HP-UX on PA-RISC

HP-UX is the commercial Unix operating system from HP for PA-RISC workstations and servers. First developed by HP during the 1980s for early PA-RISC servers and predecessors, last HP-UX 11i from the 2000s runs on most PA-RISC 1.1 and 2.0 and Itanium 2 computers from HP.

HP-UX was standard Unix for HP 9000 computers in the Unix history of PA-RISC. Most PA-RISC computers were shipped with Unix and geared towards technical and business applications, like CAD, CAM, analysis and data processing, with some HP-UX games.

HP-UX in the 80s
HP Unix © HP 1980s

HP-UX started as server operating system with separate releases for PA-RISC workstations until the popular HP-UX 10.20 in 1996. With HP-UX 11.00, there were unified releases for servers and workstations. HP-UX 11 was the first 64-bit HP Unix with support for 64-bit PA-8x00 processors.

Early HP-UX releases up to 9.0 were strongly based on BSD Unix and close to HPBSD. From version 10, HP-UX became close to System V Unix (SVR4), a trend of the 1990s. Many earlier HP-UX Unix versions preceded the internet age with not much surviving documentation and are rather unknown today: from the first PA-RISC HP-UX 1.0 in 1986 to HP-UX 9 in 1992.

PA-RISC OS support, ░ - full support, ▒ - partial support
OS a.k.a. Year 700 800 A B C D E FGHI J K L N R rp rx SD T V zx
HP-UX 11.31 11i v3 2007 ░ ░ ░ ░
HP-UX 11.23 11i v2 2003 ▒ ░ ░ ░ ░ ░ ▒
HP-UX 11.20 11i v1.5 2001 ░ ░
HP-UX 11.11 11i 2000 ▒ ░ ░ ░ ░ ░ ░ ░ ░ ░ ░ ░ ░ ░
HP-UX 11.00 1997 ▒ ░ ░ ░ ░ ░ ░ ░ ░ ▒ ▒ ░ ░ ░
HP-UX 10.20 10.30 1996 ░ ▒ ▒ ░ ░ ░ ░ ░ ░ ░ ░
HP-UX 10.01 10.10 1995 ░ ░ ▒ ░ ░ ▒ ▒
HP-UX 9 .00-09 1992 ░ ░ ▒ ▒ ░ ░ ▒ ▒ ▒
HP-UX 8 .01-08 1991 ▒ ░ ░
HP-UX 7 7.03 1990 ▒
HP-UX 3 1988 ░
HP-UX 2 1987 ▒
HP-UX 1 1986 ▒

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Software

Many applications and software suites for business and technical computing were ported to HP-UX between the 1980s and 2000s. This included hundreds of third-party commercial applications for Unix, many of which included HP-UX ports. PA-RISC was mainly used for engineering and design but also publishing, development and emulation.

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Documentation

Most of the documentation and references disappeared during the 2010s from the web. Much information has been gleaned from (slowly disappearing) USEnet postings from the 1980s and early 1990s in comp.sys.hp.hpux, especially for older versions of HP-UX. And archive.org has been a great resource with a growing list of HP-UX documentation.

Manuals

Websites

Release notes

Other documents

Pictures © Hewlett Packard, scans from product brochures, from hpmuseum.net and 1000bit.it

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