HP Visualize B2000 and B2600

Quick Facts
Introduced	2000
Period	Maturity (III)
CPU	1 PA-8500 (B2000) 1 PA-8600 (B2600) 400-500 MHz
Cache	1.5 MB L1
RAM	4 GB
Design	Astro
Drives	2 SCSI 1 FD 1 IDE
Expansion	4 PCI
Bandwidth	?
I/O	100E VGA (B2000) 2 serial parallel 2 USB audio

These HP Visualize B-Class PA-RISC workstations from 2000 were aimed at the graphics workstations market, equipped with the 64-bit PA-8500 or PA-8600 processors with large on-chip L1 caches. The B2000 usually uses the PA-8500 in a small tower case whereas the B2600 is built in a desktop, featuring the PA-8600 CPU. The architecture was a major change from those of its predecessors, the C200 et al, now based on Astro/Elroy, new I/O devices and without the LASI I/O chip and GSC bus. All device I/O now is implemented by PCI buses, human I/O devices are connected to USB ports.

Model	Number	Introduced	Price
B2000	9000/785	2000
C2600	9000/785	2000

System architecture

Processors

Model	CPU	Speed	L1 Cache
B2000	PA-8500	300 MHz	512/1024 KB on-chip
B2600	PA-8600	500 MHz	512/1024 KB on-chip

Note there were some B2000s shipped with or upgraded to PA-8600 (PCXW+) processors.

Chipset

Astro memory/Runway controller
Two Elroy PCI bridges
National 87560 (SuperI/O), handling USB, RS232, parallel, floppy and IDE
National 87415 IDE controller
National USB controller
Analog Devices AD1889 sound chip (on B2600 the audio card is optional)
DEC 21142/43 Fast Ethernet controller (Tulip)
Symbios Logic 53C896 Ultra2-Wide SCSI-3 controller
B2000: Visualize FXe graphics

System buses

Runway CPU/memory bus
PCI-32/33 device I/O bus
PCI-64/33 high-performance I/O bus
SCSI-3 Ultra2-Wide LVD bus main storage I/O
IDE bus; removable device-I/O

Memory

278-pin 120 MHz ECC SD-RAM DIMMs
Four slots for 128 MB-1 GB modules
128 MB to 4 GB supported

Expansion slots

Two PCI 64-bit/33 MHz, 5 V slots (clocked at 66 MHz on B2600)
Two PCI 32-bit/33 MHz, 5 V slots
B2000 I/O slot layout, from top to bottom:
1. PCI-64/33, 5 V
2. PCI-64/33, 5 V
3. PCI-32/33, 5 V
4. PCI-32/33, 5 V
B2600 I/O slot layout, from top to bottom:
1. PCI-32/33, 5 V, short PCI cards
2. PCI-32/33, 5 V, short PCI cards
3. PCI-64/33, 5 V, short and full-length cards
4. PCI-64/33, 5 V, short and full-length cards

Storage

Two SCSI 3.5″ Ultra2-Wide LVD hard drives with 80-pin SCA connector
3.5″ Floppy drive
IDE half-heigth 5.25″ drive, external accessible

External ports

B2000: VGA HD15
Two serial RS232C DB9
Parallel DB25
Fast Ethernet RJ45
Two USB ports for keyboard & mouse
Four audio jacks (microphone, headphones, line-in and line-out) (on B2600 the audio card is optional)

Operating systems

HP-UX 10.20 (unclear if B2600 supports 10.20), 11.00 and 11i v1
Linux
OpenBSD (32-bit)
NetBSD (32-bit)

Benchmarks

Model	SPEC95, int	SPEC95, fp	SPEC95 rate, int	SPEC95 rate, fp	SPEC2000, int	SPEC2000, fp	SPEC2000 rate, int	SPEC2000 rate, fp
B2000	31.80	52.40	286	472	332	357	3.8	4.1
B2600					403	440	4.7	5.1

Dimensions

Model	Height	Width	Depth	Weight
B2000	445mm	229mm	495mm	21kg
B2600	127mm	425mm	457mm	20kg

References

Manuals

B2000 Service Handbook (PDF, 8.8 MB)
B2000 Owner’s Guide (PDF, 2.6 MB)
B2600 Technical Reference Manual (PDF, 33.0 MB)
VISUALIZE Workstation Memory Subsystem (PDF, 120 KB)

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