HP 9000 Model 712/80 ("KING GECKO" )


 
Click here for more pictures.

General Technical Information

HOSTNAME HOBBIT
SYSTEM CPU HP PA-RISC PA-7100LC @80MHz
CACHE (2nd, 1st D/I) 256 KB, 0 KB / 1 KB
RAM  80 MB  (Max. 128 MB)
SCSI BUS 1 x SCSI (5 MB/s)
OPTION BUS 2 Expansion Slots
GRAPHICS 8-plane 1280x1024 @75Hz (lower resolution possible, through a console settings)
HARD DISK DRIVE 1GB 5400 RPM
CD-ROM DRIVE N/A
NETWORK 10baseT or 10 Mbps AUI
AUDIO Onboard audio chip
OS HP-UX 10.20
YEAR 1994
SPEED 66 VAX MIPS
COMMENTS HP-UX 10.20 with X11 on this machine is very slow.
ESTIMATED PRICE '94 (basic configuration, 32 MB RAM, 525 MB disk, 17" color monitor)
 $5,000

History and other comments

Since December 2002, I no longer own this system. It's a bit too slow for any desktop usage, at least  with HP-UX 10.20 or Debian GNU/Linux. I guess it was designed for some older version of HP-UX. When I compare it to an R3000 DECstation I'd say the DECstation is superior to this small "pizza box", eventhough the PA-RISC processos should be quite advanced (especially while the timeframe would be a couple of years ahead...).

The lack of proper 1st level cache certainly slows the system down a great deal. It took me over 10 hours to install HP-UX, I must say this is even worse than to install Windows 95 on a 386 peecee computer. More like "-That would be like installing an operating system on a slow PDP-11 system, back in the good old days, then!", as a friend of mine would put it.
 
Back to My Hardware Collection.
 
Last updated:  28-1-2007