HP 9000/745 VME Workstations
| Quick Facts | |
|---|---|
| Introduced | 1998 |
| Period | Maturity (III) |
| Series | 740 VME |
| CPU | 1 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)/ (2/4 PMC PCI) 4 EISA/ 4 PCI |
| Bandwidth | ? |
| I/O | micro 10E SCSI micro serial micro parallel micro VGA 2 PS/2 micro audio |
The HP 9000 745 PA-RISC VME industrial computers were released by HP in 1998 and integrated HP 9000 744 VME boards with PA-7300LC 32-bit PA-RISC CPUs into a heavy VME case with integrated I/O facilities.
They were rugged and rack- mountable, with built-in HP-IB, four EISA slots, excellent flexibility, completely compatible with all HP 9000 Series 700 controllers and workstations.
The 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 both 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.
| Model | Introduced | Price |
|---|---|---|
| 745/132L | 1998 | $9,999 |
| 745/165L | 1998 |
Released at the tail-end of PA-RISC, after HP had committed to the EPIC Itanium architecture and planned to phase out PA-RISC in the 2000s, market enthusiasm for PA-based VME boards seemed limited.
The 165 MHz version appears in technical documents but otherwise few public mentions exist.
HP 74x VME products were discontinued in 2002 as customers have migrated to new solutions and platforms more rapidly than anticipated
with end of support between 2003 and 2007.
System architecture
Processors
| Model | CPU | Speed | L1 Cache | L2 Cache |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 745/132L | PA-7300LC | 132 MHz | 128 KB on-chip | |
| 745/165L | PA-7300LC | 165 MHz | 128 KB on-chip | 512 KB off-chip |
Chipset
- LASI chipset
- NCR 53C710 8-bit single-ended SCSI-2
- Intel 82596CA 10 Mbit Ethernet controller
- Wax EISA bridge
- Dino GSC-to-PCI bridge
- Phantom PseudoBC GSC+ port
- Visualize-EG
Graffiti
graphics with 2MB frame buffer memory - VME
Backplane controller ASIC
- Harmony CD/DAT quality 16-bit stereo audio
- PCMCIA controller
- 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 for the 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 the A4219A GSC Expansion kit or
- Two sites for PCI-mezzanine (PMC) cards, requires the 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. However they probably use the GSC bus routed through the VME P1/P2 connectors, and not the VME bus. - 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 DB91
- Micro-Parallel DB251
- Micro-DB15 Ethernet AUI 15-pin1
- Micro-DB15 VGA graphics1
- Two PS/2 connectors for keyboard & mouse
- Micro-DB9 for audio breakout1
Notes
- These micro-connectors need HP conversion cables to provide the normal-sized versions of their respective connectors
Other
- Refer also to the 743i and 744 VME boards description
Operating systems
Benchmarks
| Model | SPEC95 int | SPEC95 fp |
|---|---|---|
| 745/132L | 6.45 | 6.70 |
| 745/165L | 7.90 | 7.64 |
Comparison to SPEC benchmark data from other contemporary Unix workstations:
| Model | 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 |
| IBM RS/6000 43P | PowerPC 604 100 MHz | 6.19 | 3.20 |
| Digital Alphastation 255 | DEC Alpha 21064A 233MHz | 4.27 | 5.09 |
Dimensions
| Height | Width | Depth | Weight | Power |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 177mm | 425mm | 412mm | 29kg | 400W |
References
- HP Model 745 Technical Reference Manual (.pdf, 1.7 MB) Hewlett Packard (April 1999)
- Model 745 Industrial Controller Owner’s Guide (.pdf, 4.8 MB) Hewlett Packard (November 1999)
- Model 745 Service Handbook (.pdf) Hewlett Packard (November 1999)
- 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 mirror), Hewlett-Packard Company (1997: mirror accessed January 2024)