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Apollo
Technical Overview

[Amiga] [Apollo] [Atari] [Mac II] [Mac Entry Level] [Mac Quadra] [Mac AV] [NeXT Architecture] [Radius Rocket] [Sun 3 Series]

Overview

The Apollo's were a remarkable technology that was well ahead of their time. This architecture orginally ran the Domain OS which was a BSD-UNIX derivitive. Later Hewlett Packcard acquired this company to complement a workstation line of computers revolving around the Apollo. HP-UX, a SVR3 derived UNIX, ported to run on this platform. Later, HP started to use their own PA-RISC processor in these computers which displaced the 68040 processors already used. The PA-RISC was remarkable for its FPU performance, and surpassed even the Alpha at that time. The HP workstations became the most popular workstation, surpassing even that of Sun Microsystems.

Currently, it is rare to come across these computers for sale on the used market. I talked to person's in the U.K. whom use these machines for scientific research, and some persons in Texas whom sell these computers. De Anza college has a group of machines that they would like to give away to the public, but are trapped within the bueracracy of De Anza college.

Linux/m68k

Generally Linux/m68k runs on any MC68020 with an external MC68551 PMMU (Paged Memory Management Unit) processor. Other processors after the MC68020 have a built-in MMU (Memory Management Unit) with exception of the MC68EC030 and other EC processors which cannot work with Linux/m68k. It is good to have an FPU (Floating Point Unit) or math co-processor as it is slow to use an emulator and difficult to configure. Commonly, MC68881 math processor is used with the MC68020 and the MC68882 is used with the MC68030. The newer MC68040 contains a built-in math coprocessor. The MC68LC040 does not have the built-in math coprocessor.

It is unkown what if any HP Apollos are supported. Currently one person has reported to run Linux/m68k on a HP Apollo and it is documented that there is in existance a movement to port Linux/m68k to the HP Apollo platform.

Components

Ports

Statistics

Domain Apollo Series

HP Apollo 9000 Series 300

Computer

Processor

 Linux Support* OpenBSD Support* NetBSD Support* 

Main

Math

Memory

 HP318  68020    

 

  y y
 HP319  68020    

 

  y y
 HP320  68020    

 

  y y
 HP330  68020        y y 
 HP340  16MHz 68030  68882  Built-in   y y
 HP345  68030    Built-in    y y
 HP350  68020       y y
 HP360  68030    Built-in

 

 y y
 HP370  68030    Built-in   y  y
 HP375  68030    Built-in  

 y

 y

 HP380  68040  Built-in  Built-in   y y
 HP382  68040  Built-in  Built-in  

 

 y
 HP385  50MHz 68040  Built-in  Built-in      

HP Apollo 9000 Series 400

Computer

Processor

 Linux Support* OpenBSD Support* NetBSD Support* 

Main

Math

Memory

 HP400DL 50MHz 68030  68882  Built-in      
 HP400S 50MHz 68030  68882  Built-in

 

  y y
 HP400T 50MHz 68030  68882  Built-in

 

  y y
 HP425S 50MHz 68040  Built-in  Built-in

 

  y y
 HP425T 50MHz 68040  Built-in  Built-in   y  y 
 HP425E 50MHz 68040  Built-in  Built-in   y y
 HP433S 66MHz 68040  Built-in  Built-in   y  y 
 HP433T 66MHz 68040  Built-in  Built-in   y y

HP Apollo 9000 Series 400 Model 400T

 

HP Apollo 9000 Series 400 Model 433s

Features

TBA

Other Pages of Interests

Domain Hardware

Operating Systems