HP 9000 842, 852, 865 and 870 Servers

HP 9000 842, 852, 865 and the multi-processor 870 are the last early 800s servers, released by HP in 1990 and 1991. They used the first PA-RISC processor implemented in CMOS, the 32-bit PA-RISC 1.0 PCX.

These HP 9000 842, 852, 865 servers were similar to earlier HP NMOS NS-2 PA-RISC servers with similar system design and I/O architecture and slightly modified CPU/SPU architecture. The HP 9000 870 server was the first SMP multiprocessing PA-RISC computer, a significant technical milestone for HP.

System also Processor Design Year Price
HP 9000 842 PCX PA-RISC 32 MHz SPI and SMB 1990 $85,000
HP 9000 852 PCX PA-RISC 50 MHz SPI and SMB 1990 $143,000
HP 9000 865 865S PCX PA-RISC 50 MHz SPI and SMB 1991 $275,000
HP 9000 870 870S 1-4 PCX PA-RISC 50 MHz SPI and SMB 1991 $440,000

HP 9000 842 and 852

HP 8000 842 and 852
HP 9000 842 and 852 © Hewlett Packard 1991

HP 9000 842 and 852 servers were introduced as workgroup servers in 1990 and 1991. HP 9000 842 SilverBullet Low used 32 MHz PCX processors with large 1024 KB cache, 8192-entry TLB and 256 MB maximum RAM. HP 9000 852 SilverBullet High were almost the same design, but with a faster 50 MHz PCX processor.

Both machines use SPI/SMB system design and HP-PB expansion cards for I/O and devices. Performance of 842 was about 30 MIPS for $85,000 at time of introduction in 1990, with the 852 having 50 MIPS for around $143,000.

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HP 9000 865 and 870

HP 9000 865 and 870 were large cabinet servers, released in 1991 based on the next PCX processor, the first in CMOS and last PA-RISC 1.0 implementation. HP 9000 870 were the first PA-RISC SMP multiprocessing computers released by HP.

HP 9000 865 Panther servers are cabinet computers in a bigger design than the previous 800 series, based on the new CMOS-based 50 MHz PCX PA-RISC processor with 768 KB cache and a 8192-entry TLB. The system design was SPI/SMB-based, with the CIO bus for I/O; maximum RAM was 512 MB. HP 9000 865 sold for $275,000 in 1991 and were supposed to have a performance of 56 MIPS.

HP 8000 870S
HP 9000 870S © Hewlett Packard 1990

HP 9000 870 Emerald servers were the first SMP multiprocessor PA-RISC systems, released in 1991 and hosted in a large cabinet with up to four 50 MHz PCX processors with 1024 KB cache and a 8192-entry TLB.

HP added SMP support since that offer[ed] the most cost-effective means of improving the performance of a given platform. Adding a processor board to a system is an extremely effective way of adding power. HP 9000 870/100 was uni-CPU, 870/200 dual, 870/300 triple and 870/400 quad-CPU with 1 MB cache per CPU.

HP 9000 870 servers used a SPI/SMB system design, with CIO bus for I/O. A MidBus converter connected the SMB (with CPU and memory) to MidBus and CIO. Maximum RAM was 1024 MB with two memory controllers in 16 slots.

While the processer used was fresh, the chassis was older – With the Model 870, we placed an extremely powerful 1990-vintage processor into a chassis that was designed in 1983. The next PA-RISC SMP computers were HP 9000 890 and Nova servers.

Performance was supposedly 50 or 56 MIPS for single-CPU, 90 or 112 MIPS for dual-CPU, up to 168 MIPS for triple-CPU and up to 224 MIPS for quad-CPU. Introduction prices were $440,000 for 870/300, $530,000 for 870/400.

Later HP 9000 890 mainframes are possibly similar to the 870. They had up to four PA-RISC CPUs and were an upgrade and technology enhancement path offered by HP. HP positioned the 870S server with CA Unicenter against IBM System/9000 320 mainframes.

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Operating systems

HP 9000 842, 852, 865 and 870 servers were supported in HP-UX possibly from version HP-UX 8 in 1991 to HP-UX 10.10 in 1995.

HP-UX support for early HP 9000 800 servers
HP-UX Year Comment
HP-UX 10.10 1995 UNIX95, CDE, ServiceGuard
HP-UX 10.01 1995 System V, DCE, Streams, better I/O and memory
unsupported: 635, 645, 808, 815
unsupported: 825CHX, 825SRX, 834CH, 835SRX
HP-UX 9.0 1992 PA-7100 and PA-7100LC support, LVM, VUE
9.02, 9.04 and 9.06 added hardware support
9.08 was B1 security release
HP-UX 8.0 1991 8.02 added Nova support
8.04 and 8.08 were security versions
8.06 was the first HP-UX with SMP

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Performance

Assorted MIPS performance figures for early HP 9000 800 servers.

Based on HP, Dhrystone and MIPS archives
System CPU MIPS
HP 9000 840 TS-1 PA-RISC 8 MHz 4.5
HP 9000 842 PCX PA-RISC 32 MHz 30
HP 9000 852 PCX PA-RISC 50 MHz 50
HP 9000 865 PCX PA-RISC 50 MHz 56
HP 9000 870/100 PCX PA-RISC 50 MHz 56
HP 9000 870/200 2 PCX PA-RISC 50 MHz 112
HP 9000 870/300 3 PCX PA-RISC 50 MHz 168
HP 9000 870/400 4 PCX PA-RISC 50 MHz 224

Comparison to SPEC benchmark data of other RISC and Unix computers:

Based on old SPEC92, Dhrystone and MIPS archives
System CPU SPEC92
int		 SPEC89 MIPS
HP 9000 G50 PA-7000 96 MHz 100.0 136.1 115
HP 9000 712/80 PA-7100LC 80 MHz 97.1 97
Siemens PCE-5S Intel Pentium 100MHz 96.2 79
HP 9000 I40 PA-7000 64 MHz 65.2 70
Sun SPARCstation 10 Sun SuperSPARC 40MHz 50.2 71.2 58
HP 9000 750 PA-7000 66 MHz 48.1 77.5 69
Siemens PCE-4C Intel 486DX2 66MHz 35.8 25.6 37
HP 9000 F10 PA-7000 32 MHz 22.0 35
DECstation 5000 MIPS R3000 33MHz 20.9 25.5 29
HP Apollo DN10000 Apollo PRISM 18 MHz 19 22
DECstation 3100 MIPS R2000 16MHz 8.4 11.8 15.1
HP 9000 425e Motorola M68040 25MHz 12.2 10.3 18
HP 9000 500 FOCUS 18 MHz 0.98
DEC VAX 11/780 KA780 3.4MHz 1 1 0.9
IBM PC AT Intel 80286 6MHz 0.8

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Documentation

Information on early PA-RISC computers is fragmented and inconsistent, even in official sales and technical documentation. This article was pieced together from news and press releases plus documentation available at the HP Computer Museum.

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