PA-RISC information - since 1999

HP Visualize J200, J210, J280, J2240

Quick Facts
Introduced 1995-1997
Period Maturity (III)
Series Visualize
CPU 1-2 SMP
PA-7200/
PA-8000/
PA-8200
100-236 MHz
Cache 0.5-4 MB L1
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
Bandwidth CPU 8-960 MB/s
I/O 10E
100E (J2240)
2 SCSI
2 serial
2 PS/2
HIL
audio

The HP Visualize J-Class are large PA-RISC workstations from the mid-1990s with 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 Together with the contemporary C-Class, the J-Class superseded earlier HP 9000 700 workstations like the 715 and 735.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

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

HP marketed the 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.

Model Number Introduced Price
J200 9000/770 1995 $27,655
J210 9000/770 1995 $35,655
J210XC 9000/770 1995
J280 9000/780 1996 $38,520
J282 9000/780 1997
J2240 9000/782 1997 $55,900

The J-Class were used in the military a lot during the 1990s, together with a variety of other PA-RISC computers like the 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-Classes 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.

System architecture

Processors

Model CPU Speed L1 Cache
J200 1-2 PA-7200 100 MHz 256/256 KB off-chip, 2 KB on-chip assist
J210 1-2 PA-7200 120 MHz 256/256 KB off-chip, 2 KB on-chip assist
J210XC 1-2 PA-7200 120 MHz 1/1 MB off-chip, 2 KB on-chip assist
J280 1 PA-8000 180 MHz 1/1 MB off-chip
J282 1-2 PA-8000 180 MHz 1/1 MB off-chip
J2240 1-2 PA-8200 236 MHz 2/2 MB off-chip

Chipset

» View a system-level ASCII-illustration of the chipset (does not apply to J2240)

System buses

Memory

Expansion slots

J2240 Expansion slots

Storage

External ports

Operating systems

Benchmarks

Model SPEC95 int SPEC95 fp SPECrate95, int SPECrate95, fp
J200 4.98 4.50 44.8 61.3
J200
2-CPU		 64.5 105
J210 6.00 5.40 54.0 73.4
J210
2-CPU		 77.5 126
J210XC 6.40 5.70 57.6 81.5
J210XC
2-CPU		 82.8 142
J280 11.80 19.30 107 174
J282 211 261
J2240 17.40 26.30 157 237
J2240
2-CPU		 307 349

Comparison to SPEC benchmark data from other contemporary Unix workstations:

Based on old SPEC95 archives
Model CPU SPEC95 int SPEC95 fp
Digital Alphastation 500 DEC Alpha 21164 500MHz 15.0 20.4
SGI Origin 2000 MIPS R10000 250MHz 14.7 24.5
Sun Ultra 5 333 Sun UltraSPARC IIi 33MHz 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
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

Dimensions

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

References

Manuals

Articles

Other

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