HP launches desk computer with mainframe power

Press, 30 November 1982, Page 26

HP launches desk computer with mainframe power

A new family of highperformance computers from Hewlett-Packard includes the industry’s first complete 32-bit computer small enough to fit on a desk. The market for 32-bit computers is the fastest-growing segment of the minicomputer industry, with a projected annual growth of 57 per cent between now and 1985. Hewlett-Packard’s first 32bit computers, called the HP 9000 family, are intended for scientific and engineering users.

Hewlett-Packard's chip technology enables the HP 9000 s to be produced in a desk-top-size model that, by the company’s estimate, provides comparable power to and all of the major features of larger 32-bit computers costing up to four times as much.

This gives individual engineers. and scientists the opportunity to have a personal 32-bit computer on their desks. Other models in the HP 9000 family include multiple-user computers in the super-minicomputer class.

A multiple-processor capability allows the HP 9000 to straddle this range. Up to three processing units can be incorporated in each HP 9000 computer. The baby of the family includes a built-in thermal printer, a 10 megabyte Winchester disc, and a choice of colour or monochromatic display. It starts with %- megabyte of memory. This desk-top model is a single-user, BASIC machine — a peppy personal computer. It is priced from $47,000. ’

The multiple-user versions in the family use a HewlettPackard variant of the Unix operating system and support the FORTRAN, Pascal, and C languages, ’ At present the HP 9000

will support up to 2 r a megabytes of memory and eight terminals. The' standard Hewlett-Packard range of disc drives, with capacities from 16 to 400 megabytes, can be added to the family. Using very large-scale integrated (VLSI) circuit technology in Hewlett-Packard's largest engineering effort to date, the key functions of a 32-bit mainframe computer have been squeezed on to five “superchips.” Packed with the equivalent of more than two million transistors in electronic circuitry, these tiny pieces of silicon have made it possible to reduce the size and cost of HewlettPackard's 32-bit computer. Multiple HP 9000 computers may be linked together in a local network with a simple connection called a shared resource manager.

Additional networking capabilities are available for the HP 9000 s through an Ethernet interface. The Ethernet interface is provided for users who will want to connect HP 9000 s to a highspeed local area network between now and the time the lEEE-802 local area network standard become available. explained HewlettPackard. The new Hewlett-Packard computers are expected to be used for manufacturing process control, biomedical applications, and computa-tion-intensive applications such as three-dimensional modelling and electronic circuit simulation in the electrical, mechanical, and’ civil engineering disciplines. Modelling and circuit simulation packages are already available for the machine, as well as a finite element analysis package and a drafting package. Eventually it is planned to put Hewlett-Packard’s Image

data-base management system on the HP 9000.

Mr Paul C. Ely. jun.. the executive vice-president for the HP Computer Group, said. “Our breakthrough in VLSI technology gave us the opportunity to do something dramatically different in the technical computer market. Instead of requiring many users to divide the power of a large and expensive mainframe, individual users can have their own personal 32bit computers. And they can have these personal mainframes without sacrificing performance or paying a heavy premium in price.

“Add the networking capabilities of the HP 9000, and you get the best of both worlds. Distributed networks' of individual computers put computer power in the hands of the people who really need it, and you still have the big mainframe benefits of sheer processing power and sharing of information and results among individual users,” Mr Ely said.

Mr Alan Thompson. New Zealand sales manager for Hewlett-Packard. expects customers with heavy computing needs to be very interested in the HP 9000. “The HP 9000 solves problems that have traditionally required a superminicomputer or mainframe,” he says. “With the HP 9000, these kinds of heavy computing problems can be solved locally — even at the individual engineer’s desk if needed. HP now has a 32-bit computer with enough performance to handle most problems previously relegated to large systems. "The HP 9000 is typical of what Hewlett-Packard feels will be the computers of the 1980 s,” says Mr Thompson. "In the 1980 s, the trend will be to dedicated computers linked together. This is the design centre of the HP 9000.”