OpenPA.net

Second Edition of the OpenPA Print Edition

The Second Edition of the OpenPA Print Edition was released with much new content additions and typographic improvements. In all about 70 new pages have been added since the First Edition, and almost all pages have been updated and revised. Additionally, many changes and improvements to the formatting/conversion process have been made. The Second Edition 2.0 is available as PDF, for more details see the Print Version page linked to above or download the PDF directly (.pdf, 1.4MB, 351 pages).

HP Itanium (IA64) servers and workstations added

Several pages for systems with the HP PA-RISC successor — the HP/Intel Itanium (IA64) architecture — have been added. These include all three Itanium workstations produced by HP, the HP i2000, HP zx2000 and HP zx6000. Also covered are a range of the Integrity rx rack-mount servers: HP rx1600 and rx1620, HP rx2600 and rx2620, HP rx4610, HP rx4640 and HP rx5670. Descriptions of the remaining rx servers will be added soon.

Much improved Other PA-RISC Operating Systems page

The page detailing the various research and development projects of operating system ports to the PA-RISC platform has been reworked and filled with much more content. The Mach 4/Lites entry (“The Utah PA-RISC Code Snapshot”) has been extended with content from the original project page at the University if Utah; the HPBSD and Chorus entries have been corrected and reworked; and a new section has been added on various other porting efforts from the early 1990s — HP Tut, HP OSF/1, Mach 3/UX and MK-PA (OSF Mach 3/OSF/1).

HP N4000 (rp7400) servers page

The rp7400 were the original version of the N4000 line of servers — the newer rp7405 and rp7410 servers were also labeled as N4000 and feature a similar set of I/O options and expandability in basically the same chassis. However the original N4000, the rp7400 described here, is based around a different system architecture than their sucessors — the Stretch chipset, also used in the L1500 and L3000 (rp5430/rp5470) servers.

Cell (Superdome) and Stretch chipset sections added

The newer PA-RISC based servers, including the rp5430/rp5450 (L1500/L3000), rp7400 (N4000) and rp7405/rp7410 (N4000), are based around rather complicated chipset setups — the rp7405/rp7410 N4000s are build around the cell-based “Core Electronics Complex” (CEC) taken from the Superdome supercomputers. The other two smaller systems are centered around a quasi-IA64 system architecture — “Stretch” which describes a chipset build around IA64/Merced system buses, to which memory, PA-RISC processors and I/O subsystems attach via various chipset components.

HP N4000 (rp7405/rp7410) servers page

The rp7405/rp7410 N4000 servers are up to 8-way multiprocessing servers and the smallest HP systems which can be partitioned into (two) logical servers (nPartitions). Based upon the same 10U rack-mountable chassis as their rp7400/N4000 brethren, the newer rp7405 and rp7410 are build around a completely overhauled system and I/O architecture. The “Core Electronic Complex” is a modified version of the Superdome’s cell-based system architecture, limited to two cells. These newer N4000s feature an very large amount of system and I/O bandwidth: 16GB/s CPU, 8GB/s memory, 8GB/s cell-to-cell and 8.5GB/s I/O bandwidth (all maximum aggregate values).

HP L1500 and L3000 (rp5430/rp5470) servers page

The second incarnation of the L-Class servers are, similar to their direct predecessors L1000 and L2000, 7U rack-mountable servers with either 1-2 or 1-4 processors, 8GB or 16GB RAM and a large set of I/O options and expandability. The internal system architecture of the L1500 and L3000 is different however — the central parts of the processor/memory and I/O system were modified versions of the central complex of the Superdome line of computers. Supported processor include 64-bit CPUs from PA-8500 (L1500-only) up to PA-8900 and possibly Itanium 2.

HP 9000 rp3410 and rp3440 servers page

The rp3400 series are the defacto successors to the rack-mountable A-Class systems — they use 2U of space in a 19″ rack. The single-CPU rp3410 uses 64-bit PA-8800 Mako processors while the dual-CPU rp3440 can use either PA-8800 or PA-8900 (the last PA-RISC CPU) processors. Both are based around the same system architecture, which is built around HP’s zx1 Itanium 2 chipset, making upgrades to IA64 processors possible.

HP 9000 rp4410 and rp4440 servers page

The rp4400 series are the bigger brothers of the rack-mountable rp3400 — the dual-processor rp4410 and quad-processor rp4400 are 4U 19″ systems also build around the zx1 Itanium 2 chipset, with minor changes to the rp3400’s architecture. The rp4400s can use large amounts of RAM (128GB) and a rp4440 can offer up to eight PA-8900 cores and eight I/O channels (4.0GB/s) in a single system.

Early PA-RISC processors: TS-1, NS-1, NS-2 and CMOS26B

As fallout from the improved early PA-RISC HP 9000/800 server article much information on the first PA-RISC processors was compiled and added to the PA-RISC processors page. These CPUs from the mid-1980s implemented the original PA-RISC 1.0 architecture and were fabricated in TTL, NMOS-III and later CMOS. They were all multi-chip implementations with various external support chips for the system and I/O interfaces.

Information on these CPUs proved to be almost non-existant — most was gleaned from old manuals and brochures on the PA-RISC architecture and 9000/800 systems from hpmuseum.net and cross-checked with paper manuals on some older systems. There was apparently never a complete picture on these old CPUs, even their names differ in the various sources.

Updated and much improved information on 1980s PA-RISC servers

The page on the early PA-RISC history (mid-1980s to early-1990s) has been completely rewritten and greatly expanded, with more details and many corrections. First PA-RISC computers were introduced as HP 9000/800 server systems — computers like the 840, 825, 835, 850, 855, 860 and 870 etc. — all based on PA-RISC 1.0 processor implementations.

Details and specifications of these systems is very sparsely available online; what was found was taken from scanned/OCRed articles from old HP publications and sales brochures. There are still some details which are not completely clear, however.

Other PA-RISC CPUs: Winbond and Oki Embedded Processors

In the mid- to late-1990s Winbond Electronics designed and sold a range of 32-bit PA-RISC embedded processors, targeted at set-top boxes and Internet Appliances. The chips of the W89K and W90K lines were based on a PA-RISC 1.1 Level 0 implementation which features no MMU/virtual adressing. The W89K and W90K feature a pin-out similar to that of Intel 80486DX which should faciliate an easy integration of these chips into existing embedded motherboard designs.

Oki Semiconductors introduced in the same timeframe apparently also an embedded PA-RISC controller, the OP32/50N. Not much information could be found on this chip.

New Release (1.1) of the OpenPA Print Edition

The OpenPA Print Edition, available in two versions as PDF, was updated with new content and corrections from about Summer 2006 till Fall 2007. Additionally, various typographic and formatting/conversion changes have been made. The new release is available in two versions: 1. DIN A4-sized format for printing on single-sided sheets of paper (A4 is similar to U.S. Legal size) and 2. DIN A5-sized version for printing on smaller, double-sided sheets useful for binding as book.

OpenBSD support for “four-digit” 64-bit systems

Support for the newer 64-bit PA-8x00 systems has been recently added to OpenBSD/hppa. This includes popular workstations such as B1000, B2x00, C3x00, J5000/J7000, J6x00 and various newer 64-bit D- and K-class servers.

IPv6 Connectivity

Operational note: OpenPA can now also be reached via IPv6. Connectivity (in the form of a tunnel—no native IPv6 yet) is kindly provided by SixXS.

Your friendly NOC.

PA-RISC History—Early PA Days

A second attempt at a page detailing the roots and origins of PA-RISC has been made, starting with a subsection on the (very) early days of PA-RISC processors and systems at the time of the original PA 1.0 architecture, including lesser known CPUs as TS, NS/PN and PCX.

The original plan called for a complete picture of the PA-RISC lifetime and the various aspects of the architecture and systems design. Due to limited time, however, the page was never completed and thus the decision was made to publish single subsections over the time.

More subsections will be added if time permits—including words on PCX-based and later systems, the CPUs and architecture and, in the near future, a more detailed discussion of the (NS-1–based) 825, 835 & 845 systems.

OpenPA PDF Version available

A first edition of a complete, offline viewable version of the OpenPA Project is available as a PDF book. Several attempts had been made in the past but a new effort started in Spring 2006 and utilizing XSLT and TeX resulted in the current first edition, now downloadable.

Improved MkLinux and HPBSD entries on Other OS page

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.

C8000 workstation page

The C8000 is probably the last PA-RISC powered HP-UX workstation, featuring one or two of the dual core PA-8800 or PA-8900 processors. System design is apparently quite close to previous Itanium offerings from HP, as the workstation uses the Itanium 2 system/memory bus and HP's zx1 chipset.

PA-8900 processor entry

The PA-8900 is more or less only a slightly improved PA-8800 (Mako) and will supposedly be the last processor of HP's PA-RISC family. Much of the very scarce available documentation seems to suggest that the PA-8900 can be fit in most of the newer rp-series servers. Basic design and features are very close to the PA-8800.

PA-8800 processor entry

The Mako is the integration of two PA-8700+ processor cores onto a single die in combination with a very large off-die 32MB L2 cache, placed on the CPU module. The PA-8800 makes use of the Itanium 2 system/memory bus and many systems supporting the Mako apparently can be upgraded to Itanium-family CPUs. As all processors after the original 64-bit PA-8000, Mako does not introduce any significant architectural enhancements, main extensions are based largely around better process technologies and larger/faster cache subsystems.

Improved PA-RISC Linux page

The page on the Linux port to PA-RISC did not really contain much useful information, so it finally has been rewritten and the content on supported hardware, history and development greatly extended.

Multimedia Acceleration eXtensions (MAX-1 and MAX-2) article

HP was the first to introduce Single Instruction Multiple Data (SIMD) instructions tailored for the accelation of multimedia applications on a general purpose processor. These instructions operated on so-called subword data and were introduced as MAX-1 on the PA-7100LC processor and subsequently enhanced and featured as MAX-2 on all 64-bit PA-8x00 processors.

Much improved support for print media

The CSS definitions for print media were greatly reworked to produce a much smoother and more readable output when printed out. A new feature is that external links in the printed out pages are now annoted and listed at the bottom of the printout with the complete URL.