No RISC No Fun

PA-RISC against Cray Supercomputers

By Paul Weissmann on 5 September 2025

PA-RISC started its life as conservative RISC design for Unix computing in the 1980s. Performance in the early years was on par with other RISC and Unix platforms, but in the 90s, PA-RISC grew into a fast technical RISC platform with 64-bit PA-8000 CPUs.

But supercomputers?

HP used PA-RISC’s floating-point prowess and the newly-acquired Convex Exemplar technology to compete with massively-parallel and vector supercomputers from Cray and its RISC competitors. HP PA-RISC was often faster than other parallel RISC platforms but still slower than vector computers, in Linpack MFLOPS.

Notably, a HP 9000 735/125 workstation from 1991 was as fast as a Cray-1S supercomputer from 1979, while a HP 9000 K460 from 1996 was faster than a Cray Y-MP EL from 1992. At the top end in the late-1990s, Cray T90 and SV1 vector computers were still much faster than comparable HP V-Class offerings based on Convex Exemplar and 64-bit PA-RISC.

And the 1980s Cray computers were seriously fast.

CAD/CAM on HP-UX: MSC Nastran and Patran

By Paul Weissmann on 16 August 2025

CAD, CAM and CAE applications for computer-aided design, manufacturing and engineering were one of the main use cases for PA-RISC and HP 9000 computers. In the 1990s, mainstream RISC workstations became powerful enough for serious technical computing with applications like I-DEAS, CATIA, Unigraphics, HP ME10 and MSC/Nastran and Patran.

PA-RISC processors had strong floating point performance, making them a prime CAE platform. During the mid-1990s, companies moved from supercomputers and mainframe, host-based CAD/CAM solutions on IBM System 370/390 and Cray to distributed Unix client-server models.

The market leader in CAE was, for considerable time MSC Software, MacNeal-Schwendler Corporation. MSC developed structural analysis software with roots in the 1960s space and airplane industry, when MSC and NASA co-developed NASTRAN. MSC ported applications like Nastran, Patran, Marc and Dytran and from Cray to Unix including to HP-UX and HP 9000.

MSC.Nastran is a finite element analysis (FEA) software, used for Structural Analysis, Thermal Analysis, and Optimization, the core product of MSC for a long time. Nastran was used for the analysis of stress, vibration, and heat in automobiles, airplanes and structures and supported HP-UX and PA-RISC between 1991 and 2021 in many versions, including on HP Visualize workstations and HP 9000 V-Class scalar servers.

Patran, bought by MSC in 1994, is a 3-D mechanical computer aided-engineering (MCAE) solution, used in CAE for for linking engineering design, analysis, and results evaluation functions. As companion product and pre/post-processor to Nastran, Patran supported HP 9000 and HP-UX at least between 1996 and 2011, with a brief Itanium interlude.

HP 9000 800 Nova Business Class Servers

By Paul Weissmann on 12 August 2025

HP Nova servers were archetypical HP 9000 800 PA-RISC servers from the early 1990s, when HP 9000 workstations and servers had very divergent system designs. Nova F, G, H and I Class were business-oriented PA-RISC servers, designed by the HP Technical Server division with 32-bit PA-7000 and PA-7100 processors. They were used as multifunction or dedicated network servers for applications, databases and communications.

The smaller 807S server (F10) was designed by HP Böblingen R&D in Germany, when the need for low-end models for value-added resellers became apparent in Europe. HP Böblingen had taken over low-end UNIX server system R&D during that time.

HP 9000 Nova servers used modified HP ASP chipset with HP Viper memory controller, interfacing the processor to memory and HP-PB I/O bus. System I/O is implemented on so-called HP-PB Personality Boards with separate I/O devices and chips.

The only operating system for HP 9000 Nova servers was HP-UX, there were no other operating systems since the architecture was proprietary and never publically documented.

Nova servers were suceeded by E Class servers with PA-7100LC that shared F Class cases and some of the proprietary I/O design. Many Nova servers became available second-hand in the 2000s at bargain prices, since few follow-on use cases were possible for the cumbersome machines with limited software options but HP-UX.

Operating systems history on PA-RISC

By Paul Weissmann on 10 August 2025

Many different Unix and non-Unix operating systems have been developed for PA-RISC computers since their inception. PA-RISC operating system history starts with Unix in 1986: HP’s own HP-UX, still shipped today. Several Unix, Mach and other architectures have been ported to PA-RISC over the years, some open, some commercial, some closed.

The Infancy of PA-RISC operating systems from 1986 to 1991 featured mostly commercial Unix systems. This was followed by a short Growth in the PA-RISC ecosystem between 1991 and 1993 where PA-RISC expanded to other platforms such as Mach, OSF/1 and some commercial experiments (like Windows NT and NetWare).

Maturity of PA-RISC operating system was achieved from 1994 to the turn of the century, when PA-RISC extended its support to many different architectures from Unix, stable Mach and OSF/1 to novel platforms like HP-RT, mainframe systems and first open source. PA-RISC systems started their eventual Decline in 2000, after HP and others started their move to Itanium processors. Operating systems on PA-RISC stagnated and many were discontinued in the early 2000s, but finally open source on PA-RISC took off mid-2000s.

           |   Infancy   |Growth|      Maturity      |   Decline   
Year      86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 00 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24

HP-UX     █▒▒█▒▒█▒▒█▒▒█▒▒█▒▒█▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒█▒▒█▒▒█▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒█▒▒█▒▒█▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒█▒▒▒▒▒█▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒
NeXTSTEP                       ▒▒▒█▒▒
SPP-UX                         █▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒█▒▒▒▒▒▒▒
VOS, FTX                             █▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒█▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒

HPBSD              █▒▒█▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒█▒▒
Mach 3                   ▒▒
Mach 4                            ▒▒▒▒▒▒█▒▒
OSF/1                 ▒▒█▒▒     ▒▒█▒▒█▒▒█▒▒
MkLinux                                    ▒▒▒▒▒

Linux                                         ▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒█▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒█▒▒█▒▒█▒▒█▒▒█▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒
OpenBSD                                          ▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒█▒▒█▒▒█▒▒█▒▒█▒▒█▒▒█▒▒█▒▒█▒▒█▒▒█▒▒█▒▒█▒▒█▒▒█▒▒█▒▒█▒▒█▒▒█▒▒█▒▒█▒▒█▒
NetBSD                                                          ▒▒▒▒▒█▒▒█▒▒    █▒▒█▒▒   █▒▒█     ▒▒▒▒▒▒█▒▒█▒▒█▒▒█▒▒█▒▒█▒▒█▒▒█▒
QEMU                                                                                                    ▒▒█▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒█▒▒█▒▒█▒

HP-RT                         ▒█▒▒█▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒█▒▒
Windows NT                    ▒▒▒▒▒▒
NetWare                  ▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒

Year      86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 00 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24

█  major release
▒  support and development

Adobe Acrobat on HP-UX

By Paul Weissmann on 4 August 2025

Adobe ported its Acrobat PDF products to Unix quite early in the mid-1990s with multple Unix platforms supported by the Acrobat PDF creator. Support in Acrobat Reader for viewing PDFs was added later. Acrobat and Reader were available for HP-UX on PA-RISC until the mid-2000s:

Acrobat Reader supported PA-RISC for around ten years, starting with Acrobat Reader 3.0 (1996) on HP-UX 9.03, followed by Acrobat Reader 4.0 (2000) for HP-UX 9 and higher, already in PA-RISC’s twilight years. Next was Acrobat Reader 5.0 (2002), only belatedly ported to HP-UX 10.20 and 11.0 and the final Acrobat Reader 7.0 (2006), also ported late to HP-UX 11i.

Acrobat Reader for HP-UX skipped version 6.0 and it seems all ’newer’ versions like 8.1 (2007), 9.0 (2008) and up were never ported to PA-RISC, despite reports stating that.

Adobe Acrobat, the PDF creation suite, supported HP-UX on PA-RISC in at least two versions, consisting of Exchange, Distiller, Reader and Search with several Type 1 fonts. First was Acrobat 2.0 (1994), the first Unix version which included HP-UX support on HP 9000, followed by Acrobat 3.0 (1996) which ran on HP-UX 9.03 on PA-RISC and above with HP VUE.

Internet Browsers on HP-UX

By Paul Weissmann on 1 August 2025

PA-RISC workstations were popular in the 1990s heydays of Unix, a time that predates the modern graphical Internet and web browsers a bit. Later, in the 2000s, PA-RISC computers were used even more in specialized niches, in which Internet access did not feature highly. Thus there have been almost no modern browsers available since.

The main protagonists of the early web were available on HP-UX: Firefox, Netscape and Internet Explorer, besides the well known text-based Unix browsers. Support for more modern browsers tapered off in the mid-2000s and few viable options remain to browse the modern web with Internet Browsers on HP-UX.

Mosaic: The original NCSA Mosaic GUI browser was available early on Unix platforms with X Windows, with HP-UX support in Mosaic 1.0 (1993) until Mosaic 2.8 (1996). Mosaic was superseded by Netscape in the mid-1990s.

Netscape: The venerable Netscape Navigator and Communicator were available as binary products for HP-UX. Netscape supported PA-RISC in versions 1.0 to 4.7 and 4.8 between 1994 and 2002 for HP-UX 10.20, 11.00 and 11.11. Netscape 6 and 7 (2001 to 2006) were later also available for HP-UX 11.00 and 11.11, based on Mozilla Gecko.

Mozilla was available with source code instructions and as binary package in the late-1990s until the early-2000s for HP-UX 11.22, 11.00 and 10.20, provided by two specialized projects to port Mozilla to Unix.

Internet Explorer: Microsoft ported its browser very early to Unix as commercial product Internet Explorer for UNIX. Two version of IE were shipped, Internet Explorer 4 (1997) for HP-UX 10.20 and Internet Explorer 5 (1999) for HP-UX 10.20 and 11.00. There was even an Internet Explorer 5 SP1 in 2001.

Firefox: HP provided a free, commercial package of the Firefox browser for HP-UX 11i, from at least Firefox 1.5.0.4 (2006) to Firefox 3.5.9 (2010), which was the last modern browser for HP-UX PA-RISC.

Desktop Publishing (DTP) on HP-UX

By Paul Weissmann on 27 July 2025

PA-RISC and HP-UX workstations were often used in desktop publishing (DTP) for technical documentation and publishing frameworks in journals and large project libraries. Even though the least desirable job in engineering, high-profile DTP programs were available on HP-UX well into the 1990s, when DTP firmly moved to Windows NT and Mac.

FrameMaker was the leading professional desktop publishing (DTP) software and supported a variety of Unix platforms since its original release in the 1980s. Apollo Domain was supported early, with HP-UX and PA-RISC ports added in the late-1980s: FrameMaker 2.0-X (1989/1990) was the first HP-UX version with PA-RISC supported until the last FrameMaker 7.0 in 2002. FrameViewer, the companion tool for electronic distribution of content was also ported to HP-UX.

FrameMaker was even ported to NeXTSTEP on PA-RISC, in 1994 for FM3.2.

Interleaf was a Technical Publishing Software (TPS) ported to Unix in the 1980s. HP and Interleaf signed a license agreement for the WYSIWYG document editing tool. Interleaf was ported to PA-RISC HP-UX at least in Interleaf 5 (1992) until Interleaf 6 SGML (1996) and QuickSilver 1.0 (1999), after which Interleaf was sold to Broadvision. A companion tool for online publishing, Cyberleaf, was also available on HP-UX.

ArborText was a vendor of Unix DTP products since the 1980s and early adopter of SGML and later XML. ArborText Publisher and Adept were ported to HP-UX with Adept supporting HP 9000 PA-RISC at least from Adept 6 (1996) until Adept 9 (1999), before the product was integrated with the XML Epic product. ArborText Editor was reportedly used in the Space Shuttle documentation in the 1990s as part of The WAVE.

There were a few other online-centric DTP solutions available for HP-UX, notably WebWorks from Quadralay for template-based electronic publishing. HP-UX was supported from WebWorks Publisher 3.0 (1997) until at least Publisher 7.0 (2002).

Notably, photo editing and graphics design was not a major HP-UX use case and there never were Adobe Photoshop or Illustrator ports for HP-UX or PA-RISC.

Spreadsheets on Unix and HP-UX

By Paul Weissmann on 24 July 2025

As part of Unix office software on HP-UX, there were a few popular stand-alone spreadsheet applications available. The popular 1980s Lotus 1-2-3 spreadsheet started on DOS and PCs and was ported in the early 1990s to Unix and HP-UX on PA-RISC. Lotus 1-2-3 on Unix ran on HP-UX 7 and newer, possibly on both HP-UX and Motorola HP 9000s. The X11 and terminal-based program was released between 1991 and 1993 for HP-UX.

Another spreadsheet application on Unix was Informix Wingz, when Informix was still focused on the end-user computing market on Macintosh and A/UX in the late 1980s. In the early 1990s, it was ported to Apollo Domain and a bit later to HP-UX as Wingz 1.1a (1991). Informix later sold its Wingz business in the mid-1990s, and several Unix and HP-UX releases followed from new owners IISG. At least Wingz 3.0 and Wingz Professional 3.0 from 1998 supported PA-RISC HP-UX, with probably a few earlier releases after 1995 too.

Both Lotus 1-2-3 and Informix Wingz on HP-UX seem to be lost, with few traces remaining, similar for the other office program on HP-UX.

Unix Office and Productivity on HP-UX

By Paul Weissmann on 21 July 2025

Quite a few office and productivity suites were ported to in the 1980s and 1990s: No Longer The Exclusive Domain Of Academics And Engineers, UNIX Is Gaining Prominence In Office Environments. Word and office programs allowed engineers to stay integrated into the wider IT environment and help with technical documentation.

Popular applications included CorelDRAW! for graphics and the WordPerfect, Ami Pro, Applixware and IslandOffice office suites that were ported to HP-UX and until the late 1990s. This was the time when Unix platforms tried to move from technical engineering into more general purpose use cases and thus needed more mainstream programs.

• CorelDRAW was a graphics suite and vector graphics program from Corel, ported over from Windows PCs to Unix. CorelDRAW supported HP-UX and PA-RISC in versions 2.0 to 3.5 between 1992 and 1996.
• WordPerfect was the popular word processor for PCs in the 1980s and 90s, and was ported in multiple versions to Unix. HP-UX was supported in many WordPerfect releases from 4.2 to 8.0, beginning in 1988 until 1999, and included text-based (terminal) and X11 graphical programs.
• Ami Pro was a Lotus word publishing program for PCs and 16-bit Windows that was ported in version 3.0 to HP-UX 8 in 1994, for X11 VUE environments. Lotus was bought by IBM shortly after.
• Applixware was a quite long-running office suite from Applix, released for Unix systems between the mid-1980s until the 2000s. HP-UX was apparently supported in a single version 4.4 in 2000.
• IslandOffice was an office suite from Island Graphics available for Unix platforms between the 1980s and 1990s. HP-UX on PA-RISC was added possibly in versions 5.0 and 6.0 (1997-98) and maybe in earlier versions, with Apollo and HP 9000 300 and 400 having longer support.

Emulators for PC and Mac on HP-UX

By Paul Weissmann on 11 July 2025

With HP-UX software emulators for PC and Macintosh systems, HP 9000 PA-RISC workstations could run 1990s-vintage DOS, Windows and Apple Mac OS and applications. While the main use of HP-UX workstations usually was design and engineering, the use of emulators allowed these technical systems and their users to connect to wider office and productivity applications in the office to use mail, office and shared environments.

There were at least four computer emulators for HP-UX, all released in the 1990s era of Unix and RISC. Apple MAE and Andataco Liken provided an 680x0-based Macintosh (classic) environment, while Sun Wabi and Insignia SoftWindows emulated x86 PCs for DOS and Windows. All of these emulators were commercial products developed and sold by those vendors with different releases and platforms in the 90s.

• MAE (Apple): The Macintosh Application Environment, sold by Apple in the 1990s, supported HP-UX and PA-RISC in MAE 2.0 and 3.0. MAE emulated a 68040LC Macintosh with System 7.1 and System 7.5 on HP-UX 9 and 10.
• Liken (Andataco): Liken 2.0 was Macintosh emulator for Unix systems released in 1994 with HP-UX support. Hardware support and performance was limited and only Macintosh System 6 was emulated. Display was monochrome-only and a HP 9000 712 emulated Mac OS with the speed of a Mac IIsi.
• SoftWindows (Insignia): The suite of SoftPC and SoftWindows had support for Unix and especially HP-UX in multiple versions, at least SoftWindows 1.0, 2.0 and 4.0, released between 1994 and 1997. Emulated were Intel i486 and Pentium CPUs for DOS, Windows 3.1, 3.11 and later Windows 95.
• Wabi (Sun): HP licensed Wabi, the PC emulator for DOS and Windows, from Sun for multiple versions on HP-UX between 1994 and 1997. The HP Wabi products 1.1, 2.0, 2.1 and 2.2 supported Windows 3.1 and 3.11 with a select set of compatible Windows applications with i486-like performance.

HP Unix workstation endgame in the 2000s

By Paul Weissmann on 9 July 2025

The era of HP Unix workstations came to a close in the early 2000s. After a long line of PA-RISC HP 9000 700 and HP Visualize workstations for HP-UX in the 1990s, HP slowly transitioned its RISC and Unix offering towards server at the turn of the century. In the early 2000s, HP released a last batch of technical Unix workstations based on PA-RISC

At the end of the PA-RISC heydays, HP released the final 64-bit PA-RISC workstations: in 2000 with Visualize B2000 and B2600 and J5000 and J7000 workstations, based on PA-8500 and PA-8600 processors, followed in 2001 by C3600 to C3750 and J6000 to J6750 workstations with PA-8700 processors in an HP Astro design.

The end of PA-RISC was already near, however. HP had been working on VLIW as a RISC successor since the late 1980s. Later joined by Intel, this led to a VLIW processor design called EPIC by HP and Itanium by Intel. HP planned to use Itanium widely for its Unix business in the mid-1990s, but CPUs and computers were shipped only in 2001.

The first, almost unknown today Itanium workstation was the HP i2000, based on the first Merced IA64 processor and an Intel 82460GX reference design. The i2000 was slower than contemporary PA-RISC workstations and generally not very popular with clients (and HP), but it ran HP-UX, OpenVMS, Windows XP and 2000 and Linux plus FreeBSD.

The prototype i2000 (MVP) was followed by the second line of HP Itanium workstations, zx2000 and zx6000 with newer HP Itanium 2 processors and closely based on HP Integrity rx server architecture with HP zx1 Itanium chipsets. HP discontinued Itanium workstations soon after releasing the zx workstations, with Unix mostly confined to servers.

The last PA-RISC workstation followed two years after their zx-Class Itanium VLIW replacements were brought to market: HP C8000 were the pinnacle of PA-RISC and the ultimate HP-UX Unix workstation, released in 2004. Geared towards customers that needed specific PA-RISC and HP-UX applications for a few more years, they never had real benchmark figures published, but C8000 with dual-core PA-8900 Mako processors were rather fast.

All of these workstations were designed for the latest version of HP Unix, HP-UX 11i v1 for PA-RISC and 11i v2 for Itanium, to be used to technical computing such as CAD, CAM and 3D. There was initial Linux support for the PA-RISC workstations, and Windows and Linux options for Itanium workstations, helped by HP.

The confused versioning of HP-UX 11i (11.11)

By Paul Weissmann on 28 June 2025

HP-UX 11i v1 is HP’s Unix operating system for its 64-bit PA-RISC servers and workstations and some 32-bit PA-RISC computers, released from 2000 to 2006. Previous HP-UX 11.00 was the first 64-bit HP Unix. HP released HP-UX 11i originally as HP-UX 11.11, changed later to 11i and even later to 11i v1 to differentiate server and Itanium products (11i v2, v3 ...).

With HP-UX 11i v1 HP introduced operating environments (OEs) that were different for workstations and servers and their specific use cases:

• Technical Computing Operating Environment (TCOE) for workstations
• Minimal Technical Operating Environment (MTOE) for workstations
• Mission Critical Operating Environment (MCOE) for servers
• Enterprise Operating Environment (EOE) for servers

To complicate matters even further, not all HP-UX 11i v1 versions supported the same set of HP PA-RISC workstations and servers – support fluctuated strongly based on cyclical HP-UX releases between December 2000 and December 2006.

RISC Laptop: Toshiba SPARC LT AS1000

By Paul Weissmann on 5 May 2025

Another entry in the RISC Laptops series on 1990s Unix laptops with RISC processors: Toshiba SPARC LT laptops based on Sun SPARC architecture for Unix.

Toshiba SPARC LT AS1000 laptops were released in 1990 and were one of the first Unix laptops developed with still early RISC technology in the 1980s.

SPARC LT were close to Sun SPARCstations (1+ or 2) but needed modified SunOS for the custom Toshiba system design. After the original SPARC-based L10 and E10 versions, Toshiba added SuperSPARC C60, C70 and C80 models a few years later with newer CPUs, but it seems in only a very limited fashion.

Contemporary reviews in the early 1990s were unsure on the need for mobile engineering computers: Some experts have questioned the need for laptop workstations because the scientists and engineers who use them are often networked into high-powered mainframes. As a result, the advantages of portability are not as clear-cut as they would be for personal computer users.

Toshiba SPARC LT laptops were sold primarily in Japan, priced at ¥1,980,000, but were marketed pretty intensively in the US and Europe.