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PA-RISC information - since 1999

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 MB (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

The HP 9000 720, 730 and 750 were the first dedicated HP 9000 700 PA-RISC workstations, called the Snakes, released in 1991. They were based on the first implementation of PA-RISC version 1.1, the PA-7000 (PCX-S) processor, which was designed to power low cost high performance workstations.

The workstations were designed for graphics and integrated computing requirements – many I/O subsystems and interfaces were designed into the basic computer, such as NCR SCSI, HP graphics and Intel Ethernet networking. The system bus used is based on SGC, a proprietary HP graphics bus

The Snakes were built into rather solid cases of interlocking 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.

The HP 9000 720, 730 and 750 were widely used by the US Navy as part of the TAC-3 (Tactical Advanced Computer) framework for a variety of military applications, including electronic intelligence gathering (ELINT).

Model Introduced Price
720 1991 $11,990
730 1991 $19,990
750 1991 $43,190

Later HP 9000/735 workstations share a similar case and system setup as the Snakes, HP 9000 720 and 730 CPU and I/O boards can be swapped for 735 boards for a system upgrade, and vice versa (735 I/O boards do not work with 720 CPU boards, both had to be exchanged).

Especially the more affordable 720 and 730 workstations were widely used in the Unix world of the 1990s, in academia and the industry for technical design and computing. Due to their popularity, many operating systems run on the Snakes workstations and were ported to it, including many research and development projects such as OSF/1 and a variety of Mach.

System architecture

Processors

Model CPU Speed L1 Cache
720 PA-7000 50 MHz 384 KB off-chip
730 PA-7000 66 MHz 384 KB off-chip
750 PA-7000 66 MHz 512 KB off-chip

Chipset

System buses

Memory

Expansion slots

Storage

External ports

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

Articles

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