could you post the program to Github?

[@TechTangents]

It's been on Github for a while actually, I updated the description to add a link. Here is where is is: github.com/AkBKukU/34401AGUI

[@jacekjagosz]

AkBKukU Thanks!

[@retroretiree2086]

@@TechTangents : you have a typo showing up in 34401 GUI image - "mesuring". Oh - and great video :)

[@7cleverboys]

Could you make readings from the meter write onto the pet floppies using the pet disk drive?

[@llugnuto7795]

have you tried using noctua fans?

[@danielson9579]

Nice :-)

[@MladenMijatov]

These GPIB interfaces and cables cost more than equipment that uses them. I wanted to connect my oscilloscope which has some really nice features, but getting the right equipment would cost me hundreds of dollars for no tangible benefit other than playing with it. Good video though. Interface is surprisingly fast. I know there's no a lot of things to send back and forth, but I would have expected more delay.

[@mortarmopp3919]

When showing the code, it would've been nice if the screen were zoomed in more so we could more easily read it.

[@4ohm531]

Cool

[@xDevscom_EE]

To be precise, HP 34401A is far superior and more accurate than silly Fluke 287 , while cost less! :D

[@osgeld]

you dont need to set the range it defaults (I have like 20 of these things floating around a factory)

[@MiamiMillionaire]

😀👍

[@srfrg9707]

I learned computing reading my dad's HP85 manuals. Thoses manuals where bibles. By the way, I can hear your HP86 crying "Retrobright me!"

[@oturgator]

Hah! With a computer that has a GPIB/HPIB port, that is easy, how about a HP 41C, that has a HPIL module that communicates to a HPIL to HPIB interface and prints this graph to a printer on the HPIL bus? That is another league 😉

[@C6438911]

Edit: I edited the entire message, I gave the wrong impression and I do sincerely apologize. I did have no critique towards AkBKukU. I will be more thoughtful and think more about what I want to write down in the comment section. I'm a bit nitpicky.. Corporations should not rename and change any connection type to their own name or standard. when I first saw GPIB in the first few minutes of this video, it reminded me of a SCSI connection somehow. I believe the first SCSI (skuzzee or scuzzy) connection type is from 1986. (not entirely sure).

[@TechTangents]

I tried to stick with calling it GP-IB for the majority of the video but I wanted to cover why all of the hardware I was using had HP-IB written on it instead.

[@C6438911]

I see, but I meant not yourself in the video, i feel a bit ehmm bad now.. it was no critique towards you as a person.. but more that HP or other corporations should think more about keeping it less confusing :-) Sorry if you thought I meant you, you explained it very well in the beginning! Edit: English is not my primary language. I think I used the word "you" in the wrong way. I should be more clear and I will try to do so from now on. You were very clear and it is a good, well thought out video.

[@TechTangents]

Ah, I didn't take any offense from it. I thought the way I had described it myself had not come across clearly. There are logical reasons for why everything was named the way it was. HP was the company that initially created the interface protocol. So naturally they named it after themselves calling it HP-IB. Later it became more beneficial to let other manufactures also make devices use it and the name was made more generic by changing it to GP-IB. After that it also became an official standard protocol so it was assigned the "official" name IEEE-488. So all three names had a place in history and a good reason to exist. It just makes it confusing without knowing that. Prepares I should have covered the history in this video as well. Maybe I could do a separate video on it. PS: You write English much better than I could write any other language! I think this was just a simple misunderstanding.

[@C6438911]

Thank you very much for your reply, if anything then you are crystal clear in explaining and visual presenting what you want to show. Main reason for following your channel is that you do these reviews / testing and repairing / modding as if you do it for many years (and maybe you actually do) So, anyway, if you want to delete the original posting by me then it is okay, it just looks a bit odd maybe. Anyway, thank you very much for your patience and understanding. Also feel free to pick any subject you want to cover next, I will be awaiting your videos with great anticipation! I always had good grades in school with languages, although I sometimes literally translate my thoughts from Dutch to English. But grammatically it doesn't work the same in both languages. And in this case the word "you" in dutch can also mean not a particular person but a more general addressing towards multiple people but it depends on the context in which it is used. In English it is more literal, you meaning actually a particular person. Well, the whole subject of language and grammar is actually a bit more subtle and now I fall short of finding the right words to explain the differences between English and Dutch.

[@SrSagan-hb5rr]

Peoole in the future: So you can make an excel file, put it in a usb flashdrive and show that file in another computer by just pluging in the usb flashdrive.

[@freeelectron8261]

Don the white lab coat, pen and pocket protectors in place, hair flattened down with Bruel cream. Now slide on the 60's black rimmed spectacles, take a deep breath and turn on the green screen monitor...turn brain to full geek! Fingers press RSI keyboard - woo hoo boys ! :)

[@succuvamp_anna]

Goes to ebay and searches for "hp86" I really hate my retro computer hobby sometimes 😭

[@Pharaoh025]

You know that feeling when you subscribe to a guy coz you like old tech, and this guy creates content based on old tech so you subscribe to him but then you realize you're out of your goddamn depth when it comes to understanding old tech? Yeah... me too!

[@kacper9207]

✔🥇🥇🥇✔

[@chainedenintenloup]

LGRID

[@surbers100]

Minds is stonger for eweey system... Need know center - and world works after yor minds.

[@nickm5419]

What if people all of a sudden started using older tech exclusively again? Landlines and bulky/slim cell phones.

[@Adamsnadler214]

This equipment is used a lot today because of the high quality and low prices

[@Nevexo287]

First! :D

[@JBK63]

Never called H PIB. Always called H P I B

[@crusaderanimation6967]

16:30... Or use arduino to log this if you're... Poor...