RISC in the 1990s

The 1990s were an era of experimentation and platform development in high-performance computing. While general purpose computing mostly used 1980s CISC CPUs, technical computing progressed a lot during the 90s with new RISC platforms and experimental VLIW architectures.

Vendors produced RISC laptops for RISC for the Road and experimented with VLIW and RISC processors throughout the decade. This site catalogues RISC laptops and some of the notable microprocessors or the 1990s which are mostly unknown today. This project is hosted by OpenPA, the PA-RISC reference, with updates in the RSS feed.

RISC Laptops

Tadpole SPARCbook 3
SPARCbook © Tadpole 1994

Technical computing of the 1990s was the era of RISC workstations on Unix systems and applications. To extend that to mobile users, some RISC vendors built special RISC laptops.

Often based on contemporary Unix workstations, these laptops were often marketed for government and military uses in C3, analysis and surveillance (ISR).

System CPU Platform Year Operating system
RDI PrecisionBook 132 PA-7300LC 132 MHz HP PA-RISC 1998 HP-UX
RDI PrecisionBook 160 PA-7300LC 160 MHz HP PA-RISC 1998 HP-UX
RDI PrecisionBook 180 PA-7300LC 180 MHz HP PA-RISC 1998 HP-UX
SAIC Galaxy 1100 PA-7100LC 80 MHz HP PA-RISC 1994 HP-UX
SAIC Talon PA-7100LC 60 MHz HP PA-RISC 1994 HP-UX
Hitachi 3050RX/100C Hitachi PA/50L 33 MHz HP PA-RISC 1994 HI-UX/WE2
IBM RS/6000 N40 PowerPC 601 50 MHz POWER/PReP 1993 AIX
IBM Thinkpad 800 PowerPC 603e 66 MHz POWER/PReP 199? AIX
IBM Thinkpad 820 PowerPC 603e 100 MHz POWER/PReP 1995 AIX
IBM Thinkpad 850 PowerPC 603e 100 MHz POWER/PReP 1995 AIX
IBM Thinkpad 860 PowerPC 603e 166 MHz POWER/PReP 1996 AIX, Windows NT, Solaris
IBM WorkPad z50 NEC VR4121 131 MHz MIPS III 1999 Windows CE
RDI PowerLite 50 microSPARC 50 MHz Sun SPARC 1994 Solaris, SunOS
RDI PowerLite 85 microSPARC-II 85 MHz Sun SPARC 1995 Solaris, SunOS
RDI PowerLite 110 microSPARC-II 110 MHz Sun SPARC 1995 Solaris, SunOS
RDI PowerLite 170 TurboSPARC-II 170 MHz Sun SPARC 1997 Solaris
Sun SPARC Voyager microSPARC-II 60 MHz Sun SPARC 1994 Solaris
Tadpole SPARCbook CY7C600 SPARC 25 MHz Sun SPARC 1992 Solaris, SunOS
Tadpole SPARCbook 2 MB86903 SPARC 40 MHz Sun SPARC 1993 Solaris, SunOS
Tadpole SPARCbook 3 microSPARC 50 MHz Sun SPARC 1994 Solaris, SunOS
Tadpole SPARCbook 3XP microSPARC-II 85 MHz Sun SPARC 1995 Solaris, SunOS
Tadpole SPARCbook 3GX microSPARC-II 110 MHz Sun SPARC 1996 Solaris, SunOS
Tadpole SPARCbook 3TX TurboSPARC 170 MHz Sun SPARC 1997 Solaris
Tadpole SPARCbook 3000 TurboSPARC 170 MHz Sun SPARC 1998 Solaris
Tadpole SPARCbook 6500 UltraSPARC-IIi 650 MHz Sun SPARC64 Solaris
RDI UltraBook 170 UltraSPARC 167 MHz Sun SPARC64 1997 Solaris
RDI UltraBook 200 UltraSPARC 200 MHz Sun SPARC64 1997 Solaris
RDI UltraBook IIi UltraSPARC-IIi 400 MHz Sun SPARC64 2000 Solaris
Tadpole SPARCLE UltraSPARC IIe 500 MHz Sun SPARC64 2003 Solaris
Tadpole Viper UltraSPARC IIIi 1.2 GHz Sun SPARC64 Solaris
Tadpole VoyagerIIi UltraSPARC IIi 400 MHz Sun SPARC64 Solaris
Tadpole ALPHAbook Alpha 21066A 233 MHz DEC Alpha 1995 OpenVMS

There are reviews and benchmarks available from those 1990s RISC laptops.

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VLIW and RISC Processors

Processor Evolution
CPU Evolution © MPR 1996

The decade of the 1990s were an era of processor research and architecture experimentation. Technology companies developed many architectures when CPUs moved from 32-bit to 64-bit and migrated from CISC to RISC platforms. Many CPUs and architectures of that time are mostly unknown today.

Some of the 1990s VLIW and RISC platforms usually not covered elsewhere:

Processor Versions Architecture
Bits		 Width
VLIW		 Clock
max		 Cache
max		 Years
first		 Special
Apollo PRISM RISC and LIW
32-bit		 3-way 20 MHz 192 KB 1988
Intel iWarp RISC and LIW
32-bit		 3-way
96-bit		 20 MHz 1 KB 1989 IPC
Intel i860 i860XP, i860XR RISC and LIW
32-bit		 2-way
64-bit		 50 MHz 32 KB 1989 Graphics
Philips LIFE LIFE-1 VLIW
32-bit		 50 MHz - 1988
Philips TriMedia TM1000, TM1100,
TM1300, PNX1300		 VLIW
32-bit		 5-way
220-bit		 200 MHz 48 KB 1996 Media, DSP
TI TMS320C6000 TMS320C6x VLIW
32-bit		 8-way
256-bit		 250 MHz varies 1997 DSP
Sun MACJ MACJ-5200 RISC and VLIW
32-bit		 4-way
128-bit		 500 MHz
dual		 48 KB 1999 DSP, SOC
Transmeta Crusoe TM3200, TM5400
TMS5700, TM5900		 VLIW
32-bit		 4-way
128-bit		 1.0 GHz varies 2000 x86
Intel Itanium HP EPIC, IA64 VLIW
64-bit		 6-way
128-bit		 2.6 GHz varies 2001

Information on VLIW and RISC stems from archives and 1990s CPU conferences.

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