CAD, CAM and CAE were the core use cases of PA-RISC computers with HP-UX Unix between the 1980s and 2000s.| www.openpa.net
HP Nova servers were archetypical HP 9000 800 PA-RISC servers from the early 1990s, when HP 9000 workstations and servers had very divergent system designs. Nova F, G, H and I Class were business-oriented PA-RISC servers, designed by the HP Technical Server division with 32-bit PA-7000 and PA-7100 processors. They were used as “multifunction or dedicated network servers for applications, databases and communications.” The smaller 807S server (F10) was designed by HP Böblingen R&D in Germ...| OpenPA.net
HP-UX supported a few internet clients and groupware applications on HP 9000 including Netscape, Mozilla and Lotus Notes.| www.openpa.net
PA-RISC and HP-UX workstations were often used in 1990s desktop publishing (DTP). HP 9000 computers were frequently involved in technical documentation and publishing frameworks, journals or large-scale project libraries. Even though“the least desirable job” in engineering, high-profile DTP programs were available on HP-UX well into the 1990s, when DTP firmly moved to Windows NT and Mac. FrameMaker was the leading professional desktop publishing (DTP) software and supported a variety of U...| OpenPA.net
Quite a few office and productivity suites were ported to in the 1980s and 1990s: “No Longer The Exclusive Domain Of Academics And Engineers, UNIX Is Gaining Prominence In Office Environments”. Word and office programs allowed engineers to stay integrated into the wider IT environment and help with technical documentation. Popular applications included CorelDRAW! for graphics and the WordPerfect, Ami Pro, Applixware and IslandOffice office suites that were ported to HP-UX and until the la...| OpenPA.net
Many commercial Unix software and solutions were available for HP-UX on PA-RISC since the 1990s, for technical engineering and design.| www.openpa.net
Many commercial Unix software and solutions were available for HP-UX on PA-RISC since the 1990s, for technical engineering and design.| www.openpa.net
PA-RISC computers used the PDC for Boot ROM.| www.openpa.net
PA-RISC processors were developed by HP for its own HP 9000 line of computers – from the 32-bit PA-7000 of the 1990s to the 64-bit PA-8900 of the 2000s.| www.openpa.net
HP 9000 PA-RISC computers are based on HP PA-RISC architecture and processors. Most of the chipsets and system designs used were custom HP for its servers and workstations.| www.openpa.net
PA-RISC computers used error codes on their LED panels to signal system problems.| www.openpa.net
PA-RISC computers used proprietary HP expansion cards for EISA, GSC and PCI.| www.openpa.net
HP-UX 11i (11.11) was released in 2000 for 32-bit and 64-bit PA-RISC computers and later extended to HP Itanium.| www.openpa.net
Toshiba SPARC LT AS1000 are RISC laptops based on SPARC technology, released in Japan in 1990.| www.openpa.net
QEMU is an open source computer emulation and virtualization software for many different computer systems. It includes support for many RISC architectures besides x86, with PA-RISC emulation since 2018. Current QEMU version is 9.2.0. QEMU emulates a complete computer in software without the need for specific virtualization hardware. With QEMU, a full HP Visualize B160L and C3700 workstation can be emulated to run PA-RISC operating systems. QEMU emulates PDC, I/O routines and hardware so the e...| OpenPA.net
A very forgotten VLIW architecture of the late 1980s: Intel iWarp is a combined VLIW and RISC computer architecture that coupled a 32-bit CPU core with long instructions and “powerful communication support” to enable meshed computers for powerful parallel computing with >20 GFLOPS. Intel iWarp was jointly developed between Intel and Carnegie Mellon University, supported by DARPA (DoD) in the late 1980s. It was based on the earlier CMU Warp, “a programmable systolic array” for meshed c...| OpenPA.net
Another forgotten VLIW processor of the 1990s: Sun MAJC is a VLIW architecture developed by Sun for media and signal processing. Sun produced one MAJC processor in 1999, MAJC-5200, a “high performance general purpose microprocessor” for multimedia and Java computing. MAJC is a scalable architecture that exploited multiple forms of parallelism, a hot topic of 1990s microarchitecture. MAJC was multiprocessing capable with “vertical micro-threading” and very long instruction word (VLIW) ...| OpenPA.net
Philips TriMedia are a range of 32-bit VLIW processors for media processing released during the 1990s.| www.openpa.net
Another entry in the RISC Laptops series on 1990s Unix laptops with RISC processors: IBM WorkPad z50. “It looks like a Thinkpad, but it’s not.” The WorkPad z50 is a “mobile companion” released by IBM in 1999 with MIPS processor for Windows CE. Aimed at the fledging handheld PC and PDA market of the late 90s, z50 were almost laptops but still had a RISC processor: NEC VR4121, a 64-bit MIPS processor. IBM WorkPad z50 was a small system with a 8.2′ DSTN screen, weighing 2.66 lbs in a...| OpenPA.net
SAIC Talon are 1994 ruggedized and portable PA-RISC workstations based on the HP 9000 712 workstation built for TAC-4 military specifications.| www.openpa.net
Comparing the speed of CPU architectures is a very complex and sometimes futile undertaking, as the platform around processors might be much more significant than the actual ISA. Still, it is historically interesting to see how different RISC architectures fared against each other in the RISC/Unix world of the 90s. While PA-RISC processors were usually faster than their competition at the same clock speed, they were expensive to fabricate. Their platform, HP 9000 with PA-RISC and HP-UX, was u...| OpenPA.net
During the early 1990s, so-called “pizzabox” workstations were very popular. Unix workstations had usually been bulky and cumbersome affairs since the 1980s, so smaller, desktop-compatible boxes were a welcome change. HP produced two PA-RISC pizzaboxes in its lineup: HP 9000 705/710 and the ever popular HP 9000 712. HP 9000 705/710 were the first small PA-RISC workstations, released in 1992. They used 32-bit PA-7000 PA-RISC processors and used a simplified version of the “Snakes” ASP ...| OpenPA.net
HP used a few third-party 3D accelerators on its PA-RISC and Itanium Unix workstations: Various ATI FireGL and nVIDIA Quadro AGP video cards were used by HP. For HP-UX on PA-RISC, HP supported HP FireGL cards in firmware and X11. HP FireGL cards were modified ATI cards and GPUs with HP providing drivers for HP-UX for 64-bit c8000 workstations running HP-UX 11.00 and higher: HP FireGL-UX PCI, IBM GT1000 and RC1000 with 128 MB DDR ATI FireGL T2 AGP 8X, RV350 with 128 MB DDR ATI FireGL X1 AGP ...| OpenPA.net
While HP-UX was mostly used for engineering and design applications during the PA-RISC heydays, several Unix games run on HP-UX, ported in the 1990s. This included many iconic 3D games from the early 1990s, compiled with OpenGL but also some other, semi-commercial ports of well-known games. Many freeware games were available for Unix and often could be compiled on various versions of HP-UX. Unix Guru Universe: Games Software, source files for Unix games from asteriods to xtrek HP-UX Porting C...| OpenPA.net
Another slight detour from PA-RISC content on OpenPA: The RISC Laptop Archive on the various RISC-based laptops sold throughout the 1990s. Technical computing in the 1990s was mostly done on RISC workstations with Unix operating systems and specialized applications. For mobile use cases, some popular Unix vendors built RISC laptops. Often based on contemporary Unix workstations, these RISC laptops were often marketed for government and military uses such as command, technical analysis and sur...| OpenPA.net
The HP Visualize P-Class Intel-based workstations for NT were aimed at the graphics workstations market, equipped with 32-bit Intel Pentium III processors.| www.openpa.net
The HP Visualize B1000, C3000, C3600 PA-RISC workstations were aimed at the graphics workstations market, equipped with 64-bit PA-8500 processors with large on-chip L1 caches.| www.openpa.net
The PA-8500 64-bit PA-RISC processor is the direct evolution of the PA-8000 and PA-8200, leveraging their processing core but implementing large on-die L1 caches.| www.openpa.net
The HP Visualize P-Class Intel-based workstations for NT were aimed at the graphics workstations market, equipped with 32-bit Intel Pentium III processors.| www.openpa.net
The HP Visualize P-Class Intel-based workstations for NT were aimed at the graphics workstations market, equipped with 32-bit Intel Pentium III processors.| www.openpa.net
Several research and development operating systems have been ported to PA-RISC between the late 1980s and late 1990s, many of them Mach microkernel-based.| www.openpa.net
The HP Visualize B-Class B132L, B160L and B180L were entry-level HP 9000 PA-RISC workstations introduced in 1997, based on 32-bit PA-RISC processors.| www.openpa.net
The HP 9000 V2250 and V2250 are large-scale scalable PA-RISC servers, with up to sixteen 64-bit PA-RISC processors based on a crossbar architecture.| www.openpa.net
The HP 9000 V2500 and V2600 are second generation scalable PA-RISC servers based on the Convex Exemplar architecture with up to 32 64-bit PA-RISC processors in a single cabinet.| www.openpa.net
The HP 9000 rp7400 were mid-range PA-RISC servers from the turn of the century, based on 64-bit PA-RISC processors and the Stretch system architecture.| www.openpa.net
The HP rp7405/rp7410 N4000 N-Class PA-RISC servers are up to 8-way multiprocessing and could be hardware-partitioned into logical servers, two nPartitions.| www.openpa.net
The second version of the HP 9000 L-Class Unix servers are multi-processor based on the Stretch chipset, also used in the rp7400 N4000 servers.| www.openpa.net
The HP 9000 rp3410 and rp3440 were some of the last PA-RISC-based HP servers with dual-core PA-8800 or PA-8900 processors in a HP zx1 system design.| www.openpa.net
The HP 9000 rp4410 and rp4440 were some of the last PA-RISC-based HP servers, based on up to four dual-core PA-8800 or PA-8900 processors and HP zx1 Itanium chipset.| www.openpa.net
The first PA-RISC processors were designed and used in mid to late-1980s in early HP 9000/800 servers and HP 3000 MPE/iX systems.| www.openpa.net
Some third-party vendors implemented PA-RISC processors and embedded solutions for computers, set-top boxes and device controllers such as printers.| www.openpa.net
OpenBSD is an Unix-like open source operating system for PA-RISC and supports 32-bit HP 9000 workstations and some 64-bit computers.| www.openpa.net
The ports of the now rather unknown MkLinux (Linux based on Mach-Kernel) and HPBSD operating systems to early HP PA-RISC hardware were among the first non-commercial, usable OS offerings besides HP-UX. Development of both stopped in the mid to late-90s, MkLinux is still available although of rather obscure technical nature and use. Distribution of HPBSD is sadly still not generally possible due to license restrictions on the source code; it reportedly was a very solid operating system.| OpenPA.net
PA-RISC computers used many standard SCSI controllers and chips, mostly from NCR.| www.openpa.net
HP PA-RISC 32-bit computers and many 64-bit PA-RISC computers used HP-designed CRX and Visualize video adapters.| www.openpa.net
Computer benchmark results for PA-RISC and Itanium systems with SPECint and SPECfp scores.| www.openpa.net
PA-RISC is a Reduced Instruction Set Computing (RISC) architecture from HP developed during the 1980s and sold until the early 2000s.| www.openpa.net
The PA-8700 processor is an 64-bit HP PA-RISC processor from HP, released in 2001 building on an enhanced PA-8500 core with several modifications.| www.openpa.net
Stratus produced the Continuum 400, 600 and 1200, a line of Ultra High Availability Fault Tolerant PA-RISC servers in the 1990s, based on different PA-RISC processors.| www.openpa.net
HP-RT was a real-time operating system for HP PA-RISC VME boards.| www.openpa.net
Ports of several commercial operating systems including Windows NT and NetWare to PA-RISC had been attempted in the 1990s.| www.openpa.net
The HP 9000 S-Class/Convex Exemplar SPP2000 are large scalable PA-RISC computing servers and the direct predecessors of the later HP V-Class.| www.openpa.net
HP-UX is HP’s commercial Unix operating system for PA-RISC computers, version 11i from the 2000s runs on most PA-RISC and Itanium computers from HP.| www.openpa.net
OpenPA is an independent information resource for HP PA-RISC based computers and technical architecture.| www.openpa.net
The first HP PA-RISC computer systems were released by HP in the 1980s with the HP 9000/800 Series, which were all server systems.| www.openpa.net
Third-party vendors sold PA-RISC workstations and servers in the mid-1990s with Hitachi, Mitsubishi and PKI active with PA-RISC on the Japanese market.| www.openpa.net
The HP 9000 800 Nova servers were second-generation 32-bit HP PA-RISC servers from the early 1990s and based on PA-7000 and PA-7100 processors.| www.openpa.net
Many Unix and similar operating systems were available for PA-RISC from the 1980s on, first HP-UX, followed by many Mach and BSD research projects.| www.openpa.net
The HP 16600A and 16700A are logic analyzers with PA-RISC processors sold by HP and Agilent, based on PA-RISC HP 9000 workstation architecture from the mid-1990s.| www.openpa.net
The popular HP 9000 family of Unix systems included many different types of PA-RISC servers, workstations and mainframes between the 1980s and 2000s.| www.openpa.net
OpenPA is an independent information resource for HP PA-RISC based computers and technical architecture.| www.openpa.net
HP 9000 computers were technical servers and Unix workstations based on HP PA-RISC, Itanium and other platforms, produced for almost three decades by HP.| www.openpa.net
Most PA-RISC operating systems were commercial Unix, Unix-like derivates or open source projects, with different designs ported and developed for PA-RISC.| www.openpa.net
PA-RISC history starts in the early 1980s with the predecessors of PA-RISC, the software timeline starts in the late 1980s in parallel to first commercial PA-RISC products.| www.openpa.net
The following pages had been part of OpenPA in earlier years but were removed during the 2000s since the particular content was unmaintained and incomplete.| www.openpa.net
About| www.openpa.net
The HP 9000 T-Class servers were large 32-bit PA-RISC mainframes from the mid-1990s, built with modular system cards that contain processors, memory or I/O devices.| www.openpa.net
PA-RISC computers used custom HP and industry standard bus designs in HP 9000 workstations and servers.| www.openpa.net
PA-RISC computers used mostly proprietary HP chipsets and system designs in HP 9000 systems supplemented by third-party chips.| www.openpa.net
OpenPA.net is an independent PA-RISC and Itanium information platform on computers, architecture and operating systems. OpenPA has been online since 1999.| www.openpa.net
The Convex Exemplar SPP1000, SPP1200 and SPP1600 are scalable 32-bit mainframe computing systems, with either PA-7100 or PA-7200 processors.| www.openpa.net