I received this 9100B in Sep. 2021. It came in very good cosmetic condition, but didn’t do anything when plugged in: Not even the indicator lights. With the help of the internet, I’ve successfully identified a few problems in the power supply. I have also found some core-memory circuit malfunctioning that haven’t been encountered before. As a return, I’m now writing this post to share my diagnosis process and some over-saturated photos.
Before I start, I shall provide all the materials I used during my diagnosis process:
- HV Supply Failure Repair: [1]. http://www.computerarium.org/doku/doku.php?id=hp_9100, [2]. https://www.pa4tim.nl/?p=3964
- Logic Schematics: [3]. http://hpmuseum.net/exhibit.php?hwdoc=50
- Power & Display Schematics: [4]. HP 09100-90034 9100B Service Manual
- Most Well Documented Repair Process & High Quality Photography by BD4SUP: [5]. Weibo – 电与磁的极致艺术~1968年的HP9100A晶体管计算器(机) – The Ultimate Art of Electronics and Magnetism ~ 1968’s HP9100A Transistorized Calculator / Computer
Arrival:
Thanks USPS, at least my machine came in one piece. I visually inspected each board and tube in this machine. I can’t find obvious burn marks or blown transistors, nor any blown fuse, which is a good sign.
I saw burn marks concentrated near the center portion of the display tube. According to BD4SUP [5], this is likely to be caused by a failing HV supply putting out too much acceleration voltage. I suspect the HV supply in my unit is also dead.
No known replacement is known for this specially designed display tube. If it is broken, the chance of finding a replacement is virtually zero.
Issue 1: Missing -15V.
Since all other rails are generated by the linear-regulated -15V supply, nothing happens when I switch the machine on.
Thanks to the friendly design of this machine, all -15V loads can be removed by undoing only one plug & removing the HV fuse. After removing all the load, still, no -15V. HP Service Manual instructed me to check the largest regulating transistor (A20-Q1) mounted mechanically on the chassis. It seems to be fine.
The -15V regulator feedback circuit operates on another coarsely regulated +34.8V DC power rail. The -15V voltage comes from a floating transformer secondary + diode bridge, which creates a constant 24V DC voltage across its outputs. By rising the opposite output above ground, the -15V is regulated. That’s why the entire feedback circuit operates on a positive voltage.
In my instance, +34.8V is directly shorted to the ground. A dead-short axial capacitor! Thank god the failed capacitor is not A21-C2. Otherwise, a blown transformer winding will be a repair nightmare.
By taking out A21-C3, -15V is recovered. Sooner or later I will replace all axial capacitors on those boards.
In my case, the register indicators still won’t turn on. But these bulbs are connected directly to -15V, which means they are just blown at some point during their years of service – a very common failure. The previous owner didn’t bother to change them when the calculator was still working.
A quick check to see if the machine is still working: SQRT(-1), and the error lamp turns on. It means at least the processor section is somewhat operative.
Issue2: Failed -3.4kV HV Power Supply
HV power supply failure is another very common issue. The voltage spikes generated from the primitive self-oscillating DC-DC circuit can quickly wear out the switching element and the regulating diode. Replacing those two elements should fix those issues. [1][2]
BD4SUP recommended TIP41 as the self-oscillating element replacement. It is apparently a much more reasonable choice compared to most other suggestion you can find online. This kind of oscillator relies on the ICSat parameter to operate. HP had a preference for hand-picking the oscillating element to nail the device parameters.
In my case, the transistor seems to be healthy, but that 10kV diode has certainly died. HV circuits are always scary to repair. I have to wear gloves to prevent leaving fingerprints on the board – skin oil is conductive at this voltage. Arching of the switching HV can burn a hole through the board! HP had also kindly reminded that the conformal coating must be left intact.
If something catastrophic happens, I will replace the design with a modern one instead. But thankfully that didn’t happen.
Issue3: Halting When Executing Some Functions, Missing Digit
This problem is a tricky one. I remember seeing folks on the HPMuseum forum mentioned a similar issue. But no answer is given in those threads.
Number mostly works, addition and subtraction work, but there’s always one digit missing on the display, and almost any function other than addition/subtraction/multiplication causes a halt, where the machine becomes completely non-responsive, and the display is blanked.
I suspected there might be something wrong in the ROM, there might be an unaddressable page or something – I thought.
Later, I saw a memory map in the schematic[3].
What happens to the CORDIC/SQRT/Division routines, if one digit in the memory is broken? I learned this from the fantastic articles written by Jacques Laporte on the HP-35 math routines. These early machines do math in the serial-BCD faction. If one digit in a long BCD number refuses to change/stuck to strange values, those serial operations can get into an infinite loop, thus halted.
Luckily the memory failure didn’t affect the program editing functionality very much. I can still write data into the two pages in the program mode. I found that any address on the +page ending with “2”, that is, the “D2” digit, is permanently stuck to 77 (6’b111111 in octal).
“char” (i.e. BCD Digit) & Page & Transistor Annotation 
Magnetic Core Memory Circuit Schematic
The schematic says that transistor Q79 on the core-memory board is responsible for this particular digit – either the transistor is open, or its supporting circuits are gone. There’s no silkscreen indicating which transistor is Q79. By tracing from the wiring map on page 1, I was able to find Q79 by tracing from the test connector.
The part number of this PNP transistor is a mystery: On the cans it writes “3-093”, which is a common “HP abbreviation” for 1853-0093. Unfortunately other than it being listed in an HP catalog (no further info provided other than the $1 price tag), I can find no info about this transistor anywhere. Some suggested that it might be an early VHF-grade transistor, capable of operating at high frquency (The clock frequency of this machine is ~1.19MHz, the fT must be much higher than this) with high gain.
I desoldered an adjacent transistor, the DC gain of which is around 160. So I ordered a pack of 2N4403 (hand-picked hfe=160, fT=200MHz). They turned out to be working great.
Now this machine passes the self-test, it’s fully functional again! Check out the outdated asin(acos(atan(tan(cos(sin(9.0)))))) result!
(Known as the Forensics Test: http://www.rskey.org/~mwsebastian/miscprj/results.htm)
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