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HP 9000 705 and 710 Workstations

Quick Facts
Introduced	1992
Period	Growth (II)
Series	700 Series
CPU	PA-7000 32-bit 35/50 MHz
Caches	96 KB
RAM	64 MB
Design	ASP
Drives	2 SCSI
Expansion	None
I/O	Ethernet SCSI 2 serial parallel VGA HIL audio

• System
• Expansion
• Ports
• Operating systems
• Pictures
• Performance
• Documentation

HP 9000 705 and HP 9000 710 were the first small PA-RISC workstations, released in 1992. They are simplified versions of the 1991 Snakes 720, 730 and 750 workstations, integrated into a smaller pizzabox case, to make PA-RISC workstations more affordable and easier to integrated into offices.

The basic HP 9000 PA-RISC technical workstation design was taken over into 705 and 710 with few changes:

• Smaller instruction and data caches on the processor
• Lower CPU clock rate
• Different memory architecture
• Integration of graphics, SCSI, Ethernet subsystem onto a single mainboard
• Reduced expansion options
• First audio capable Series 700 workstation

HP 9000 705 and 710 were marketed to compete in the early 1990s low-end workstation market in the $5,000 to $10,000 price range against Sun Sparcstation IPX and from IBM RS/6000 220 Unix workstations.

• HP 9000 705 were introduced in 1992 for $8,990
• HP 9000 710 were introduced in 1992 for $12,490

HP introduced another pizzabox-sized workstation a few years later in 1994 with the HP 9000 712 workstation, based on newer 32-bit PA-7100LC processors.

System

Processors

System	CPU	Speed	L1 cache
HP 9000 705	PA-7000 PA-RISC 32-bit	35 MHz	96 KB off-chip
HP 9000 710	PA-7000 PA-RISC 32-bit	50 MHz	96 KB off-chip

Chipset

• HP ASP chipset, a custom HP RISC design
• HP Viper memory and I/O controller, low-cost version implemented in two chips
• NCR 53C700 8-bit single-ended SCSI-2
• Intel 82596DX 10 Mbit Ethernet controller
• Audio 8-bit mono PSB2160 CODEC
• Other I/O (serial, parallel, i8042)
• HP Stinger (?) CRX graphics, 8-bit

System buses

• PBus processor/memory bus, 200 MB/s at 50 MHz (710), 140 MB/s at 35 MHz (705)
• VSC main system bus, 100 MB/s at 25 MHz (710), 70 MB/s at 17.5 MHz (705)
• GSC system-level I/O bus
• SCSI-2 narrow single-ended bus

Expansion

Memory

• HP-proprietary 72-pin SIMMs
• Eight sockets
• 16 MB (4×4) minimum, 64 MB maximum
• Memory is installed in quartets: first in even (0, 2, 4, 6) then in odd slots (1, 3, 5, 7):

  	    front
  .~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~.
  |  ext.      int.       ###|
  |  drive     drive      ###|
  |                       ###|
  |                       ###|
  |                       ###|
  | 3 x-----x  7 x-----x  ###|
  | 2 x-----x  6 x-----x  ###|
  | 1 x-----x  5 x-----x  ###|
  | 0 x-----x  4 x-----x  ###|
   ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
  	     back
  

Expansion cards

• No expansion slots

Storage

• SCSI 3.5″ 50-pin Narrow SE hard drive
• SCSI half-height 5.25″ 50-pin Narrow SE drive, external accessible

Ports

• SCSI-2 50-pin single-ended
• Two serial RS232C DB9
• Parallel DB25
• 15-pin AUI 10 Mbit & 10Base2 BNC Ethernet
• VGA HD15
• HP-HIL connector for input devices
• Two phone jacks (microphone, headphones)
• Nine LEDs on the front for errors and status messages

Operating systems

Unix was the main operating system for HP 9000 705 and 710 with good 32-bit support in HP-UX 8 to HP-UX 10.20.

• HP-UX, the original HP Unix shipped with it
  • HP-UX 11.00 in 32-bit mode, might work but unsupported
  • HP-UX 10.20 32-bit
  • HP-UX 10.00 and HP-UX 10.10, pre-Y2K
  • HP-UX 9 (9.01, 9.03, 9.05, 9.07), pre-Y2K
  • HP-UX 8 (8.07), pre-Y2K
• Software on HP-UX: HP 9000 705 and 710 workstations were often used in engineering offices for documentation with office suites, sometimes shipped with Lotus 1-2-3
• PA-RISC Linux, main Linux port to PA-RISC

HP 9000 705 and 710 have solid open source operating system support but I/O and graphics are a bit limited due to no I/O slots.

• OpenBSD, open-source Unix-like, ported to PA-RISC
• NetBSD, open-source Unix-like, ported to PA-RISC

The early-1990s research and development operating systems were ported to 705 and 710 workstations:

• HPBSD, 4.3BSD Unix on PA-RISC from Utah University
• Mach 4/Lites, research microkernel with 4.4BSD (with issues)
• MkLinux, research Linux with Mach microkernel
• 710 OSF MK-PA, OSF/1 Unix port to PA-RISC

Pictures

Performance

PA-RISC SPEC scores of HP 9000 computers

System	CPU	SPEC92 int/fp		SPEC95 int/fp		SPEC89	MIPS
HP 9000 705	PA-7000 35 MHz	21.9	33.0			34.6	36.7
HP 9000 710	PA-7000 50 MHz	31.6	47.6	0.99	1.44	49.5	52.5

Comparison to SPEC benchmark data from other contemporary Unix workstations. HP 9000 705 and 710 were slightly slower than a higher-clocked Intel 486DX2 but much faster in floating point, even beating an Intel Pentium.

Based on old SPEC92 and SPEC95 archives

System	CPU	SPEC92 int	SPEC92 fp	SPEC95 int	SPEC95 fp
HP 9000 735/99	PA-7100 99 MHz	109.1	167.9	3.22	4.06
Intel Xpress	Intel Pentium 75MHz	89.1	68.5	2.31	2.02
DEC AlphaStation 200	DEC Alpha 21064 100MHz	74.6	95.2	1.48	2.79
HP 9000 712/60	PA-7100LC 60 MHz	67.0	85.3	2.08	2.66
SGI IRIS Indigo IP20	MIPS R4000 100MHz	57.6	60.3
Motorola 900	Motorola 88110 50MHz	54.0	62.2
Sun SPARCstation 10	Sun SuperSPARC 40MHz	50.2	60.2	1.13	1.38
HP 9000 730	PA-7000 66 MHz	47.8	75.4	1.50	2.30
Digital DECstation 5000	MIPS R4000 50MHz	43.2	42.1
IBM RS/6000 355	IBM POWER 41MHz	40.7	83.3
Siemens PCE-4C	Intel 486DX2 66MHz	35.8	16.1
Motorola 8000	Motorola 88100 33MHz	27.7	18.8
SGI IRIS Indigo IP12	MIPS R3000 33MHz	22.4	24.2
Digital DECstation 5000	MIPS R3000 33MHz	20.9	23.4
HP 9000 425e	Motorola 68040 25MHz	12.2	9.3
Digital VAX4000	DEC KA46 22MHz	11.1	12.6

Documentation

Most HP documentation is only available at HP Museum and other archives, with most official sources, articles and journals having disappeared in the 2010s.

Manuals

• HP 9000 Series 700 Model 705 and 710 Owner’s Guide, Hewlett Packard (January 1992, A1991-90608, edition E0192) hpmuseum

LED messages

• LED errors and status messages might be displayed on the HP 9000 705/710 front LEDs

Product sheets

• Introducing the Model 705 Colour workstation, The power you need, Hewlett Packard (January 1992, A1991-90608, edition E0192) hpmuseum
• HP Apollo Series 700 Model 710 Workstation, product brief, Hewlett Packard (January 1992, 5091-3183E) hpmuseum

Articles

• High-Performance Design for Low-Cost PA-RISC Desktops (.pdf) pp. 55-63 Craig Fink et al (August 1992: Hewlett-Packard Journal) archive.org
• Hewlett unveils low-cost workstations, UPI Archives, May 12 1992
• New high-performance HP Apollo 9000 Series 700 workstations, HP Computer Update, HP, December 1992 hpmuseum
• Introducing the new HP Apollo 9000 Models 705 and 710 with breakthrough engineering and high-performance graphics, HP Computer Update, HP, Januar 1992 hpmuseum
• HP Apollo Series 700 Performance Brief, Hewlett Packard (n.d., no #) hpmuseum

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OpenPA is an independent resource for PA-RISC computers, technology and operating systems, edited since 1999 by Paul Weissmann. He also publishes OpenKRITIS on critical infrastructures and Insel Westberlin, a Berlin archive. OpenPA is a non-commercial, registered serial publication, ISSN 1866-2757. The Internet never forgets.

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