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| HP 2116 | |
|---|---|
| Name | HP 2116 |
| Developer | Hewlett-Packard |
| Released | 1966 |
| Discontinued | 1972 |
| Type | Minicomputer |
| Cpu | Custom 16-bit |
| Memory | Core memory |
| Os | Real-time monitor |
| Predecessor | HP 2115 |
| Successor | HP 2100 series |
HP 2116
The HP 2116 was an early minicomputer produced by Hewlett-Packard that marked the company's entry into digital instrumentation and computing. It bridged laboratory instrumentation used by Stanford University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and industrial clients such as Bell Labs and General Electric for control and data acquisition tasks. The system's influence extended into projects involving NASA, Bell Telephone Laboratories, and corporate research at IBM competitors.
The HP 2116 was introduced by Hewlett-Packard in the mid-1960s amid rapid development in computing driven by institutions like MIT Lincoln Laboratory, RAND Corporation, and Xerox PARC. Engineering leadership at Hewlett-Packard collaborated with teams influenced by designs developed at Digital Equipment Corporation and responses to market moves by Data General and Control Data Corporation. Customers included research groups at Caltech, Los Alamos National Laboratory, and Argonne National Laboratory that needed real-time processing comparable to installations at Bell Labs and General Electric Research Laboratory. Government-funded programs at NASA Ames Research Center and DARPA provided use cases that shaped adoption across AT&T testing facilities and corporate sites like Ford Motor Company and General Motors.
The HP 2116 architecture reflected design philosophies championed at DEC and hardware practices from IBM mainframe engineering teams. Its word-oriented design and instruction set drew on contemporary work at Honeywell and echoes of microprogramming approaches explored by researchers at University of California, Berkeley and Carnegie Mellon University. The chassis and modular layout were influenced by instrumentation rack standards used at Bell Labs and laboratory equipment by Tektronix and Fluke Corporation. Control interfaces paralleled implementations seen in projects at RAND Corporation and MITRE Corporation.
The 16-bit processor employed discrete logic similar to designs used by Digital Equipment Corporation and components sourced from suppliers working with Fairchild Semiconductor and Intel precursors. Memory was magnetic core memory akin to installations at Los Alamos National Laboratory and Sandia National Laboratories. I/O was implemented with interfaces compatible with instruments common at Oak Ridge National Laboratory and Brookhaven National Laboratory. Peripheral controllers echoed work by IBM peripheral groups and peripheral standards explored at Bell Labs and Hewlett-Packard’s own test equipment lines.
Software for the HP 2116 consisted of monitor programs and real-time control software developed in environments shared by researchers from Stanford Research Institute and MITRE Corporation. Development tools and assemblers were inspired by practices at Bell Labs and compiler research at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and Princeton University. Application code for data acquisition paralleled efforts at NASA Johnson Space Center and European Organization for Nuclear Research where laboratory computers ran custom monitors and instrument control programs.
Peripherals for the HP 2116 integrated with oscilloscopes and signal generators manufactured by Tektronix and Hewlett-Packard instrumentation divisions and storage devices influenced by IBM drum and disk technologies. Tape drives and card readers used connectors and protocols observed in laboratories at Argonne National Laboratory and Brookhaven National Laboratory. Expansion options were designed to fit rack environments common at Bell Labs, AT&T, and academic labs at University of Michigan and University of California, Los Angeles.
Commercial deployments occurred at industrial research centers such as General Electric, Westinghouse, and Ford Motor Company where it performed process control and test automation similar to systems used at Siemens and General Dynamics. Scientific use spanned particle physics installations at CERN and materials labs at MIT, with instrumentation links to teams at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and Fermilab. Telecommunications testing at AT&T facilities and avionics prototyping at Boeing and Lockheed Martin sites mirrored applications found in defense and aerospace research funded by DARPA and NASA.
The HP 2116 helped establish Hewlett-Packard as a supplier of computing equipment to laboratories and industry, influencing later models in the HP 2100 series and corporate strategies seen at Digital Equipment Corporation and Data General. Its use in labs and corporate research at Bell Labs, IBM, and Raytheon informed control-system products from Tektronix and measurement instrumentation by Fluke Corporation. Lessons from deployments at Stanford University, MIT, and Caltech contributed to computing trends adopted by universities such as Harvard University and Yale University and national labs including Los Alamos National Laboratory.