SAIC Galaxy 1100
| Quick Facts | |
|---|---|
| Introduced | 1994 |
| Period | Maturity (III) |
| Series | Portable |
| CPU | 1 PA-7100LC 60/80 MHz |
| Caches | 64/256 KB L1 |
| RAM | 128 MB |
| Design | LASI |
| Drives | 1 SCSI 1 FD |
| Expansion | 2 PCMCIA (1 GIO 1 TSIO) |
| Bandwidth | Cache 480 MB/s System 128 MB/s |
| I/O | 10E SCSI serial parallel VGA 2 PS/2 audio |
The SAIC Galaxy 1100 were portable PA-RISC workstations based on the HP 9000/712 workstation in a ruggedized case released in 1994.
They are not notebooks
in the current sense but portable workstations — no battery but standard AC power.
The Galaxy 1100 portables are very rare, originally built in the 90s for military and intelligence applications.
Since the Galaxy 1100 are technically normal
PA-RISC workstations they support standard PA-RISC operating systems and software.
The Galaxy 1000 were the 60 MHz version, the Galaxy 1100 was 80 MHz.
HP was part of the US Navy TAC-4 program in the 1990s in which HP supplied PA-RISC workstations to the Navy for measurement and control. For environments where standard workstations were not robust enough, HP contracted SAIC to produce a ruggedized MIL-SPEC portable workstation for the Navy: the SAIC Galaxy 1100 based on HP 9000 712.
- Portable requirements: Navy TAC-4
- Shock: Federal Test Method Standard 101C, Method 5007.1 free-fall drop
- Airborne: MIL-STD-740-1, Grade C, Table 1
SAIC developed several specialized I/O devices for the Galaxy that attached to GIO/TSIO expansion slots. Industry-standard PCMCIA slots were available as well through a SAIC-specific extension board. As these systems were produced under a military contract and sometimes used in classified environment only few became available to civilian world. Only two other portable PA-RISC computers were sold – the RDI PrecisionBook, based on HP Visualize C132L, and the Japanese Hitachi 3050RX 100C laptop; the SAIC Galaxy was not directly sold outside of military contracts and only later became available publically through resellers.
A long article on SAIC Galaxy 1100 and their VUE environment by Cameron Kaiser from 2023 expands on the background and historic usage of Galaxy.
System architecture
Processors
| Model | CPU | Speed | L1 Cache |
|---|---|---|---|
| Galaxy 1000 | PA-7100LC | 60 MHz | 1 KB on-chip and 64 KB off-chip |
| Galaxy 1100 | PA-7100LC | 80 MHz | 1 KB on-chip and 256 KB off-chip |
Chipset
- HP LASI integrated chipset
- (Integrated) NCR 53C710 8-bit single-ended SCSI-2
- (Integrated) Intel 82596CA 10 Mbit Ethernet controller
- (Integrated) HP Harmony CD/DAT quality 16-bit stereo audio
- HP Artist graphics, 8-bit, 1 MB VRAM (could be extended to 2)
- (Integrated) Other I/O (serial, parallel, floppy)
- PCMCIA controller
Display
- 10.4″ active matrix LCD
- XGA resolution, i.e., 1024×768
- 256 colors (8-bit color depth)
- 60Hz refresh
Human Input
- PS/2-compatible, 84-key integrated QWERTY keyboard with 12 function keys
- Trackball and three-button pad
System buses
- GSC system level I/O bus
- SCSI-2 Fast-Narrow single-ended bus
Memory
- 72-pin ECC SIMMs, same as on standard HP 9000 712
- (Original documentation describes proprietary memory modules)
- 8-32 MB modules
- Four sockets
- 16 MB (2×8) minimum, 128 MB (4×32) maximum
- Memory has to be installed in pairs, starting from slot 0
Expansion slots
- Two PCMCIA slots, for either two Type I/II or one Type III PCMCIA card
- Proprietary SAIC modules for the standard GIO/TSIO slots
Storage
- One 3.5″ Fast-Narrow 50-pin SCSI-2 hard drive
- One 3.5″ 1.44 MB Floppy drive
External ports
- SCSI-2 50-pin Fast-Narrow single-ended
- Serial RS232C DB9 (up to 115200 baud)
- Parallel DB25
- Ethernet RJ45
- Ethernet AUI 15-pin
- VGA HD15
- Two PS/2 connectors for keyboard & mouse
- Three phone jacks (microphone, headphones and line-in)
Operating systems
- HP-UX 10.20, 11.00 and 11i v1
- Linux
- NetBSD
- OpenBSD
- Probably: NeXTSTEP (NeXTSTEP PA-RISC was designed for the HP 9000 712)
- Probably: HPBSD
- Probably: MkLinux
- Probably: OSF MK-PA
Benchmarks
Comparison to SPEC benchmark data from other contemporary Unix workstations:
| Model | CPU | SPEC92 int | SPEC92 fp | SPEC95 int | SPEC95 fp |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Galaxy 1100 | HP PA-7100LC 80 MHz | 99 | 122 | 3.12 | 3.55 |
| Sun SPARCstation 20 | Sun SuperSPARC II 75MHz | 125.8 | 121.2 | 3.11 | 3.10 |
| Siemens PCE-5S | Intel Pentium 100MHz | 96.2 | 81.2 | 4.04 | 2.35 |
| SGI Indy | MIPS R4400SC 75MHz | 88.1 | 96.6 | ||
| IBM RS/6000 Notebook 860 | PowerPC 603e 166MHz | 3.94 | 2.71 | ||
| DEC AlphaStation 200 | DEC Alpha 21064 100MHz | 74.6 | 95.2 | 1.48 | 2.79 |
| Sun SPARCstation 10 | Sun SuperSPARC 40MHz | 50.2 | 60.2 | 1.13 | 1.38 |
| Digital DECstation 5000 | MIPS R4000 50MHz | 43.2 | 42.1 | ||
| Tadpole SPARCbook 3 | Sun MicroSPARC 50MHz | 26.4 | 21.0 |
Dimensions
| Height | Width | Depth | Weight |
|---|---|---|---|
| 114mm | 412mm | 311mm | 8kg |
References
- SAIC Galaxy 1100 product page (archive.org mirror), Old product page with photos and details on the SAIC. Science Applications International Corporation (1996). Archive.org mirror accessed 2 Oct 2007
- RISCy BUSINESS presents the SAIC GALAXY 1100 (Accessed 2019)
- SAIC Galaxy 1100: a pre-CDE VUE of the PA-RISC with a security clearance, Old VCR, January 2023