HP 9000 735 and 755 Workstations
| Quick Facts | |
|---|---|
| Introduced | 1992 |
| Period | Growth (II) |
| Series | 700 Series |
| CPU | PA-7100 32-bit PA-7150 32-bit 99-125 MHz |
| Caches | 512 KB |
| RAM | 400 MB (735) 768 MB (755) |
| Design | ASP2 |
| Drives | 2 SCSI (735) 4 SCSI (755) |
| Expansion | 1 SGC, 1 EISA, +1 (735) 2 SGC, 4 EISA (755) |
| I/O | Ethernet or FDDI 2 SCSI 2 serial parallel HIL audio |
HP 9000 735 and 755 were powerful technical and graphical PA-RISC workstations, released in 1992 in the Growth phase of PA-RISC. They use 32-bit HP PA-7100 or PA-7150 RISC processors — the latter in the expensive 735/125 and 755/125 versions with 125 MHz.
735 and 755 are similar to their HP 9000 730 and 750 predecessors with a large set of I/O buses, expansion options and drives, in an updated and much faster design.
HP 735 workstations were used in the same vein as the 730 and 750 in graphical computing with advanced 3D graphics. Where 730 and 750 were shipped with VRX graphics, 735 and 755 often made use of CRX adapters without the need for external graphics boxes.
HP 9000 735 were procured by the US Navy as part of the TAC-3 framework contract (Tactical Advanced Computer), possibly as AN/TSQ-142 mission planning system for the EA-6B aircraft and the HP 9000 755 used in ATWCS for cruise missile planning.
- HP 9000 735/99 were introduced in 1992 for $37,395
- HP 9000 735/125 were introduced in 1992 for $35,395 (SPU-only)
- HP 9000 755/99 were introduced in 1992 for $58,995
- HP 9000 755/125 were introduced in 1992
HP 9000 735/125 workstations were rather fast Unix computers of the early 1990s and one of the fastest ever running NeXTSTEP. They were often used in groups for heavy lifting in MCAD, engineering, analysis and instrumentation. 735 were widely used as FDDI node in larger Convex computing clusters for scientific computing.
System
Processors
| System | CPU | Speed | L1 cache |
|---|---|---|---|
| HP 9000 735/99 | PA-7100 PA-RISC 32-bit | 99 MHz | 256/256 KB off-chip |
| HP 9000 755/99 | PA-7100 PA-RISC 32-bit | 99 MHz | 256/256 KB off-chip |
| HP 9000 735/125 | PA-7150 PA-RISC 32-bit | 125 MHz | 256/256 KB off-chip |
| HP 9000 755/125 | PA-7150 PA-RISC 32-bit | 125 MHz | 256/256 KB off-chip |
Chipset
- HP ASP2 chipset
- HP Viper memory and I/O controller
- HP Cutoff interface to memory (Viper) and I/O buses, provides address decoding, bus arbitration and interrupts
- HP Shortstop coordinates data communication between I/O buses and mainbus
- NCR 53C700 8-bit single-ended SCSI-2
- NCR 53C720 16-bit Fast-Wide high-voltage differential (HVD) SCSI-2
- Intel 82596DX 10 Mbit Ethernet controller
- AMD Formac Plus Am79C830 FDDI controller
- Other I/O (serial, parallel, i8042)
- Intel 82350 EISA bus adapter chipset (EISA to GSC)
- Audio 16-bit CS4215 CODEC
- Graphics through separate boards:
System buses
- PBus processor/memory bus
66 MHz on 735/99 and 755/99 for 264 MB/s throughput - VSC main system bus
- 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
- SCSI-2 Fast-Wide high-voltage differential (HVD) main storage I/O bus
Expansion
Memory
- HP proprietary memory modules, same as 720, 730 and 750, and the Nova servers
- 8-32 MB modules
- 755 supports 64 MB modules
- 12 sockets
- 735 16 MB onboard, 400 MB maximum
- 755 768 MB maximum
- Memory has to be installed in pairs, from bank 0 to the outside
.______________. to backplane | |________________. | | | | | | | | | ##### | | | | | | | | | | | | | | #CPU# | | | | | | | | | | | | | | ##### | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | 5 4 3 2 1 0 0 1 2 3 4 5 | |_______________________________| \ /
Expansion cards
Both 735 and 755 use heavy desk-side cases with separate modules for I/O and CPU. These boards, along with EISA cages and storage subsystem are built into sliders that can be removed separately from the system.
HP 9000 735
- One SGC slot for SGC cards (DIO-II formfactor)
- One EISA slot for EISA cards
- One special daughter card slot for:
- A2665A - FDDI SAS daughter card with MIC connector
- A2658A - AUI Ethernet daughter card
- A2831A - ThinLAN Ethernet daughter card
HP 9000 755
- Two SGC slots for SGC cards (DIO-II formfactor)
- Four EISA slots for EISA cards
Storage
- 735 One tray for either two 3.5″ SCSI 68-pin Fast-Wide HVD or 50-pin narrow SE hard drives.
- 755 One tray for two half-height 5.25″ SCSI drives and two trays for one full-height 5.25″ SCSI drive each
Ports
- SCSI-2 50-pin single-ended external
- SCSI-3 68-pin Fast-Wide high-voltage differential HVD external
- Two standard RS232C serial
- DB25 parallel
- 735 15-pin AUI or 10Base2 BNC Ethernet or FDDI SAS MIC connector
- 755 15-pin AUI & 10Base2 BNC Ethernet connectors
- RGB BNC, depends on installed framebuffer, if at all
- HP-HIL connector for input devices
- Five phone jacks (microphone, headphones, line-in, line-out and speaker)
- Ten LEDs on the front for errors and status messages
Operating systems
Unix was the main operating system for HP 9000 735 and 755 with good 32-bit support in HP-UX between HP-UX 9.05 and HP-UX 10.20 as well as native (and fast!) NeXTSTEP support.
- 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 (9.05, 9.07), pre-Y2K
- Software on HP-UX: Very often used for engineering (CAD/CAM), mathematics (signals, radar), sometimes DTP
- Networked 735 workstations were sometimes used for finite element analysis (FEA) software on HP-UX
- NeXTSTEP, Mach-based Unix with beautiful GUI, PA-RISC in version 3.3
HP 9000 735 were often used in the open source scene of the 2000s as rather fast Unix workstations. Most open source systems support them well, though not all hardware devices.
- PA-RISC Linux, main Linux port to PA-RISC
- OpenBSD, open-source Unix-like, ported to PA-RISC
- NetBSD, open-source Unix-like, ported to PA-RISC
Most early research and development operating systems from the 1990s were ported to 720 and 730 workstations with broad development support:
- OSF MK-PA, Open Group OSF/1 Unix port to PA-RISC
- 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
Pictures
735/99
735/125
Performance
| 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 |
| HP 9000 755/99 | PA-7100 99 MHz | 109.1 | 167.9 | 3.22 | 4.06 |
| HP 9000 735/125 | PA-7150 125 MHz | 136.0 | 201.0 | 3.97 | 4.61 |
| HP 9000 755/125 | PA-7150 125 MHz | 136.0 | 201.0 | 3.97 | 4.61 |
Reviewers of new IBM RS/6000 offerings in Computerworld described the raw power
of the 1994 IBM POWER2, however when compared against the 1992-vintage 735 analysts noted that the HP 9000 735 still bested the 3BT with a SPECint92 rating of 136, vs. the IBM machine’s rating of 114.
| System | CPU | SPEC95 int |
SPEC95 fp |
|---|---|---|---|
| HP Visualize C240 | PA-8200 236 MHz | 17.10 | 25.40 |
| Intel Alder | Intel Pentium Pro 150MHz | 6.08 | 5.42 |
| HP 9000 C110 | PA-7200 120 MHz | 6.00 | 8.14 |
| Sun Ultra 1 | Sun UltraSPARC 143MHz | 5.41 | 7.90 |
| DEC Alphastation 250 | DEC Alpha 21064A 266MHz | 4.18 | 6.27 |
| Siemens PCE-5S | Intel Pentium 100MHz | 4.04 | 2.35 |
| SGI Indy | MIPS R5000 150 MHz | 3.82 | 4.78 |
| IBM RS/6000 3CT | POWER2 67MHz | 3.41 | 10.20 |
| HP 9000 712/80 | PA-7100LC 80 MHz | 3.12 | 3.55 |
| Sun SPARCstation 20 | Sun SuperSPARC II 75MHz | 3.11 | 3.10 |
| HP 9000 750 | PA-7000 66 MHz | 1.50 | 2.30 |
| DEC AlphaStation 200 | DEC Alpha 21064 100MHz | 1.48 | 2.79 |
| HP 9000 720 | PA-7000 50 MHz | 1.20 | 2.00 |
| Sun SPARCstation 10 | Sun SuperSPARC 40MHz | 1.13 | 1.38 |
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 9000/735 Second Generation PA-RISC Snakes Workstation, Hewlett-Packard (IEEE paper, 1993) bitsavers
- HP Apollo 9000 Series 700 Model 735 Workstations Service Handbook, Hewlett Packard (1992, A2095–90602, edition 00893) parisc-linux
- HP 9000 Series 700 Model 735 Owner’s Guide, Hewlett Packard (1992, A2095-90608, edition E0394) hpmuseum
- HP 9000 Series 700 Model 735 Hardware Installation Guide, Hewlett Packard (1992, A2095-90000, edition E0493) hpmuseum
- HP 9000 Series 700 Model 755 Owner’s Guide, Hewlett Packard (1992, A2288-90607, edition E0894) hpmuseum
LED messages
- LED errors and status messages might be displayed on the HP 9000 735 and 755 front LEDs
Product sheets
- HP Apollo Series 700 Model 755 Workstation, two pager, Hewlett Packard (October 1992, 5091-9336E) hpmuseum
- HP Apollo Series 700 Model 755 Workstation, product brief, Hewlett Packard (April 1993, 5091-5839E) hpmuseum
- HP 9000 Series 700 Model 735/125 Product Guide, Hewlett Packard (March 1994, 5962-8546E) hpmuseum
- HP Apollo Series 700 Model 735 and 735/125, product brief, Hewlett Packard (April 1993, 5091-5838EE) hpmuseum
- HP 9000 Series 700 Model 735 and 735/125, product brief, Hewlett Packard (March 1994, 5091-9898E) hpmuseum
- HP 9000 Series 700 Model 735CL Computational Cluster, product brief, Hewlett Packard (March 1994, 5962-8466E) hpmuseum
Articles
- The Art Of Computer Design, HP Professional, Hewlett-Packard (March 1997) archive.org
- IBM beefs up Unix boxes, Computerworld (1994, Volume 18, Issue 22) archive.org