HP 9000 745 VME Workstations
Quick Facts | |
---|---|
Introduced | 1998 |
Period | Maturity (III) |
Series | 740 VME |
CPU | PA-7300LC 132-165 MHz |
Caches | 128 KB L1 0-512 KB L2 |
RAM | 1 GB |
Design | LASI |
Drives | 5 SCSI |
Expansion | (2 GSC-M/PMC) 4 EISA/PCI |
I/O | micro Ethernet SCSI micro serial micro parallel micro VGA 2 PS/2 micro audio |
HP 9000 745 PA-RISC VME industrial computers were released by HP in 1998 and integrated HP 9000 744 VME boards with 32-bit PA-7300LC PA-RISC processors into rugged VME case with integrated I/O.
They were rack-mountable, with built-in HP-IB, four EISA slots, excellent flexibility, completely compatible with all HP 9000 Series 700 controllers and workstations.
Earlier HP 9000 745i were similar but used PA-7100LC processors.

745 had a case with room for up to four SCSI devices, a four-slot EISA or PCI cage and PCI-mezzanine expansion cards, via special so-called PMC bridges, that are quite rare these days.
They were designed for durability and reliability in harsh environments, and targets customers using compute-intensive applications in the military, and in test and measurement, telecommunications and manufacturing.
In the late 1990s, market enthusiasm for PA-RISC VME boards seemed limited.
The 165 MHz version appears in technical documents but otherwise few public mentions exist.
HP 9000 740 VME products were discontinued in 2002 as customers have migrated to new solutions and platforms more rapidly than anticipated
.
System architecture
Processors
System | CPU | Speed | L1 cache | L2 cache |
---|---|---|---|---|
HP 9000 745/132L | PA-7300LC PA-RISC 32-bit | 132 MHz | 128 KB on-chip | |
HP 9000 745/165L | PA-7300LC PA-RISC 32-bit | 165 MHz | 128 KB on-chip | 512 KB off-chip |
Chipset
- HP LASI chipset
- Integrated NCR 53C710 8-bit single-ended SCSI-2
- Integrated Intel 82596CA 10 Mbit Ethernet controller
- HP Wax EISA bridge
- HP Dino GSC-to-PCI bridge
- HP Phantom PseudoBC GSC+ port
- HP Visualize-EG
Graffiti
graphics with 2MB frame buffer memory - VME
Backplane controller ASIC
- Integrated HP Harmony CD/DAT quality 16-bit stereo audio
- Integrated Other I/O (serial, parallel, HP-HIL)
System buses
- GSC bus
- Optional EISA bus
- Optional PCI-32/33 bus
- VME bus
- SCSI-2 Fast-Narrow single-ended bus
Memory
- 16-256 MB special ECC mezzanine cards (same as in 744 VME boards)
- Up to four cards can be installed
- 16 MB minimum, 1 GB maximum amount of RAM
Expansion slots
- Two sites for GSC-mezzanine (GSC-M) cards, requires A4219A GSC Expansion kit or
- Two sites for PCI-mezzanine (PMC) cards, requires A4504A PMC bridge board
(two additional PMC sites can be obtained through the addition of the A4509A PMC Expander board to the above). The PMC bridge/expander boards connect to the VME backplane on a VME slot above the 744 processing board. They probably use GSC bus routed through the VME P1/P2 connectors, and not VME. - Either four EISA or four PCI (5 V) slots in a separate I/O cage
Storage
- Four bays for external-accessible SCSI (SCSI-2 Single-ended) drives
- One bay for a 3.5″ SCSI drive
External ports
- SCSI-2 50-pin Fast-Narrow single-ended
- Two Serial micro-RS232C DB9*
- Micro-Parallel DB25*
- Micro-DB15 Ethernet AUI 15-pin*
- Micro-DB15 VGA graphics*
- Two PS/2 connectors for keyboard & mouse
- Micro-DB9 for audio breakout*
* - Note: These micro-connectors need HP conversion cables to provide the normal-sized versions of their respective connectors
Other
- Refer also to the HP 9000 743i and 744 VME boards
Operating systems
- HP-UX, the original HP Unix shipped with it
- HP-UX 11i v1 in 32-bit mode
- HP-UX 11.00 in 32-bit mode
- HP-UX 10.20 32-bit
- HP-UX 10.00 and HP-UX 10.10, pre-Y2K
- PA-RISC Linux, main Linux port to PA-RISC, supported by HP in the 2000s
- OpenBSD, open-source Unix-like, ported to PA-RISC
Benchmarks
System | SPEC95 int | SPEC95 fp |
---|---|---|
HP 9000 745/132L | 6.45 | 6.70 |
HP 9000 745/165L | 7.90 | 7.64 |
Comparison to SPEC benchmark data from other contemporary Unix workstations:
System | CPU | SPEC95 int | SPEC95 fp |
---|---|---|---|
Intel Alder | Intel Pentium Pro 200MHz | 8.09 | 6.75 |
Sun Ultra 2 1170 | Sun UltraSPARC 167MHz | 6.34 | 9.33 |
DEC Alphastation 255 | DEC Alpha 21064A 233MHz | 4.27 | 5.09 |
IBM RS/6000 43P | PowerPC 604 100 MHz | 3.59 | 3.20 |
Dimensions
Height | Width | Depth | Weight | Power |
---|---|---|---|---|
177mm | 425mm | 412mm | 29kg | 400W |
Documentation
- HP Model 745 Technical Reference Manual (.pdf, 1.7 MB) Hewlett Packard (April 1999) parisc linux
- Model 745 Industrial Controller Owner’s Guide (.pdf, 4.8 MB) Hewlett Packard (November 1999) parisc linux
- Model 745 Service Handbook (.pdf) Hewlett Packard (November 1999) parisc linux
- HP Test & Measurement Catalog 1999, Hewlett Packard 1999
- HP 9000 MODEL 745/132L UNIX WORKSTATION DEBUTS, The Free Library. 1998 Worldwide Videotex
- VMEbus Single Board Computers and Industrial Workstations archive.org, Hewlett-Packard Company (1997: mirror accessed January 2024)