HP 9000 Series 800 Nova Servers
| Quick Facts | |
|---|---|
| Introduced | 1991-1993 |
| CPU | 1/1-2 (x70) PA-7000/PA-7100 32-96 MHz |
| Caches | 96 KB-4 MB L1 |
| RAM | 128 MB (F10) 192 MB (F20/F30) 384 MB (H20/H30/G30/I30) 768 MB (x50/x60/x70) |
| Design | Viper |
| Drives | many |
| Expansion | 2 HP-PB (Fx0) 6 HP-PB (Gx0/Hx0) 12 HP-PB (Ix0) |
| Bandwidth | ? |
| I/O | SCSI MUX parallel |
Overview
The Nova servers were second-generation 32-bit HP 9000/800 PA-RISC servers from the early 1990s and based on PA-7000 and PA-7100 processors. They were available in different sizes with different expansion options, CPUs and clock speeds, denoted by the following naming convention:
- The first letter [F, G, H, I] indicates external features, like casing and expansion
- The number [10, 20, …, 70] indicates internal features, like CPU and chipset
They were suceeded in the HP 9000/800 series by the PA-7100LC E-Class servers with a similar case to the F-Class.
Model numbers.
| System | Model number |
|---|---|
| F10 | HP 9000/807 |
| F20, H20 | HP 9000/817, HP 9000/827 |
| F30, G30/H30, I30 | HP 9000/837, HP 9000/847, HP 9000/857 |
| G40/H40, I40 | HP 9000/867, HP 9000/877 |
| G50/H50, I50 | HP 9000/887, HP 9000/897 |
| G60/H60, I60 | HP 9000/887, HP 9000/897 |
| G70/H70, I70 | HP 9000/887, HP 9000/897 |
Internals
CPU
- F10: PA-7000 32 MHz with 32/64 KB off-chip I/D L1 cache
- F20, H20: PA-7000 48 MHz with 64/64 KB off-chip I/D L1 cache
- F30, G30, H30, I30: PA-7000 48 MHz with 256/256 KB off-chip I/D L1 cache
- G40, H40, I40: PA-7000 64 MHz with 256/256 KB off-chip I/D L1 cache
- G50, H50, I50: PA-7100 96 MHz with 256/256 KB off-chip I/D L1 cache
- G60, H60, I60: PA-7100 96 MHz with 1024/1024 KB off-chip I/D L1 cache
- G70, H70, I70: 1-2 PA-7100 96 MHz with 2048/2048 KB off-chip I/D L1 cache each
Optional FPU in systems with PA-7000 processors the FPU.
Chipset
The chipset a variant of the ASP, with at least the Viper memory controller interfacing the processor to memory and the HP-PB I/O bus. The rest of the system I/O is implemented on so-called HP-PB Personality Boards.
» View a system-level illustration (ASCII) of the 807-877 chipset.
Buses
- PBus processor/memory bus
- VSC main system bus
- HP-PB bus for the general I/O
- SCSI-2 Narrow single-ended bus for main storage I/O
Memory
- HP proprietary modules like on 720, 730 and 750, and 735/755
- F10: 16 MB minimum, 128 MB (8×16 MB) maximum
- F20 and F30: 16 MB minimum, 192 MB (12×16 MB) maximum
- H20, H30, G30, I30, x40: 16 MB minimum, 384 MB (12×32 MB) maximum
- x50, x60, x70: 16 MB minimum, 768 MB (12×64 MB) maximum
Expansion
- Fx0: two HP-PB single-height/one double-height slots
- Gx0: six HP-PB single-height/three double-height slots
- Hx0: six HP-PB single-height/three double-height slots
- Ix0: twelve HP-PB single-height/six double-height slots
Drives
- Many
External connectors
- SCSI-2 50-pin single-ended
- High-pin-count MUX connector
- Parallel DB25
- Rest depends on installed HP-PB cards
References
Manuals
- Owner’s Guide to the HP 9000 8x7S Family (.pdf) Hewlett-Packard Company (1991. Accessed January 2009 at hpmuseum.net)
- CE Handbook Series 9x7 and Model 8x7S Family (.pdf) Hewlett-Packard Company (February 1992, edition E0292, part number A1707-90016. Accessed January 2009 at hpmuseum.net)
Other
- Pinout for the mini-DIN console connector at the back
Operating systems
The only operating system for these servers was HP-UX, with all of them supported in HP-UX 10.20 for 800s servers and 11.00. First supported release was HP-UX 8.02, official support was dropped in 11.11 (11i v1).
It is unlikely there will ever be a port of an open source operating system, as not much documentation exist on the I/O and system details.
Benchmarks
| Model | SPEC92, int | SPEC92, fp | MIPS |
|---|---|---|---|
| F10 | 22.0 | 36.6 | 35 |
| x20 | 33.6 | 56.1 | 53 |
| x30 | 37.8 | 62.4 | 53 |
| x40 | 65.2 | 91.3 | 70 |
| x50 | 100.0 | 158.5 | 115 |
| x60 | 108.8 | 195.3 | 115 |
| x70 | 108.8 | 195.3 | 115 |