RISC Laptops of the 90s

Tadpole SPARCbook 3
© Tadpole 1994

Technical computing in the 1990s was mostly done on RISC workstations with Unix operating systems and specialized applications. For mobile use cases, some of the popular RISC vendors built RISC Laptops for mobile Unix use in the 1990s.

Often based on contemporary Unix workstations, these RISC laptops were often marketed for government and military uses such as command, technical analysis and surveillance.

The RISC Laptop Archive consolidates information on these rare and diverse laptops of the wild 1990s. There are many other great resources on these RISC laptops, to which we link from the individual articles.

Updates on RISC Laptop entries and content are integrated on OpenPA and RSS feed.

RISC for the Road

System CPU Platform Year Original OS
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 80 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
RDI Thinkpad 860 PowerPC 603e 166 MHz POWER/PReP 1996 AIX, Windows NT, Solaris
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 SPARCstation 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

Architectures

RISC laptops in the late 90s and early 2000s were mainly based on Sun SPARC, HP PA-RISC and IBM/Motorola PowerPC with DEC Alpha as an outlier. Will be extended.

Reviews

There were a few reviews of Unix and RISC laptops in the 90s, mainly testing and evaluating them as transportable workstations. Will be extended.

IBM RS/6000 N40 (PowerPC):

RDI PowerLite (SPARC):

SPARCbook 1 and 2:

SPARCbook 3:

Benchmarks

Comparison to SPEC benchmark data from other contemporary Unix workstations:

* - Reference or approximate values
System CPU SPEC92 int SPEC92 fp SPEC95 int SPEC95 fp
Tadpole SPARCbook 1 CY7C600 SPARC 25 MHz ~18 MIPS
Tadpole SPARCbook 2 CY6111 SPARC 40 MHz 21* 21* ~30 MIPS
Hitachi 3050RX/100C PA/50L 33 MHz ~42 MIPS
RDI PowerLite 50 microSPARC 50 MHz 26 21
SPARCbook 3 microSPARC 50 MHz 26 21 ~59 MIPS
RS/6000 N40 PowerPC 601 50 MHz 41 51
Sun SPARCstation Voyager microSPARC-II 60 MHz 46 36
RDI PowerLite 85 microSPARC-II 85 MHz 64 54
SPARCbook 3XP microSPARC-II 85 MHz 64 54
SAIC Talon* HP PA-7100LC 60 MHz 67 85 2.08 2.66
RDI PowerLite 110 microSPARC-II 110MHz 77 65
SPARCbook 3GX microSPARC-II 110 MHz 78 65 ~134 MIPS
RDI PowerLite 170 TurboSPARC 170 MHz 3.08 2.74
Tadpole ALPHAbook* DEC 21066A 233 MHz 94 110
SAIC Galaxy 1100 HP PA-7100LC 80 MHz 99 122 3.12 3.55
IBM ThinkPad 850* PowerPC 603e 100 MHz 120 105
SPARCbook 3000 TurboSPARC 170 MHz 143 119 3.50 3.00
SPARCbook 3TX TurboSPARC 170 MHz 3.50 3.00
IBM RS/6000 860 PowerPC 603e 166 MHz 3.94 2.71
RDI UltraBook 170 UltraSPARC 166 MHz ?265.3 ?354.6 5.56 8.06
RDI PrecisionBook 132 PA-7300LC 132 MHz 6.49 6.54
UltraBook 200 Sun UltraSPARC 200 MHz 322.0 462.0 7.44 10.40
RDI PrecisionBook 160 PA-7300LC 160 MHz 7.78 7.39
RDI PrecisionBook 180 PA-7300LC 180 MHz 9.22 9.43
RDI UltraBook IIi UltraSPARC IIi 400 MHz 17.90 20.60
Comparisons
Siemens SCENIC 1000 Pentium II 333MHz 13.0 9.43
SGI O2 MIPS R10000 196MHz 10.1 8.77
Intel Alder Pentium Pro 200MHz 8.09 6.75
Sun Ultra 2 1170 UltraSPARC 167MHz 6.34 9.33
DEC Alphastation 255 DEC Alpha 21064A 233MHz 4.27 5.09
Siemens PCE-5S Pentium 100MHz 96 81 4.04 2.35
Sun SPARCstation 20/71 SuperSPARC II 75MHz 125 121 3.11 3.10
Intel i486DX2 66 MHz 32 16

↑ up