RDI PrecisionBook
| Quick Facts | |
|---|---|
| Introduced | 1998 |
| Period | Maturity (III) |
| Series | Portable |
| CPU | PA-7300LC 132-180 MHz |
| Cache | 128 KB L1 (+1 MB L2) |
| RAM | 512 MB |
| Design | LASI |
| Drives | 2 SCSI (2.5″!) |
| Expansion | 2 Cardbus |
| Bandwidth | Mem ~ 423 MB/s I/O 132-160 MB/s |
| I/O | 10E VGA SCSI floppy 2 PS/2 docking I/O breakout audio |
RDI PrecisionBooks were portable PA-RISC workstations of the 1990s, introduced in 1998 by RDI, shortly before the takeover by Tadpole.
They were based on the HP 9000 C132L workstation in a portable case and marketed as first HP-UX laptops.
PrecisionBooks were used for engineering, software development, network management, financial modeling, military command operations, and intelligence gathering.
As RDI PrecisionBooks were technically based on C132L/C160Ls, they supported the same PA-RISC operating systems and applications. A major addition by RDI to the system logic was an integrated Cardbus controller for which Tadpole supplied drivers for HP-UX.
RDI PrecisionBooks apparently did not enjoy large commercial success but Tadpole reused the laptop design for other RISC laptops of the 1990s, for example the UltraSPARC-based Tadpole UltraBook that was slightly more successful.
In addition to the PrecisionBook, only two other portable PA-RISC computers were produced – the military-focused SAIC Galaxy 1100, based on HP 9000 712, and the Japanese Hitachi 3050RX 100C laptop.
| Model | Number | Introduced | Price |
|---|---|---|---|
| PrecisionBook 132 12″ | 9000/779 | 1998 | $11,995 |
| PrecisionBook 160 14″ | 9000/779 | 1998 | $14,995 |
| PrecisionBook 180 | 9000/779 | 1998 |
System architecture
Processors
| Model | CPU | Speed | L1 Cache | L2 Cache |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| PrecisionBook 132 | PA-7300LC | 132 MHz | 64/64 KB on-chip | 1 MB off-chip optional |
| PrecisionBook 160 | PA-7300LC | 160 MHz | 64/64 KB on-chip | 1 MB off-chip optional |
| PrecisionBook 180 | PA-7300LC | 180 MHz | 64/64 KB on-chip | 1 MB off-chip optional |
Chipset
- LASI integrated chipset
- (integrated) NCR 53C710 8-bit single-ended SCSI-2
- (integrated) Intel 82596CA 10 Mbit Ethernet controller
- (integrated) Harmony CD/DAT quality 16-bit stereo audio
- Phantom PseudoBC GSC+ port
- Dino GSC-to-PCI bridge
- Visualize-EG (Graffiti) graphics with 2MB frame buffer memory
- 1 MB flash memory
- Two Cirrus CL-PD6832 PCI-CardBus bridges
- CMD PCI0643 IDE/UDMA33 controller
» View a system-level ASCII-illustration of the system architecture.
Display
- Integrated display, option of 12.1″ (0.24mm dot pitch) or 14.1″ (0.28mm dot pitch) active matrix LCD (the 14-inch version were most popular)
- XGA resolution (1024×768), 16M colors, 60Hz refresh
- External monitor output supports VGA, SVGA, XGA, SXGA and 1600×1200 resolutions at refresh rates of 60, 72 and 75Hz
- At XGA resolution the LCD and external monitor can be used at the same time, with different resolutions on the external monitor the LCD blanks
Input
- PS/2-compatible, 97-key keyboard
- Three-button trackpad
Energy
- Lithium-Ion battery with 40Wh capacity, 450g, 0.5-1 hours battery time
- Recharge time of 2.5 hours when powered off
- Laptop draws about 70W continous
- AC adapter provides 19V (DC) 3.68A, non-standard pinout
System buses
- GSC-2 general system-level I/O bus
- PCI-32/33 device I/O bus
- SCSI-2 Fast-Narrow single-ended bus disk I/O
- PDH bus, peripheral interface connecting to flash memory, NVRAM and PSM bus
- PSM bus, provides connection to the power-supply module
Memory
- Two sockets for 32–512 MB (2×256)
- Proprietary ECC modules, 32-256 MB modules, 60ns, 144-bit wide
Expansion slots
- Two Cardbus slots, for Cardbus and PCMCIA expansion cards
Storage
- Two 2.5″ IDE hard drives with SCSI converter or 2.5″ SCSI drives
- Since 2.5-inch SCSI drives are uncommon RDI used regular IDE notebook drives with a special IDE-SCSI converter from ADTX)
External ports
- SCSI-2 50-pin single-ended
- Ethernet RJ45
- VGA 15-pin Dsub graphics connector
- Two PS/2 connectors for keyboard/mouse
- Audio (microphone, headphones, line-in)
- 15-pin connector for external floppy
- High-pin-count connector for docking station
- Connector for an special I/O breakout cable to connect:
- Two serial RS232C DB9
- Parallel DB25
- AUI 10 Mbit Ethernet
Operating systems
Not all devices or expansion options and modules are supported in Linux and the BSDs. OpenBSD fully supports the Cardbus controller and a range of different Cardbus and PCMCIA devices (Fast-Ethernet, WLAN etc.).
Benchmarks
Comparison to SPEC benchmark data from other contemporary Unix workstations:
| Model | CPU | SPEC95 int | SPEC95 fp |
|---|---|---|---|
| PrecisionBook 132 | PA-7300LC 132MHz | 6.49 | 6.54 |
| PrecisionBook 160 | PA-7300LC 160MHz | 7.78 | 7.39 |
| PrecisionBook 180 | PA-7300LC 180MHz | 9.22 | 9.43 |
| Tadpole UltraBookIIi | Sun UltraSPARC IIi 400MHz | 17.9 | 20.6 |
| 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 |
| Digital Alphastation 255 | DEC Alpha 21064A 233MHz | 4.27 | 5.09 |
| IBM RS/6000 Notebook 860 | PowerPC 603e 166MHz | 3.94 | 2.71 |
References
- PrecisionBook Hardware Reference Guide, 1997, RDI, archive.org mirror
- PrecisionBook Hardware User Guide, 1997, RDI, archive.org mirror
- RDI HP-UX 10.20 Installation Guide, 1997, RDI, archive.org mirror
- PrecisionBook Technical White paper, Issue 1.2 2000, Tadpole, archive.org mirror
- , 199, RDI, archive.org mirror
- PrecisionBook Technical White Paper (Tadpole RDI: August 1999, link gone)
- ADTX SCSI-IDE converters information from Michael Shalayeff (link gone)
- Workstations go mobile, CNET Jan. 26, 1998
- HP Professional, March 1998 page 12, hparchive.org archive
- CIO Magazine May 1998 page 72, google books