HP 9000/720, 730 and 750
| Quick Facts | |
|---|---|
| Introduced | 1991 |
| Period | Growth (II) |
| CPU | 1 PA-7000 50/66 MHz |
| Caches | 384-512 KB L1 |
| RAM | 272 MB (730) 768 (750) |
| Design | ASP |
| Drives | 2 SCSI (720/730) 4 SCSI (750) |
| Expansion | 1 SGC, 1 EISA (720/730) 2 SGC, 4 EISA (750) |
| Bandwidth | CPU 264 MB/s (730/750) CPU 200 MB/s (720) Sys 132 MB/s (730/750) Sys 100 MB/s (720) |
| I/O | 10E SCSI 2 serial parallel HIL |
Overview
The HP 9000 720, 730 and 750 computers were the first PA-RISC workstations, called the Snakes, based on the first 32-bit PA-RISC 1.1 processors.
They were built into solid cases consisting of interlocking exchangeable modules (sliders
).
The storage subsystem has its own slider
, connected to the main I/O board with a short external cable.
The 720 and 730 share the same backplane and I/O board and can be upgraded through the exchange of the CPU board.
Later HP 9000/735 workstations share a similar system setup and
720/730 CPU and I/O boards can be swapped together for 735 boards, and vice versa
(as 735 I/O boards do not work with 720 CPU boards, both boards have to be exchanged).
The HP 9000 720, 730 and 750 were used by the US Navy as part of the TAC-3 (Tactical Advanced Computer) for a variety of applications, including electronic intelligence gathering (ELINT).
| Model | Introduced | Price |
|---|---|---|
| 720 | 1991 | $11,990 |
| 730 | 1991 | $ |
| 750 | 1991 | $52,890 |
System
CPU
- 720: PA-7000 50 MHz with 384 KB off-chip L1 cache
- 730: PA-7000 66 MHz with 384 KB off-chip L1 cache
- 750: PA-7000 66 MHz with 512 KB off-chip L1 cache
Chipset
- ASP chipset
- Viper memory and I/O controller
- NCR 53C700 8-bit single-ended SCSI-2
- Intel 82596DX 10 Mbit Ethernet controller
- Intel 82C501AD Ethernet transceiver
- Intel 82350 EISA bus adapter chipset (EISA to GSC)
- Other I/O (serial, parallel, i8042)
Buses
- PBus processor/memory bus at processor clock
- VSC main system bus at 0.5 of processor clock
- GSC system-level I/O bus
- EISA additional I/O expansion bus
- SGC expansion of the mainbus to the SGC expansion cards
- SCSI-2 narrow single-ended bus
Memory
- HP proprietary memory modules, some shared with 735/755
- 720: 8 slots
- 730: 8 slots and 16 MB onboard
272 MB (8×32+16) maximum - 750: 12 slots
768 MB (12×64) maximum
Expansion
- 720/730:
- One SGC (DIO-II formfactor) expansion slot
- Sne EISA slot
- 750:
- Two SGC (DIO-II formfactor) expansion slots
- Four EISA slots
Drives
- 720/730: Two SCSI 3.5″ Narrow SE 50-pin hard drives
- 750: Two SCSI half-height 5.25″ Narrow SE 50-pin SCSI drives and two SCSI full-height 5.25″ Narrow SE 50-pin SCSI drives
External
- SCSI-2 50-pin single-ended
- Two Serial RS232C DB9 (up to 115200 baud)
- Parallel DB25
- 15-pin AUI 10 Mbit & 10Base2 BNC Ethernet
- Graphics depend on installed SGC framebuffer
- HP-HIL connector for input devices
- Jack for beep audio
Operating systems
Benchmarks
| Model | SPEC92, int | SPEC92, fp | SPEC95, int | SPEC95, fp |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 720 | 36.4 | 58.2 | 1.20 | 2.00 |
| 730 | 47.8 | 75.4 | 1.50 | 2.30 |
| 750 | 48.1 | 75.0 | 1.50 | 2.30 |
References:
Manuals
- HP Apollo 9000 Model 720/730 owner’s guide (PDF, 1.8 MB, Hewlett Packard)
- HP Apollo 9000 Model 750 owner’s guide (PDF, 2.1 MB, Hewlett Packard)
Articles
- Midrange PA-RISC Workstations with Price/Performance Leadership (.pdf) pp. 6-11 Andrew J. DeBaets and Kathleen M. Wheeler (August 1992: Hewlett-Packard Journal)