HP 9000 A180
| Quick Facts | |
|---|---|
| Introduced | 1998 |
| Period | Maturity (III) |
| Series | Lettered |
| CPU | PA-7300LC 180 MHz |
| Cache | 128 KB L1 1 MB L2 (A180C) |
| RAM | 2 GB |
| Design | LASI |
| Drives | 2 SCSI |
| Expansion | 2 GSC/PCI |
| I/O | Fast Ethernet 2 SCSI serial |
The HP 9000 A-Class A180 and A180C were some of the last 32-bit PA-RISC HP 9000 800 servers released by HP at the end of the 1990s in a small and rack-mountable case, often used for Internet servers.
Marketed by HP as Enterprise Internet Servers
they were geared towards deployment in rack-space in datacenters, and thus have no video output, only serial console and a web console.
A-Class PA-RISC system design was pretty pared down and streamlined with a simple 32-bit PA-RISC design similar to the HP Visualize B180L workstations minus graphics and some I/O devices.
- HP 9000 A180 (A5182A) were introduced in 1998
- HP 9000 A180C (A5183A) were introduced in 1998 for $16,000
The A180 servers were followed in 2000 by the newer 64-bit A400 and A500 servers, sharing their cases and external appearance but with more modern system design.
System architecture
Processors
| System | CPU | Speed | L1 Cache | L2 Cache |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| HP 9000 A180 | PA-7300LC 32-bit PA-RISC | 180 MHz | 64/64 KB on-chip | |
| HP 9000 A180C | PA-7300LC PA-RISC 32-bit | 180 MHz | 64/64 KB on-chip | 1 MB off-chip |
The additional 1 MB L2 cache is the only difference between both systems. It was upgradeable through two DIMM slots near the CPU.
Chipset
- HP LASI integrated chipset
- Integrated NCR 53C710 8-bit single-ended SCSI-2
- Integrated Intel 82596CA 10 Mbit Ethernet controller
- HP Dino GSC-to-PCI bridge
- HP Phantom PseudoBC GSC+ port
- DEC 21142/43 10/100BaseT PCI Ethernet
- Other I/O (serial)
» View a system-level ASCII-illustration of the chipset.
System buses
- GSC+ general system-level I/O bus (probably clocked at 36 MHz — 144 MB/s peak data rate)
- PCI high performance device I/O bus
- SCSI-2 Fast-Narrow single-ended; main storage I/O bus
Memory
- 72-pin ECC EDO SIMMs, 60ns or faster.
- Takes 64-256 MB modules
- Eight slots
- 128 MB (2×64) minimum, 2048 MB (8×256) maximum
Expansion slots
- Two slots for either GSC (EISA formfactor) or PCI cards
Storage
- One tray for two 3.5″ Fast-Narrow 50-pin SCSI hard drives
External ports
- SCSI-2 50-pin single-ended
- Serial RS232C DB9
- Fast Ethernet RJ45
- Ethernet RJ45
Web Console
Operating systems
- HP-UX, the original HP Unix shipped with it
- HP-UX 11i v1 in 32-bit mode, in EOE, FOE, MCOE version
- HP-UX 11.00 in 32-bit mode
- HP-UX 10.20 32-bit, server version
- PA-RISC Linux, main Linux port to PA-RISC, supported by HP in the 2000s
- OpenBSD, open-source Unix-like, ported to PA-RISC
- NetBSD, open-source Unix-like, ported to PA-RISC
HP 9000 A180C were used extensively in the development of PA-RISC Linux, for which HP provided support.
Benchmarks
| System | CPU | SPEC95 int | SPEC95 fp |
|---|---|---|---|
| HP 9000 A180 | PA-7300LC 180 MHz | ? | ? |
| HP 9000 A180C | PA-7300LC 180 MHz | 9.22 | 8.60 |
Comparison to SPEC benchmark data from other contemporary Unix workstations:
| System | CPU | SPEC95 int | SPEC95 fp |
|---|---|---|---|
| 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 |
| DEC Alphastation 500 | DEC Alpha 21164 266MHz | 7.93 | 11.1 |
| Sun Ultra 2 1170 | Sun UltraSPARC 167MHz | 6.34 | 9.33 |
Documentation
Manuals
- User Manual HP 9000 Model A180, Hewlett Packard (February 2000,
aclassdoc00
) parisc linux
- HP's HP9000 A-Class A180C Enterprise Server - Designed as a low-cost, high-density Web server, is the A-Class as mean as it is lean? Ralph Barker at Dr. Dobb’s (June 1999, accessed December 2017)