Tadpole PrecisionBook

RDI PrecisionBook
© RDI 1999

RDI PrecisionBooks were fast RISC laptops of the 1990s, introduced in 1998 by RDI, shortly before the takeover by Tadpole. PrecisionBooks are based on the design of HP 9000 C132L/C160L workstations, integrated into a portable case.

RDI PrecisionBooks apparently did not enjoy large commercial success. Tadpole reused the PrecisionBook design for other RISC laptops of the 1990s, for example the UltraSPARC-based Tadpole Ultrabook that was slightly more successful.

In addition to the PrecisionBook, two other portable PA-RISC computers were produced – the military-focused SAIC Galaxy 1100, based on HP 9000 712, and the Japanese Hitachi 3050RX/100C based on their own design.

PrecisionBook 132L PrecisionBook 160L PrecisionBook 180L
Model 9000/779 9000/779 9000/779
Introduced 1998 1998 1998
CPU PA-7300LC
132 MHz		 PA-7300LC
160 MHz		 PA-7300LC
180 MHz
Cache 128 KB L1
1 MB L2 opt.		 128 KB L1
1 MB L2 opt.		 128 KB L1
1 MB L2 opt.
Design 32-bit RISC HP PA-RISC with HP LASI custom chipset
RAM 32-512 MB ECC
Video HP Visualize EG 2 MB
Screen 12.1″ or 14.1″ LCD, 1024×768 16M colors
Drives Two SCSI drives (2.5″) or IDE with ADTX adapter
Expansion Two Cardbus or PCMCIA
I/O Ethernet, VGA, SCSI, PS/2, Docking, I/O breakout, audio
OS HP-UX, Linux, OpenBSD, NetBSD
Price $11,995 $14,995
Tadpole PrecisionBook PrecisionBook ad PrecisionBook ad
PrecisionBook and ads © RDI 1998 and 97

Technical details

PrecisionBooks were 32-bit HP PA-RISC computers, mostly based on HP custom design previously used in a HP 9000 CAD workstation (C132L), which RDI integrated into a laptop platform. Chipset and devices used were mostly HP and standard 3rd party:

Usage Device Type External
Chipset HP LASI Main integrated chipset
Chipset HP MIOC CPU-integrated memory controller, 144-bit
Storage NCR 53C710 [i] 8-bit single-ended SCSI-2 50-pin single-ended
Storage PCI0643 IDE/UDMA33 controller
Network Intel 82596CA [i] 10 Mbit Ethernet controller RJ45 10Mb
Video HP Visualize-EG with 2MB frame buffer memory
optional 2 MB more DRAM		 Dsub 15-pin, up to 1600×1200
Audio HP Harmony [i] CD/DAT quality 16-bit stereo jacks
Other CL-PD6832 PCI-CardBus bridges two slots (see below)
I/O [i] Serial and parallel I/O Breakout for 2 serial and 1 parallel
I/O [i] PS/2 for keyboard/mouse 2 ports

RDI added the IDE controller and CardBus bridges to the PA-RISC design and also supplied drivers for HP-UX.

Expansion and I/O

There were quite a few possibilities to expand the PrecisionBook with devices:

Device Type Details
Memory ECC two ECC modules for 32-256 MB modules, 60ns, 144-bit wide
Storage SCSI two 2.5″ SCSI drives, which were often 2.5″ IDE hard drives converted with ADTX IDE-to-SCSI converters.
Cards Cardbus two Cardbus and PCMCIA expansion cards
Input PS/2 97-key keyboard and three-button trackpad
Output Screen 12.1″ or 14.1″ TFT up to XGA (1024×768), 4K colors, 60Hz

Battery was one Lithium-Ion with 40Wh capacity, 450g and 0.5-1h of battery time.

Tadpole provided a few special expansion devices that could be ordered with PrecisionBooks: PCMCIA (PC Card) Modem, LAN (Fast-Ethernet) and wireless modem and a few external drives on request.

Operating systems

RDI PrecisionBooks were portable Unix workstations and were shipped with HP-UX, supported in stock 10.20, 11.00 and 11i v1. Open source systems run quite well on them since the mid-2000s with Linux, NetBSD and OpenBSD supporting them.

RDI provided drivers for the PCMCIA controller and devices, supported was a 56K PCMCIA modem with cellular phone support.

Benchmarks

SPEC benchmark data and comparisons to contemporary laptops and workstations:

Based on old SPEC95 archives
Model CPU SPEC95 int SPEC95 fp
PrecisionBook 132 PA-RISC PA-7300LC 132MHz 6.49 6.54
PrecisionBook 160 PA-RISC PA-7300LC 160MHz 7.78 7.39
PrecisionBook 180 PA-RISC PA-7300LC 180MHz 9.22 9.43
Comparisons
Intel Alder Intel Pentium Pro 200MHz 8.09 6.75
RDI UltraBook Sun UltraSPARC 166MHz 5.56 8.06
RDI UltraBook Sun UltraSPARC 200MHz 7.44 10.4
IBM RS/6000 860 PowerPC 603e 166MHz 3.94 2.71

References

Articles and reviews

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