PA-RISC Hardware

The computers covered by this site are based on HP PA-RISC architecture and processors from the 1980s to 2000s. Most of the chipsets and system designs used were custom HP for its PA-RISC servers and workstations.

The following PA-RISC components are covered with individual articles:

PA-RISC Processors: HP developed more than a dozen 32-bit and 64-bit PA-RISC processors, from the early PA 1.0 to the PA-7000 and PA-8000 families.
PA-RISC Architecture: Details of PA-RISC architecture and processors.
Chipsets: HP PA-RISC computers used proprietary HP chipsets and system designs, usually specific to a group of processors and computers.
Buses: Many custom HP buses were used in PA-RISC for processors, memory and I/O devices, like GSC, VSC and HP-PB but also industry standard such as EISA and PCI.
SCSI Controllers: Storage used industry-standard SCSI buses and third-party SCSI controllers.
Graphics adapters: HP sold PA-RISC with its own range of CRX and Visualize graphics adapters.

Four phases of PA-RISC architecture can be seen in PA-RISC computers by HP:

PA-RISC hardware period table
Period	Processors	Design	Chips
I	Infancy: Early Architecture
	TS-1, NS-1, NS-2, PCX	Early	SIU/SPI, CTB
II	Growth: 32-bit 1990s
	PA-7000, PA-7100	ASP/Viper	Viper. ASP
III	Maturity: The heydays
	PA-7100LC, PA-7300LC	LASI	MIOC, LASI, Wax, Dino
	PA-7200, PA-8000, PA-8200	U2/UTurn	MMC/SMC, U2, UTurn, LASI, Wax, Dino, Cujo
	PA-8500, PA-8600, PA-8700	Astro	Astro, Elroy
		Stretch	DEW, Prelude, IKE, Elroy
IV	Decline: 64-bit to Itanium
	PA-8700, PA-8800 PA-8900	Cell	CC, XBC, SBA, Elroy
	PA-8800 PA-8900, Itanium 2	zx1	Pluto, Mercury

The overall HP PA-RISC and HP 9000 story is covered in a separate PA-RISC history page, as are the PA-RISC release dates and prices on the PA-RISC timeline.

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Old content

Several pages with older, unmaintained PA-RISC content are kept on this site for archival reasons, listed in Archived PA-RISC pages.

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