HP 2100 Hardware Info

GENERAL DESCRIPTION

Hewlett-Packard's first computer, the 2116A, was developed in the late 1960's. It is a 16 bit word-addressed general purpose computer.

Main memory is 4096 words (expandable to 32K words) of magnetic core. The memory cycle time is 1.6 microseconds.

There are two 16 bit accumulators, called A and B. There are two 1 bit flags, called Overflow and Extend. The program counter, 15 bits, is called P.

All instructions in the standard instruction set are 16 bits long.

Arithmetic - Add, Increment, And, Or, Exclusive Or
Program Control - Skip, Jump, Jump to Subroutine
Shift/Rotate - Arithmetic and Logical Shifts, 16 and 17 bit Rotates
Optional - Multiply, Divide, 32 bit Load and Store, 32 bit Shifts

Conditional branching is done with a conditional skip followed by a jump instruction.

EARLY MODELS (1966-1969)

Core memory, hardwired CPU. Essentially a PDP-8 that has been pumped up to 16 bits.

2116A
2116B
2116C
2115A
2114A
2114B

SECOND GENERATION (1970-1974)

Core memory, microprogrammed CPU.

2100A
2100S

21MX (1975-????)

Semiconductor memory, expandable to 1,048,576 words.

M-SERIES - 2105A, 2108A, 2112A
E-SERIES - 2109A, 2113A
F-SERIES - 2111F, 2117F

According to the alt.folklore.computers Big List the early computers were introduced at the following times:

     Hewlett-Packard 2116-A    Nov 1966
     HP 2115-A                 Nov 1967
     HP 2116-A                 Sep 1968
     HP 2114-A                 Oct 1968
     HP 2000-A                 Nov 1968  
     HP 2114-B                 Nov 1969

Note the conflicting entries for the 2116A, also the presence of the 2000A which is a timesharing system and not an actual computer.

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