HP 9000/715
The generic HP 9000/715 name actually covers two distinct workstation designs,
which share the same case, on-board devices, and expansion capabilities.
The first generation was introduced in 1992 and was built upon the existing workstation chips (ASP, VIPER, WAX) pioneered by models 720, 730 and 735. They are models 715/33, 715/50 and 715/75.
A few years later, after the launch of the successful compact 712 workstation with the new LASI chip, the second generation was built reusing the 715 case with the 712 design. They are models 715/64, 715/80, 715/100 and 715/100/XC.
The first generation was introduced in 1992 and was built upon the existing workstation chips (ASP, VIPER, WAX) pioneered by models 720, 730 and 735. They are models 715/33, 715/50 and 715/75.
A few years later, after the launch of the successful compact 712 workstation with the new LASI chip, the second generation was built reusing the 715 case with the 712 design. They are models 715/64, 715/80, 715/100 and 715/100/XC.
Pictures
(Click on the pictures to get larger resolution images)
This machine comes in a small pizzabox case. It is quite unique in the
workstation ecosystem in that the top of the case can't get removed, but
instead rotates to expose the internals.
Unfortunately, the lock mechanism doesn't age well and gets prone to jam (preferrably in the open position, which is a relief).
The chassis has room for three internal storage devices, two 3"1/2 devices and a 5"1/4 device with front bezel access (either a tape or CD-ROM drive).
An interesting design tidbit is that the headphone and microphone audio connectors are found at the front of the machine, which made sense for a machine intended to be a workstation, yet was quite uncommon in the 90's.
Unfortunately, the lock mechanism doesn't age well and gets prone to jam (preferrably in the open position, which is a relief).
The chassis has room for three internal storage devices, two 3"1/2 devices and a 5"1/4 device with front bezel access (either a tape or CD-ROM drive).
An interesting design tidbit is that the headphone and microphone audio connectors are found at the front of the machine, which made sense for a machine intended to be a workstation, yet was quite uncommon in the 90's.
All the other I/O connectors are found on the back of the machine.
The line-in and line-out audio connectors are found on the rightmost side of
the chassis, with the expansion slot, which can host either an HP-specific
GSC expansion board in EISA form factor, or any EISA board using the EISA
adapter board (whether the chassis was to be used with GSC or EISA boards had
to be decided at machine order time).
Located on the left side, the I/O connectors are:
- HD50 SCSI connector
- Parallel port
- HP-HIL connector (for input devices)
- Two DB9 serial ports
- 10base 5 Ethernet connector
- HD15 sync-on-green video connector
As mentioned above, the top of the chassis can't get removed, but instead
rotates to expose both the upper part of the chassis, sporting the disks, and
the lower part, sporting the motherboard and the optional expansion board.
This rotating design makes the 715 chassis a major annoyance to service, because it requires twice as much room as any other pizzabox-like workstation to open.
Also, the upper part weighting much more than the lower part (if only due to the power supply), folding a 715 chassis back to its normal form can be a tedious task!
This rotating design makes the 715 chassis a major annoyance to service, because it requires twice as much room as any other pizzabox-like workstation to open.
Also, the upper part weighting much more than the lower part (if only due to the power supply), folding a 715 chassis back to its normal form can be a tedious task!
Here is an inside view of a 715/100/XC system.
The motherboard spans the leftmost two thirds of the available space, the
remaining third being used by an expansion board; in this particular case,
a GSC graphics board.
Here is an inside view of a 715/75 system.
The motherboard is quite different from the 100/XC one, and there is no
expansion board, but an EISA adaptor board is present.
Despite the enclosure being made of plastic, inside it is covered in metal.
Therefore the motherboard needs to be insulated from the chassis. It is thus
no surprise to find an insulating layer under the motherboard.
I don't know what this layer is made of, but it is sure a pain in the arse to clean of all the dust it eventually collects...
I don't know what this layer is made of, but it is sure a pain in the arse to clean of all the dust it eventually collects...
Here is a better view of the 715/100/XC motherboard, without memory and the
processor heatsink.
A closer look at the naked PA-7100LC processor, and above it, part of the
1MB external cache.
Here is a better view of the 715/75 motherboard, without memory and the
processor daughterboard.
Note that I used to own a 715/33 system, which uses the same components as model 715/75, and it had a soldered-on CPU, similar to the 715/100/XC motherboard above. I don't know what the 715/50 motherboard looks like, but the 715/75 motherboard might have been designed with a processor upgrade in mind - which, to the best of my knowledge, never occured.
Note that I used to own a 715/33 system, which uses the same components as model 715/75, and it had a soldered-on CPU, similar to the 715/100/XC motherboard above. I don't know what the 715/50 motherboard looks like, but the 715/75 motherboard might have been designed with a processor upgrade in mind - which, to the best of my knowledge, never occured.
Here is what the bottom side of the PA-7100 processor looks like.
The heatsink seems to be glued to the processor, and I will not dare touching
it, so I can't show you the front of the processor chip.
Please enjoy this sideways view.
Here is a better look at the EISA adapter.
Here is a better look at the GSC frame buffer board.
Resources
The OpenPA site has detailed information
about HP PA-RISC based workstations, including
HP 9000/715
systems.
OpenBSD
OpenBSD runs nicely on all 715 models. All on-board devices are supported.
There is currently no X server for the frame buffer, though.
Here is a dmesg of my 715/100/XC:
Here is a dmesg of my 715/100/XC:
[ using 408772 bytes of bsd ELF symbol table ]
Copyright (c) 1982, 1986, 1989, 1991, 1993
The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved.
Copyright (c) 1995-2014 OpenBSD. All rights reserved. http://www.OpenBSD.org
OpenBSD 5.6-current (GENERIC) #2: Fri Aug 29 07:27:33 GMT 2014
miod@boron.gentiane.org:/usr/src/sys/arch/hppa/compile/GENERIC
HP 9000/715/100XC (Turnip) PA-RISC 1.1c
real mem = 134217728 (128MB)
rsvd mem = 524288 (512KB)
avail mem = 123199488 (117MB)
mpath0 at root
scsibus0 at mpath0: 256 targets
mainbus0 at root [flex fff80000]
pdc0 at mainbus0
power0 at mainbus0: not available
cpu0 at mainbus0 offset ffbe000 irq 31: PCXL L1-A 100MHz, FPU PCXL (CMOS-26B) rev 1
cpu0: 512K(32b/l) Icache, 512K(32b/l) wr-back Dcache, 64 coherent TLB, 8 BTLB
mem0 at mainbus0 offset ffbf000: viper rev 0, size 128MB
wax0 at mainbus0 offset 200000 irq 24
gsc2 at wax0
com1 at gsc2 offset 2000 irq 6: ns16550a, 16 byte fifo
hil0 at gsc2 offset 1000 irq 1
lasi0 at mainbus0 offset 100000 irq 28: rev 3.0
gsc0 at lasi0: wordleds
gsckbc0 at gsc0 offset 8100 irq 26
gsckbc1 at gsc0 offset 8000 irq 26
"floppy controller" at gsc0 (type a sv 83 mod 2 hv c0) offset a000 not configured
harmony0 at gsc0 offset 4000 irq 13: rev 18
audio0 at harmony0
lpt0 at gsc0 offset 2000 irq 7
com0 at gsc0 offset 5000 irq 5: ns16550a, 16 byte fifo
com0: console
ie0 at gsc0 offset 7000 irq 8: LASI/i82596CA v2.0, address 08:00:09:5f:5a:6e
osiop0 at gsc0 offset 6000 irq 9: NCR53C710 rev 2, 40MHz
scsibus1 at osiop0: 8 targets, initiator 7
osiop0: target 0 now using 8 bit 10 MHz 8 REQ/ACK offset xfers
sym0 at scsibus1 targ 0 lun 0: <SEAGATE, ST39173LW, 6246> SCSI2 0/direct fixed serial.SEAGATE_ST39173LW_LMG901640000194308RY
sd0 at scsibus0 targ 0 lun 0: <SEAGATE, ST39173LW, 6246> SCSI2 0/direct fixed serial.SEAGATE_ST39173LW_LMG901640000194308RY
sd0: 8683MB, 512 bytes/sector, 17783240 sectors
sti0 at mainbus0 offset 8000000 irq 11: rev 8.04;7, ID 0x2B4DED6D40A00499
sti0: HPA208LC1280, 2048x1024 frame buffer, 1280x1024x8 display
sti0: 8x16 font type 1, 16 bpc, charset 0-255
sti1 at mainbus0 offset 4000000 irq 12: rev 8.04;7, ID 0x2B4DED6D40A00499
sti1: HPA208LC1024, 2048x1024 frame buffer, 1024x768x8 display
sti1: 8x16 font type 1, 16 bpc, charset 0-255
hil0: no devices
wsdisplay0 at sti0 mux 1
wsdisplay0: screen 0 added (std, vt100 emulation)
wsdisplay1 at sti1 mux 1
wsdisplay1: screen 0 added (std, vt100 emulation)
vscsi0 at root
scsibus2 at vscsi0: 256 targets
softraid0 at root
scsibus3 at softraid0: 256 targets
bootpath: 2/0/1.0 class=1 flags=80<autoboot> hpa=0xf0106000 spa=0x0 io=0x84e8
root on sd0a (3c9a3092036519ec.a) swap on sd0b dump on sd0b
And a dmesg of my 715/75:
[ using 409388 bytes of bsd ELF symbol table ]
Copyright (c) 1982, 1986, 1989, 1991, 1993
The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved.
Copyright (c) 1995-2014 OpenBSD. All rights reserved. http://www.OpenBSD.org
OpenBSD 5.6-current (GENERIC) #278: Wed Aug 13 14:39:16 GMT 2014
miod@pontajou.gentiane.org:/usr/src/sys/arch/hppa/compile/GENERIC
HP 9000/715/75 (Scorpio Sr.) PA-RISC 1.1a
real mem = 201326592 (192MB)
rsvd mem = 524288 (512KB)
avail mem = 189046784 (180MB)
mpath0 at root
scsibus0 at mpath0: 256 targets
mainbus0 at root [flex fff80000]
pdc0 at mainbus0
power0 at mainbus0: not available
cpu0 at mainbus0 offset ffbe000 irq 31: PCXT L1-A 75MHz, FPU PCXT (Rolex - CMOS-26B) rev 1
cpu0: 256K(32b/l) Icache, 256K(32b/l) wr-back Dcache, 120 coherent TLB, 16 BTLB
mem0 at mainbus0 offset ffbf000: viper rev 0, size 192MB
mongoose0 at mainbus0 offset c000000 irq 17: HWPC000 rev 0, 25 MHz
eisa0 at mongoose0
isa at mongoose0 not configured
asp0 at mainbus0 offset 82f000 irq 28: Coral rev 1, lan 1 scsi 7
gsc0 at asp0: leds
harmony0 at gsc0 offset 1000000 irq 13: rev 0
audio0 at harmony0
lpt0 at gsc0 offset 824000 irq 7
com1 at gsc0 offset 822000 irq 6: ns16550a, 16 byte fifo
com0 at gsc0 offset 823000 irq 5: ns16550a, 16 byte fifo
com0: console
hil0 at gsc0 offset 821000 irq 1
ie0 at gsc0 offset 826000 irq 8: i82596DX v1.0, address 08:00:09:78:fe:d3
oosiop0 at gsc0 offset 825000 irq 9: NCR53C700 rev 0, 50MHz
scsibus1 at oosiop0: 8 targets, initiator 7
oosiop0: target 1 now using 8 bit synchronous xfers
oosiop0: target 1 now using 8 bit synchronous xfers
cd0 at scsibus1 targ 1 lun 0: <TOSHIBA, CD-ROM XM-3401TA, 1094> SCSI2 5/cdrom removable
oosiop0: target 2 now using 8 bit synchronous xfers
sd0 at scsibus1 targ 2 lun 0: <IBM, DCAS-34330, S65A> SCSI2 0/direct fixed serial.IBM_DCAS-34330_B3GW8596_
sd0: 4134MB, 512 bytes/sector, 8467200 sectors
oosiop0: target 4 now using 8 bit synchronous xfers
sym0 at scsibus1 targ 4 lun 0: <SEAGATE, ST15150N, 4611> SCSI2 0/direct fixed serial.SEAGATE_ST15150N_00894334
sd1 at scsibus0 targ 0 lun 0: <SEAGATE, ST15150N, 4611> SCSI2 0/direct fixed serial.SEAGATE_ST15150N_00894334
sd1: 4095MB, 512 bytes/sector, 8388315 sectors
sti0 at mainbus0 offset 4000000 irq 11: rev 8.02;10, ID 0x27F1239240A00499
sti0: HPA1991AC19, 2048x1024 frame buffer, 1280x1024x8 display
sti0: 10x20 font type 1, 40 bpc, charset 0-255
hil0: no devices
wsdisplay0 at sti0 mux 1
wsdisplay0: screen 0 added (std, vt100 emulation)
vscsi0 at root
scsibus2 at vscsi0: 256 targets
softraid0 at root
scsibus3 at softraid0: 256 targets
bootpath: 2/0/1.2 class=1 flags=c0<autoboot,autosearch> hpa=0xf0825000 spa=0x0 io=0x6b24
root on sd0a (9ae751eed4617cbf.a) swap on sd0b dump on sd0b
(notice how the on-board devices are different, with asp instead of
lasi, and a different SCSI controller).