HP 9000/712
Overview
Project names
- 712/60: Gecko
- 712/80: King Gecko
- 712/100: King Gecko
Time of introduction
Early 1994
The design goal of the 712 workstation was to reach performance levels of 1992-era workstations and servers (e. g. HP 9000 735 workstation) at a fraction of their fabrication costs. Everything was kept simple, the case is one of the smallest Unix workstation cases, similar to the Sun SS10 and SS20 cases. Moreover, the system is very quiet, the fan of the powersupply is almost not audible, so the produced noise pretty much depends on the used SCSI hard drive. The 712 was probably the HP 9000 with the highest production count. They are readily available for a small sum of money, however with certain disadvantages:
- Maximum RAM of 128/192MB
- Only one internal hard drive
- No internal optical drive (CD/DVD)
- Only 8-bit graphics
- Only 10Mbit Ethernet
- Second Ethernet hard to find
Internals
CPU
- 712/60: PA-7100LC 60MHz with 1KB on-chip L11 and 64KB off-chip L1 cache
- 712/80: PA-7100LC 80MHz with 1KB on-chip L11 and 256KB off-chip L1 cache
- 712/100: PA-7100LC 100MHz with 1KB on-chip L11 and 256KB off-chip L1 cache
Chipset
- LASI ASIC, which features:
- NCR 53C710 8-bit single-ended SCSI-2
- Intel 82596CA 10Mb Ethernet controller
- WD 16C522 compatible parallel
- Harmony CD/DAT quality 16-bit stereo audio
- NS 16550A compatible serial
- Artist graphics, 8-bit
- Intel 82503 Ethernet transceiver, media auto-selection
- CS4215 or AD1849 programmable CODECs
- WD37C65C Floppy controller
- Two AM29F010 Flash EPROMs
» View a system-level ASCII-illustration of the chipset.
Buses
- GSC system level I/O bus
- SCSI-2 single-ended bus
Memory
- 72-pin ECC SIMMs
- Takes 8-32MB modules
- Either 4 (on /60 & /80 models) or 6 (on /100) sockets
- 16MB (2×8) minimum, 128MB (4×32)/ 192MB (6×32) maximum
- Memory has to be installed in pairs, starting from slot 0, which is the closest slot to the drives.
Expansion
- VRAM expansion slot for:
- A2263-66520M - Video RAM expansion for higher resolutions/more colors
- One slot for a GIO card
- One slot for a TSIO card
- See GIO/TSIO expansion cards
Drives
- One tray for a 3.5″ Fast-Narrow SE 50-pin SCSI hard drive
- One tray for a 3.5″ Floppy drive with special connector
External Connectors
- 50-pin HD SCSI-2 Fast-Narrow single-ended
- DB9 male RS232C serial (up to 115200 baud)
- DB25 female parallel
- TP/RJ45 10Mbit Ethernet1
- 15-pin AUI 10Mbit Ethernet1
- HD15 VGA2
- Two PS/2 connectors for keyboard & mouse
- Three phone jacks (microphone, headphones and line-in)
- The system automatically detects the used port.
- You can connect almost any monitor to the VGA jack. The 712 can drive VESA compatible multisync, HP fixed-frequency and many other popular FF monitors. It also is able to produce sync on green signals.
ROM update
There is an firmware update available for the 712, which contains the latest version (2.3).
- PF_C7120023.txt has details about the contents and installation of the patch.
- PF_C7120023 contains the patch.
References
- Model 712 Technical Reference (PDF, 3.7MB)
- Model 712 Service Handbook (PDF, 4.4MB)
- NetBSD 712 serial console HOWTO, instructions to configure 712s to use serial console (i.e. run headless)
- HP 9000 Model 712 Overview (PDF, HP Journal 4/95)
- Design of the Model 712’s I/O subsystem (LASI) (PDF, HP Journal 4/95)
- Product design of the Model 712 (PDF, HP Journal 4/95)
- In addition to the two above, almost the whole HP Journal April 1995 Issue deals with the 712 workstation.
- Pinout for the AUI/RS232 Y-cable for the optional second Ethernet/serial card.
Operating Systems
- HP-UX: every 32-bit release from 10.01-11.11 works.
- NeXTSTEP: version 3.3 works fine.
- Linux: works fine.
- OpenBSD: works fine.
- NetBSD: experimental support as of 5/2005.
Benchmarks
| Model | SPEC92, int | SPEC92, fp | SPEC95, int | SPEC95, fp | SPEC95rate, int | SPEC95rate, fp |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 712/60 | 67.0 | 85.3 | 2.08 | 2.66 | 18.7 | 23.9 |
| 712/80 | 97.1 | 123.3 | 3.12 | 3.55 | 28.1 | 32.0 |
| 712/100 | 117.2 | 144.2 | 3.76 | 4.06 | 33.8 | 36.3 |
Compare these with other results on the Benchmarks page.
Physical dimensions/Power
- 70×423×400 mm height/width/depth
- 8.36kg net weight
- 110W max. power input
- 1.2A max. RMS at 240V
- 2.7A max. RMS at 120V