website/content/museum/hewlett-packard-hp-9830.md

title, categories, types, origins, years, cpus, params

title	categories	types	origins	years	cpus	params
Hewlett Packard HP-9830	Computers	Professional Computer	U.S.A.	1972	4-board CPU set	name image company company_name specs tabs forum_thread photos adverts links related oc_id source HP-9830 /media/museum/photos/hp_9830_system_1.jpg /companies/hewlett-packard Hewlett Packard label value NAME HP-9830 label value MANUFACTURER Hewlett Packard label value TYPE Professional Computer label value ORIGIN U.S.A. label value YEAR December 1972 label value END OF PRODUCTION 1977 label value BUILT IN LANGUAGE HP BASIC Plus label value KEYBOARD Full stroke 107 key with numeric keypad, Function and arrow keys label value CPU 4-board CPU set, 16--bit microprogrammed processor label value SPEED Unknown label value RAM 3.5 KB up to 16 KB - 9830B: 16 KB label value ROM From 15 KB up to 62 KB (31 KB of 16-bit words) label value TEXT MODES LED display. 1 line x 32 alphanumeric chars. label value GRAPHIC MODES None label value COLORS Red! label value SOUND Built-in speaker and "BEEP" command in the Basic interpreter label value SIZE / WEIGHT 46 (W) x 63.5 (D) x 15.2(H) cm / 21 kg label value I/O PORTS 5 x ROM module slots, 4 x interface module slots label value BUILT IN MEDIA Cartridge tape drive (2 x 64 KB sides) label value POWER SUPPLY Built-in power supply unit label value PERIPHERALS I/O modules: Serial, Parallel, BCD, external FDD, HDD, General I/O, AD/DA converter, etc... label value PRICE $6000 photos adverts links 926 title subtitle text image TOP VIEW /media/museum/photos/hp_9830_top_1.jpg title subtitle text image KEYBOARD CLOSE-UP /media/museum/photos/hp_9830_keyboard_1.jpg title subtitle text image LEFT SIDE Five ROM cartridges could be plugged in by the user. Four internal slots for additional ROM firmware were also available. /media/museum/photos/hp_9830_leftside_1.jpg title subtitle text image 1976 ADVERT for the 9815, 9835 and 9830 systems null title subtitle text image DECEMBER 1972 HP JOURNAL Courtesy **Joe Rigdon** /media/museum/pubs/hp_9830_hpjournal_1.jpg title url text HP Museum http://www.hpmuseum.net The best place about old HP computers and calculators. title url text Joe Rigdon pages http://www.classiccmp.org/hp/9800.htm More information about HP 98xx series title url text The Old Calculators Web museum http://www.oldcalculatormuseum.com/hp9830a.html Complete page about the HP-9830 /museum/hewlett-packard-hp-9810 /museum/hewlett-packard-hp-9816 /museum/hewlett-packard-hp-9825 /museum/hewlett-packard-hp-9826 /museum/hewlett-packard-hp-9836 950 url date https://web.archive.org/web/20230405101234/http://www.old-computers.com/museum/computer.asp?c=950 2023-04-05

The HP 9810, 9820 and 9830 were all announced simultaneously by HP in the December 1972 HP Journal. They were all four bit machines and all of them used a serial bus internally.

The 9830 was by far the most capable machine of this group and ran what HP called BASIC Plus. In many ways, it was one of the first true "Personal Computers" ever marketed.

The 9830 was also significantly more expandable than the 9810/9820, with five user-accessable ROM cartridge slots. The 9830-B was introduced four years later in the 1977 HP catalog. HP said that three things set the HP 9830 apart from the other desktop systems:
• First, it's used of BASIC Plus with it's English like vocabulary and structure,
• Second, the entire operating system and firmware were in ROM and did not take up any of the read/write memory space,
• Third, the use of the cassette tape drive with features that they said were only found on large computers.
The basic 9830 came with 1760 16 bit words of memory, a 32 character display, the cassette tape drive and a large well-featured keyboard.

In addition to the ROM cartridge slots, the 9830 could hold three more ROMs internally. The internal ROMs were on cards instead of plug in cartridges and had to be installed by HP. When the internal ROMs or extra memory were installed, a sticker that listed the ROM or new memory size and option number was added to the outside ROM door. The 9830A came with 3520 bytes (1760 words) of memory and could be expanded up to 15808 bytes (7904 words). The 9830B came with 15808 bytes (7904 words) of memory and could be expanded up to 30144 bytes (15072 words). The Matrix and String Variables ROM cards were also standard in the 9830-B.

The HP 9830 was commonly found with a special version of HP 9866 printer (see picture) that sits on top of the calculator and looks like it's part of the original machine. The 9866 was a full width page printer that printed up to 80 columns of characters on thermal roll paper. It could print a full 80 character width using 5 x 7 dot matrix characters at 240 lines per minute. It could also print simple plots and tables or other formatted text. The "B" version of this printer was introduced in 1977 and it added the capability of printing both upper and lower case letters and vertical lines. The printer used a short cable that connected to a special socket on the back of the computer.

The HP 9830 was dropped from the HP catalog after 1977 or 1978. But, in 2000, some companies still used it...since 1975!

Thanks to Joe for most of the information.

---

Kevin Kost specifies:
The HP-9830a was the first machine I ever programmed (in high school). In addition to the things noted in your article...
- The machine was identified as "Desktop Calculator" on its label, not "Professional Computer".
- The version of HP BASIC in ROM included buit-in matrix manipulation commands... very rare in those computing days.
- Internally the machine used a serial bus architecture.
- The price you mention might be low. I remember hearing that our system (9830 + thermal printer + card reader) was purchased for ~$30k.