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HP X-Terminals

HP’s X-Terminals from the mid-1990s were often used in conjunction with PA-RISC based HP 9000 systems (when single servers/workstations were shared via multiple X-Terminals).

700/X

These were the first X-Terminals HP produced, featuring a similar case to that of some HP 9000/300 (68k-based) workstations. They were driven by a pretty obscure CPU-combination.

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700/RX

These are the direct sucessors to the 700/X line of X-Terminals and changed the architecture significantly. They were the first in a line of terminals to be driven by an Intel i960 RISC CPU and introduced a case which also was used on later systems. They have a (albeit very quiet) fan.

Several submodels were available, featuring different video-options:

All models have these base features in common:

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Entria

The Entrias were the low-cost line of X-Terminals, featuring the same architecture as the 700/RX terminals, but in a plastic-case in the same style as the 712 workstation. They are very small and quiet.

The Entrias were available in different video-configurations, depending on the exact model:

Common:

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Envizex

These are the sucessors to the 700/RX terminals, featuring the same flat pizzabox case and a slightly modified architecture with a faster version of the Intel i960 RISC CPU. They still have a (very quiet) fan inside.

Three different series were available which featured different speeds of the CPU:

Common aspects:

  1. Only one of these cards can be installed at a time

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Entria II

These are the successors of the low-cost Entria X-Terminals, keeping their 712-style small footprint plastic case. The underlying architecture was changed completely and is shared with the Envizex II terminals. It is based around a NEC R4300 MIPS CPU and PCI-based I/O devices.

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Envizex II

These are the bigger brothers of the above Entria II X-Terminals, driven by the same R4300 MIPS CPU and PCI I/O architecture. The case was redesigned, is very easy to open and does not have any fans, making the terminal rather quiet.

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Software

These X-Terminals/stations need an proprietary operating systems from HP — Netstation, formerly Enware.

This software runs on theoretically any Unix system, native support is available for HP-UX 10, HP-UX 11, IBM AIX and Solaris 2.x. A generic installation image is provided for other Unix flavors; this can be used to install the software via the provided installation shell script on e.g. Linux or BSD. References installing this software on Linux exist on the web.

Netstation Version 7.1

The older Enware/Netstation Version 7.1, HP product B.07.11, supports the following i960-based Terminals:

It is downloadable from HP’s FTP service at ftp://enware:enware@hprc.external.hp.com/B.07.11/

Read the included documentation/technical reference and refer to the installation instructions. Generally, an UNIX server is needed from which the station can boot its kernel and load its X server. This is done via TFTP; the station can be managed local via a configuration screen or remotely on the server via customizable configuration files.

Netstation Version 9.0

The most current available Netstation version is 9.0, HP product B.09.11. This version supports the newer MIPS-based X-Terminals:

It is downloadable from HP’s FTP-service at ftp://enware:enware@hprc.external.hp.com/B.09.11/

The newer X-Terminals (IIs) can boot in different ways, over a NFS mount, a SMB share or plain TFTP. Included in the Netstation software is a native Java environment which makes execution of local Java applets on the terminal possible.

Password recovery

A method for password recovery on an Envizex or 700/RX is detailed at Bart Dopheide’s pages.

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