PA-RISC information - since 1999

HP Visualize J200, J210, J280, J2240

Quick Facts
Introduced 1995-1997
Period Maturity (III)
Series Visualize
CPU 1-2
PA-7200 32-bit
PA-8000 64-bit
PA-8200 64-bit
100-236 MHz
Cache 0.5-4 MB
RAM 2 GB
4 GB (J2240)
Design U2/UTurn
Drives 4 SCSI
Expansion 1 GSC
2 EISA
2 EISA/GSC
(J2240:)
1 PCI
1 PCI/EISA
3 PCI/GSC
I/O Ethernet
Fast Ether (J2240)
2 SCSI
2 serial
2 PS/2
HIL
audio

HP Visualize J-Class are large PA-RISC workstations from the mid-1990s, up to two-way SMP in deskside chassis. Introduced in 1995, the J200 and J210 were the first PA-RISC workstations not using the Series 700 naming convention anymore. Together with the contemporary C-Class, the J-Class superseded earlier HP 9000 700 workstations like the 715 and 735.

© Hewlett Packard 1997

J-Class later included a variety of 32- and 64-bit processors: J200 and J210 were 32-bit, the J280, J282 and J2240 were 64-bit. J280 was single-processor and could be upgraded to dual J282 – all others were two-way SMP-capable out of the box.

HP marketed J-Class against contemporary Unix and RISC offerings, specifically the Sun Ultra 2 U2 2200 and focused use cases of advanced 3D, computational analysis and compute- and memory-intensive processing workloads. J-Class workstations had solid expandability with multiprocessing and many I/O options, often used for Visualize graphics.

J-Class were used in the military a lot during the 1990s, together with a variety of other PA-RISC computers like D-Class they were part of the US Navy TAC-4 program. HP was a TAC-4 vendor supplying RISC Unix computers for uses throughout the Navy and offered the J-Class as part of a technology refreshment of TAC-4 in 1996.

There were 64-bit successor J-Class around 2000: the J5000/J7000 and J6000, which then became some of the last PA-RISC workstations offered before HP fully switched to Itanium and soon ceased to offer RISC/Unix workstations altogether.

Architecture

Processors

System CPU Speed L1 cache
HP 9000 J200 1-2 PA-7200 PA-RISC 32-bit 100 MHz 256/256 KB off-chip, 2 KB on-chip assist
HP 9000 J210 1-2 PA-7200 PA-RISC 32-bit 120 MHz 256/256 KB off-chip, 2 KB on-chip assist
HP 9000 J210XC 1-2 PA-7200 PA-RISC 32-bit 120 MHz 1/1 MB off-chip, 2 KB on-chip assist
HP Visualize J280 1 PA-8000 PA-RISC 64-bit 180 MHz 1/1 MB off-chip
HP Visualize J282 1-2 PA-8000 PA-RISC 64-bit 180 MHz 1/1 MB off-chip
HP Visualize J2240 1-2 PA-8200 PA-RISC 64-bit 236 MHz 2/2 MB off-chip

Chipset

HP 9000 J-Class System Architecture (not J2240): 

                _ 2nd CPU _ (optional)
 ______        |  ______   |
|ICache|         |ICache|
|______|       | |______|  |
 __|__    Runway  ___|__
| CPU |_____.._|_ | CPU |  |
|_____|     ||    |_____|
 __|___     || |  ___|__   |
|DCache|    ||   |Dcache|
|______|    || | |______|  |
            ||  _ _ _ _ _ _
 ______     ||
|Memory|____||     _ _ LASI ASIC _ _
|______|    ||            ______
 ________   ||    |  ..__|i82596|___|_[10Mb Ethernet]
|U2/Uturn|__||       ||  |______|
|________|        |  ||   ______    |
    | |________..    ||__|53C710|_____[8-bit SCSI-2]
    |_______.. || |  ||  |______|   |
            || ||____||   ____
 ________   || || |  ||__|PS/2|_____|_[Keyboard/Mouse]
|GSC-slot|__|| ||    ||  |____|
|________| GSC || |  ||   ______    |
               ||    ||__|16550A|_____[1st Serial]
               || |  ||  |______|   |
               ||    ||   ______
 ________      || |  ||__|37C65C|___|_[Floppy]
|WAX/EISA|_____||    ||  |______|
|________|     || |  ||   ______    |
    ||         ||    ||__|16C522|_____[Parallel]
 ___||____     || |  ||  |______|   |
|EISA-slot|    ||    ||   _______
|_________|    || |  ||__|Harmony|__|_[Audio]
 ___||____     ||    ||  |_______|
|EISA-slot|    || |  ||   ___       |
|_________|    ||    ||__|RTC|
 ___||____     || | GSC  |___|      |
|EISA-slot|    ||  _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
|_________|    ||   ______
               ||__|53C720|___________[16-bit SCSI-2]
               ||  |______|
 ________      ||
|GSC-slot|_____||  _ _ WAX ASIC_ _ _
|________|     || |                 |
 ________      ||         ______
|GSC-slot|_____|| |  ..__|16550A|___|_[2nd Serial]
|________|     ||____||  |______|
              GSC |  ||   ___       |
                     ||__|HIL|________[Input]
                  | GSC  |___|      |
                   _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

System buses

Expansion

Memory

I/O slots

J2240 Expansion slots

Storage

I/O ports

Operating systems

Pictures

J200

HP Visualize J200 HP Visualize J200 HP Visualize J200 HP Visualize J280
HP Visualize J200 and J282, Thomas Schanz 2018, CC BY-SA 4.0
HP Visualize J280 HP Visualize J280 HP Visualize J280 HP Visualize J280
HP Visualize J280 and J282, Thomas Schanz 2013, CC BY-SA 4.0

Dimensions

Height Width Depth Weight
470mm 330mm 541mm 50kg

Benchmarks

Results with HP-UX 10.20
System SPEC95
int		 SPEC95
fp		 SPECrate95, int SPECrate95, fp
HP 9000 J200
2-CPU		 4.98 4.50 44.8
64.5		 61.3
105
HP 9000 J210
2-CPU		 6.00 5.40 54.0
77.5		 73.4
126
HP 9000 J210XC
2-CPU		 6.40 5.70 57.6
82.8		 81.5
142
HP Visualize J280
2-CPU		 11.80 19.30
107
174
HP Visualize J282
2-CPU		 11.90 19.30
107.2
174
HP Visualize J2240
2-CPU		 17.40 26.30 157
307		 237
349

Comparison to SPEC benchmark data from other contemporary Unix workstations:

Based on old SPEC95 archives
System CPU SPEC95
int		 SPEC95
fp
HP Visualize C240 PA-8200 236 MHz 17.1 25.4
DEC Alphastation 500 DEC Alpha 21164 500MHz 15.0 20.4
SGI Origin 2000 MIPS R10000 250MHz 4MB 14.7 24.5
Sun Ultra 5 333 Sun UltraSPARC IIi 333MHz 14.1 18.3
Siemens SCENIC 1000 Intel Pentium II 333MHz 13.0 9.43
IBM RS/6000 43P 150 PowerPC 604e 250 MHz 11.1 8.78
SGI O2 MIPS R10000 196MHz 10.1 8.77
Intel Alder Intel Pentium Pro 200MHz 8.09 6.75
HP Visualize C160L PA-7300LC 160 MHz 7.75 7.56
IBM RS/6000 F50 PowerPC 604e 166 MHz 7.52 8.52
DEC Alphastation 600 DEC Alpha 21164 300MHz 7.33 12.2
Sun Ultra 2 1170 Sun UltraSPARC 167MHz 6.34 9.33
DEC Alphastation 250 DEC Alpha 21064A 266MHz 4.18 6.27
SGI Indy MIPS R5000 150MHz 3.97 4.20
HP 9000 712/100 PA-7100LC 100 MHz 3.76 4.06

Documentation

Manuals

Articles

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