HP 9000/C100 and C110
| Quick Facts | |
|---|---|
| Introduced | 1995 |
| Period | Maturity (III) |
| Series | Visualize |
| CPU | PA-7200 100-120 MHz |
| Cache | 256 KB L1 |
| RAM | 1 GB |
| Design | U2 |
| Drives | 3 SCSI 1 FD |
| Expansion | 1 GSC 3 EISA/GSC |
| I/O | Ethernet 2 SCSI 2 serial 2 PS/2 HIL audio |
The HP 9000 C100 and C110 are PA-RISC graphics workstations based on the PA-7200 processor and were introduced in 1995. The C-Class were marketed as technical workstations for graphical use cases – CAD, CAE and visualization, and were pretty fast Unix desktop computers for their time.
HP billed these entry C-Classes as having no-compromise, full computing power
to be used in technical and design applications
with 2D and 3D graphics.
HP 9000 C-Class have a similar case to the older HP 9000 735 workstations – interlocking I/O modules and CPU board, but are based on faster PA-7200 and U2.
There were other C-Class workstations with different designs: 32-bit C132L and C160L, 64-bit C160 and C180 and powerful C200 et al. Board upgrades of C100 and C110 were possible to C160 and C180.
| Model | Number | Introduced | Price |
|---|---|---|---|
| C100 | 9000/777 | 1995 | $19,715 |
| C110 | 9000/777 | 1995 | $25,715 |
System architecture
Processors
| Model | CPU | Speed | L1 Cache |
|---|---|---|---|
| C100 | PA-7200 | 100 MHz | 256/256 KB off-chip, 2 KB on-chip assist |
| C110 | PA-7200 | 120 MHz | 256/256 KB off-chip, 2 KB on-chip assist |
Chipset
- U2 I/O adapter Runway to GSC bridge
- MMC/SMC memory controllers
- LASI I/O chipset
- NCR 53C710 8-bit single-ended SCSI-2
- NCR 53C720 16-bit Fast-Wide high-voltage differential (HVD) SCSI-2
- Intel 82596CA 10 Mbit Ethernet controller
- Harmony CD/DAT quality 16-bit stereo audio
- Wax EISA bridge
- Graphics through separate GSC boards:
- Other I/O (serial, parallel, HP-HIL, Floppy)
» View a system-level ASCII-illustration of the system architecture.
System buses
- Runway CPU/memory bus (100 MHz 800 MB/s peak data rate on C100, 120 MHz, 960 MB/s on C110)
- GSC general system-level I/O bus
- EISA additional expansion I/O bus
- SCSI-2 single-ended bus
- SCSI-2 Fast-Wide high-voltage differential main storage I/O bus
Memory
- 72-pin ECC SIMMs, 60ns or faster
- Bus width: 128 data bits with 16 check bits
- Up to 8-way interleaving
- 400 MB/s (C100), 480 MB/s (C110) peak bandwidth
- Eight slots for 16-128 MB modules
- 32 MB to 1 GB supported
Expansion slots
- One slot for a GSC (EISA formfactor) card
- Three slots for GSC (EISA formfactor) or EISA cards
- I/O slot layout (from top to bottom):
- EISA or GSC
- EISA or GSC
- EISA or GSC (for secondary graphics)
- GSC (for primary graphics)
Storage
The disk slider can accomodate up to three SCSI drives and one floppy drive simultaneously, the internal cabling (usually) includes one Wide-SCSI cable with three 68-pin connectors and a HVD-terminator at the end, one Narrow-SCSI with one 50-pin connector and one cable for the floppy.
The Narrow-SCSI cable is normally used for the external-accessible half-height 5.25″ CD/DAT drive, although it is of course also possible to connect a 50-pin SE hard drive. The cable can also be easily replaced with a variant with more connectors to use up to three 50-pin SE hard drives. The PDC can boot off these SE drives.
The Wide-SCSI cable is normally used for the internal 3.5″ 68-pin Fast-Wide high-voltage differential system drives. Up to three hard drives can be installed in the cage, which leaves no room for an external-accessible CD/DAT drive though. The Fast-Wide drives are also bootable from the PDC.
A standard configuration could look like this:
- Two 3.5″ 68-pin Fast-Wide differential (HVD) SCSI hard drives,
- One 3.5″ Floppy drive and
- One external-accessible half-height 5.25″ SCSI drive (CD/DAT).
External ports
- SCSI-2 50-pin single-ended
- SCSI-3 68-pin Fast-Wide differential (HVD)
- Two serial RS232C DB9 (up 460.8Kb/s)
- Parallel DB25
- Ethernet RJ45
- Ethernet AUI 15-pin
- Graphics port depend on installed video adapter
- Two PS/2 connectors for keyboard and mouse
- HP-HIL for input device loop
- Four phone jacks (microphone, headphones, line-in and ?)
Operating systems
- HP-UX 10.20, 11.00 and 11i v1
- Apparently also HP-UX 10.00 and HP-UX 10.10
- Linux
- OpenBSD (32-bit)
- NetBSD (32-bit)
- Research: HPBSD
Benchmarks
| Model | SPEC95 int | SPEC95 fp | SPECrate95, int | SPECrate95, fp |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| C100 | 4.98 | 6.59 | 44.8 | 59.4 |
| C110 | 6.00 | 8.14 | 54.0 | 73.3 |
Comparison to SPEC benchmark data from other contemporary Unix workstations:
| Model | CPU | SPEC95 int | SPEC95 fp |
|---|---|---|---|
| Siemens SCENIC 1000 | Intel Pentium II 333MHz | 13.0 | 9.43 |
| SGI O2 | MIPS R10000 196MHz | 10.1 | 8.77 |
| 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 |
| SGI Indy | MIPS R5000 150MHz | 3.97 | 4.20 |
| Sun SPARCstation 20 | Sun SuperSPARC II 75MHz | 3.11 | 3.10 |
Pictures
- C110 workstation, Wikipedia, Thomas Schanz 2014
- C110 workstation with CRT, Wikipedia, Thomas Schanz 2014
- C110 rear, Wikipedia, Thomas Schanz 2014
- C110 open case, Wikipedia, Thomas Schanz 2014
- C110 and C160 CPU boards and C110 bottom, Wikipedia, Thomas Schanz 2014
- C110, C160, C240 and C360 CPU boards, Wikipedia, Thomas Schanz 2015
Dimensions
| Height | Width | Depth | Weight |
|---|---|---|---|
| 138mm | 539mm | 447mm | 21kg |
References
Manuals
- C100/110 Owners Guide (PDF, 1.6 MB)
- Service Handbook C Class (PDF, 1.5 MB)
- HP 9000 C-Class Workstation Family Models C100 and C110, HP Technical Computing (archive.org mirror), Hewlett-Packard Company (1997: mirror accessed January 2024)
