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Software for CP-1995/U Military Computer

NF6X

NF6X

Veteran Member
Joined
Sep 9, 2013
Messages
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Location
Riverside, CA, USA
Is any supporting software out in the wild for the CP-1995/U computer, AKA the "SHTU Terminal Unit"?

This machine is a hand-held portable terminal designed around an 80286 processor, running MS-DOS. It has various radio interfaces built in. My sample of one has the operating system, diagnostic and configuration software in ROM, but the applications and utilities have been zeroized. It appears to be able to load applications and utilities over its serial port, and I hope to be able to reverse-engineer mine far enough to be able to wrote software for it and use at least one of the radio interfaces.

I have not been able to find any applications, utilities, or supporting software for it online. Is there any known to be out there (unclassified, of course)?

Here's a picture of mine, along with an incomplete interface breakout box for it that I'm working on:

DHK5B8nUAAAcVsP.jpg
 
NF6X said:
Is any supporting software out in the wild for the CP-1995/U computer, AKA the "SHTU Terminal Unit"?

This machine is a hand-held portable terminal designed around an 80286 processor, running MS-DOS. It has various radio interfaces built in. My sample of one has the operating system, diagnostic and configuration software in ROM, but the applications and utilities have been zeroized. It appears to be able to load applications and utilities over its serial port, and I hope to be able to reverse-engineer mine far enough to be able to wrote software for it and use at least one of the radio interfaces.

I have not been able to find any applications, utilities, or supporting software for it online. Is there any known to be out there (unclassified, of course)?

Here's a picture of mine, along with an incomplete interface breakout box for it that I'm working on:

View attachment 40414
Click to expand...

You're best bet may be the local HAM folks or maybe a MARS outfit if you have any military bases around you.
 
Good news, everybody! It appears that the keyboard interface ribbon cable in the CP-1995/U is electrically compatible with the PC-AT interface, with 1:1 pin numbering. I successfully spliced my IBM Model M keyboard to my CP-1995/U, and it works. Pictures:

https://twitter.com/nf6x/status/901930623387918337
https://twitter.com/nf6x/status/901931533857992704
https://twitter.com/nf6x/status/901932532349919233

I spent two weekends designing and machining a stand-in for the $1,500 Picoflex crimper, which worked well enough to make the one crimp that I needed:

https://twitter.com/nf6x/status/901743259889819648
https://twitter.com/nf6x/status/901903741204307968

Then I made a ribbon cable to female DIN adapter cable, and attached it to my Model M with a PC-AT to PS/2 adapter.

--
Mark J. Blair, NF6X <nf6x@nf6x.net>
http://www.nf6x.net/
 
That looks just like the navigation systems we had in our Army trucks when I went to Iraq in '04. Those were a little newer and ran Windows 95. I tried to use the thing on one mission where I was TC but I gave up and just used the paper route map we were issued. Guess who ended up yelling at the convoy commander over the radio when he missed a turn.
 
I haven't seen one of those in a long time! I would love to play with one now as a civilian and turn it into a terminal for HF - something along the lines of being able to send messages over ALE or the sort.
 
I've been working on reverse-engineering it. At the moment, I have a logic analyzer hooked up to its innards, and I'm trying to make sense of the EPROM contents.
 
Seems like the device was used by artillery forward observers. I can tell by the buttons. "FIRE MISSION" button clearly shows it's a thing related with artillery.
This leads to conclusion that it was used to transmit fire mission data (things like coordinates, fire corrections and other informations needed by the artillery battery commander to complete fire mission). "MSG" button means message, so it was probably to transmit and receive text messages. "MAP" is self explainatory same with "XMT".

US military radios of that era were able to transmit and receive data. They had special serial protocol (similar to RS-232) that could be used. Those radios had connectors that allowed various devices to be connected to allow data transfer. Data could be encrypted, much like voice. Encryption and frequency hopping was common in 90s, at least in US.

So if you want to connect this device to your radio i would reccomend you to find some data about serial protocols used by US military radios. I would rether expect it to have serial connection and not really a modem function that allows to connect it to analog radio signal connector replacing microphone. This is because US military radios of that era had actual data transfer capability trough serial connection.
 
Based on what I've learned about the unit so far, I believe that it includes support for both newer radios with built-in digital capabilities, and communication over analog channels with a built-in AFSK modem.

Unfortunately, I have found very little technical information about interfacing to newer radios with built-in digital data capabilities (i.e., SINCGARS). I'm expecting to need to figure that out by reverse-engineering, too.
 
NF6X said:
I've been working on reverse-engineering it. At the moment, I have a logic analyzer hooked up to its innards, and I'm trying to make sense of the EPROM contents.
Click to expand...

Oh, so that's the weird box you've got your 1663A hooked up to.
 
gslick said:
Oh, so that's the weird box you've got your 1663A hooked up to.
Click to expand...

That is a breakout box for checking serial or parallel signal lines off those HUGE Glenair connectors.

I ran the UYK-43A mainframe aboard a warship - and we had a similar breakout box for the NTDS parallel lines - 80 pin plugs!

On a related note - I hope this project is still ongoing and there's a way to alter the EEPROM!
 
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