Hewlett-Packard Sets New Entry-Level Price/Performance Standard for MC68030 Workstations

Hewlett-Packard Sets New Entry-Level Price/Performance Standard for MC68030 Workstations

By Bill Bennett
Business Wire

November 28, 1988

Ft Collins, CO -- Hewlett-Packard Co. Monday introduced a new, high-performance engineering workstation that HP believes sets a new price/performance standard for workstations based on the new generation of Motorola microprocessors.

With an entry-level U.S. list price of $5,495, the HP 9000 Model 340 workstation, based on the MC68030 system processor, offers one- third more performance than competing entry-level workstations based on the MC68020.

The Model 340, which offers performance of 4 MIPS (millions of instructions per second), is the first system in its price range to use the MC68030 and MC68882 floating-point coprocessor, currently the most powerful microprocessor team in Motorola's industry- standard 68000 family.

Available in two monochrome and three color-graphics configurations, the Model 340 allows engineers and designers to create powerful systems tailored to their applications. Two high- resolution choices provide workstations suitable for everything from general scientific computing and software development, to 2D CAD (computer-aided design) and mechanical design and drafting.

According to Bill G. Kay, general manager of HP's Workstations Group, the new workstation reduces the price of HP's entry-level color workstations by 15 percent while improving their performance by more than 50 percent.

HP has succeeded in delivering MC68030 technology and superior features at prices lower than previously available. The Model 340 delivers all the benefits of more than 750 advanced applications that run under the HP-UX operating system, which adheres to AT&T's UNIX(R) System V Interface Definition Issue 2.

"While many other manufacturers are raising prices, HP is raising performance," said Kay. "Low price used to mean low performance, but now the HP 9000 Model 340 sets a new entry-level standard for high performance."

Unlike other manufacturers' most popular workstations, the Model 340 offers a high degree of flexibility by permitting a wide choice of graphics, RAM expandability to 16 megabytes, an optional accessory slot, and object-code compatibility across the entire HP 9000 Series 300 product line.

"We asked our customers what they wanted in a low-end workstation," said Kay, "and the Model 340 is the result."

The Model 340 gives HP the industry's broadest range of workstations using the state-of-the-art MC68030 microprocessor, the company believes. HP is the first computer manufacturer to offer entry-level, mid-range and high-end workstations all based on the MC68030 -- giving the broadest possible range of end users access to hundreds of the industry's most popular software applications available today for the HP 9000 workstation family.

Earlier this year, HP introduced the first MC68030 workstation, the HP 9000 Model 360, and later introduced the first MC68030 workstation running at 33 MHz, the HP 9000 Model 370.

Five Systems to Choose From

The Model 340 is available in five configurations:

-- The Model 340M offers the industry's lowest price for an MC68030-based 32-bit workstation. It supports high-resolution graphics on a 17- inch monitor and is ideal for engineering and design groups that run mechanical design and drafting, or software- development applications.

-- The Model 340MH is similar to the Model 340M, but offers higher-resolution (1,280 x 1,024) monochrome graphics on a large 19- inch display. It incorporates HP's enhanced 2D graphics with hardware support for vectors and polygon drawing, pixel replication, area pattern fill and bit-per-pixel addressing. It is well suited for CAD and other applications requiring high display resolution.

-- The Model 340C+ incorporates HP's enhanced 2D graphics and six colorplanes. The Model 340C+ offers high-resolution (1,024 x 768) full-color graphics on a 16-inch monitor, and is an excellent choice for EE logical and physical design, general scientific computing, software development and 2D ME design applications. A 19-inch monitor is also available.

-- The Model 340CH is similar to the Model 340C+, but offers high-resolution full-color graphics on a 16-inch monitor (a 19-inch monitor is optional), as well as eight color planes and two overlay planes.

-- The Model 340CHX offers 340CH graphics with an integer graphics accelerator that provides an optimized 32-bit world- coordinate interface directly to the graphics pipeline. This speeds display processing -- approximately doubling the performance over the Model 340CH -- and includes functions such as pan and zoom.

U.S. List Prices

All Model 340 bundles are available now and all include display boards and monitors; 4 Mbytes of RAM; RS 232C, parallel (HP-IB), HP- HIL and LAN interfaces; HP-UX 6.2; and the X Window System(tm).

Prices are as follows:

-- Model 340M $ 5,495

-- Model 340MH 7,995

-- Model 340C+ 8,495

-- Model 340CH 10,995

-- Model 340CHX 15,995

Hewlett-Packard Co. is an international manufacturer of measurement and computation products and systems recognized for excellence in quality and support. The company's products and services are used in industry, business, engineering, science, medicine and education in more than 70 countries.

Founded in 1939, the company celebrates its 50th anniversary in 1989. It has 87,000 employees and had revenue of $9.8 billion in its 1988 fiscal year.

UNIX is a registered trademark of AT&T in the U.S.A. and other countries.

X Window System is a trademark of Massachusetts Institute of Technology.