[parisc-linux] Appollo 730

[parisc-linux] Appollo 730

[Sandy Harris]

A couple of us are collecting cheap old HP machines for use as a crude parallel
processor, for problems like factoring. We currently have about 20, mostly 712/60
with a few 715s.

I've found a pile of machines with an Appollo nameplate, rather than HP, and a
730 model number. They look a fair bit like a 735, deeper case than 712 or 715,
boards that slide in from the back. The vendor assures me they use a first
generation PA-RISC CPU.

Are these the HP 730 the hardware database mentions? If not, will they run Linux?

Re: [parisc-linux] Appollo 730

[Dave Gilbert]

On Fri, 20 Apr 2001, Sandy Harris wrote:

> I've found a pile of machines with an Appollo nameplate, rather than
> HP, and a 730 model number. They look a fair bit like a 735, deeper
> case than 712 or 715, boards that slide in from the back. The vendor
> assures me they use a first generation PA-RISC CPU.

As of yesterday I got my first HP - it is marked as Hewlett Packard Apollo
735.

I'm told it is actually a 730 that was upgraded to the 735 - but
/proc/cpuinfo still shows it as a 730 - hmm:

> processor     : 0
> cpu family    : PA-RISC 1.1a
> cpu           : PA7000 (PCX-S)
> cpu MHz               : 99.000000
> model         : 9000/730
> model name    : King Cobra (730)

The SCSI is being a bit of a pain - but the machine appears to be missing
a SCSI terminator, something that I'll hopefully solve today.

One thing to remember is that this thing uses 'rboot' rather than the
normal bootp - you'll need to find yourself a copy of rbootd; I found a
copy nestling on the Debian unstable site; it built with a bit of fight on
the Linux/Alpha box I'm booting it off.

Dave

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