HP 9000
From the mid-1980s onward, HP began changing to its own microprocessors based on its proprietary PA-RISC instruction set architecture (ISA), for the Series 600, 700, 800, and later lines.
All of the HP 9000 line run various versions of the HP-UX operating system, except earlier Series 200 models, which ran standalone applications or the Basic Workstation / Pascal 3.1 Workstation[1] operating systems.
The rp prefix signified a PA-RISC architecture, while rx was used for IA-64-based systems, later rebranded HPE Integrity Servers.
In 2003, HP launched the xw series, which uses x86 processors and runs Windows.
When the move from PA-RISC (9000) to Itanium (Integrity) was announced, Integrity workstations running either HP/UX or Windows were initially announced and offered, but were moved to end of sales life relatively quickly, with no replacement (arguably because x86-64 made IA-64 uncompetitive on the desktop, and HP/UX does not support x86-64, with HP offering desktop Linux as an alternative, not fully compatible, solution).
This machine was about the size of a portable sewing machine, contained a MC68000 processor, ROM based HP-UX, 3½ inch floppy disk drive, inkjet printer, a keyboard, mouse, and an electroluminescent display similar to the early GRiD Compass computers.
It was not battery powered, and unlike the other Series 200's that were manufactured in Fort Collins, Colorado, it was made in Corvallis, Oregon.
At introduction, the Series 400 had a socket for the MC68040, but since they were not available at the time, an emulator card with an MC68030 and additional circuitry was installed.
The 520 could run BASIC or HP-UX and there were three different models based on the displays attached (two color and one monochrome).
The 530 was a rackmount version of the Series 500, could only run HP-UX, and used a serial interface console.
The 540 was a 530 mounted inside a cabinet, similar to the disk drives offered then and included a serial multiplexer (MUX).
Because of their performance, the US government placed the 500 series on its export restricted list.
The computers were only permitted to be sold in Western Europe, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, with any other country needing written approval.
[11] Code-named "Gecko", these models were intended to compete with entry-level workstations from Sun Microsystems and high-end personal computers.
[15] The Model 712 and 715 workstations feature the Lasi ASIC, connected by the GSC bus.
The Lasi ASIC provided an integrated NCR 53C710 SCSI controller, an Intel Apricot 10 Mbit Ethernet interface, CD-quality sound, PS/2 keyboard and mouse, a serial and a parallel port.
All models, except for the 712 series machines also use the Wax ASIC to provide an EISA adapter, a second serial port and support for the HIL bus.
The SGC bus (System Graphics Connect), which is used in the earlier series 700 workstations, has similar specifications as PCI with 32-bit/33 MHz [1] and a typical bandwidth of about 100 MB/s [2].
The B132L (introduced 1996[19]), B160L, B132L+, B180L, C132L, C160L and C180L workstations are based on the PA-7300LC processor, a development of the PA-7100LC with integrated cache and GSC bus controller.
[20] The Model D200 is a uniprocessor with a 75 MHz PA-7100LC microprocessor, support for up to 512 MB of memory and five EISA/HP-HSC slots.
The Model D350 is a high-end D-class system, a dual-processor, it had two 100 MHz PA-7100LCs, up to 768 MB of memory and eight EISA/HP-HSC slots.
[22] The D-class are tower servers with up to two microprocessors and are architecturally similar to the K-class.
They sometimes masquerade as larger machines as HP shipped them mounted vertically inside a large cabinet containing a power supply and multiple disks with plenty of room for air to circulate.
The N class did benefit from using the Merced bus, bridging the PA-8x00 microprocessors to it via a special adapter called DEW.
The N4000 was upgraded with newer processors throughout its life, with models called N4000-36, N4000-44 and N4000-55 indicating microprocessor clock frequencies of 360, 440, and 550 MHz, respectively.
Two of the PCI slots are occupied by factory integrated cards and cannot be utilized for I/O expansion by the end-user.
The V-class servers were based on the multiprocessor technology from the S-class and X-class.
Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD) Unix was ported to the HP 9000 as HPBSD; the resulting support code was later added to 4.4BSD.
Its modern variants NetBSD and OpenBSD also support various HP 9000 models, both Motorola 68k and PA-RISC based.
One project conducted at HP Laboratories involved replacing core HP-UX functionality, specifically the virtual memory and process management subsystems, with Mach functionality from Mach 2.0 and 2.5.
