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
- ASP chipset
- Viper, separate memory and I/O controller as VLSI chip
- Adress buffer/controller, 64-pin VLSI CMOS chip
- 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)
System buses
- PBus processor/memory bus at full processor clock with 260 MB/s max data rate
- VSC main system (TTL) bus at half processor clock with 132 MB/s max data rate
- GSC I/O bus
- SGC, an expansion of the main bus (VSC) to SGC expansion cards
- EISA, expansion I/O bus for separate industry standard I/O cards
- SCSI-2 narrow single-ended bus
Memory
- HP proprietary memory modules, based on DRAMs with error detection and correction (EDC), 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 slots
- 720/730:
- One SGC (DIO-II formfactor) expansion slot
- One EISA slot
- 750:
- Two SGC (DIO-II formfactor) expansion slots
- Four EISA slots
Storage
- 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 ports
- 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
- HP-UX 10.20, 11.00 (unsupported)
- Linux
- OpenBSD
- NetBSD
- Research: HPBSD
- Research: Mach 4/Lites
- Research: MkLinux
- (720, apparently) Research: HP OSF/1
- Research: OSF MK-PA
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
- System design for a low cost PA-RISC desktop workstation, R. Horning et al, COMPCON Spring '91 Digest of Papers, 1991
- CMOS PA-RISC processor for a new family of workstations, M. Forsyth et al, COMPCON Spring '91 Digest of Papers, 1991
- Midrange PA-RISC Workstations with Price/Performance Leadership (.pdf) pp. 6-11 Andrew J. DeBaets and Kathleen M. Wheeler (August 1992: Hewlett-Packard Journal)
- HEWLETT-PACKARD UNLEASHES ITS RS/6000 KILLERS, Tech Monitor archive, March 26, 1991