Brian Strope

bps@ucla.edu

CPU Boards for HP400 and HP700 Workstations

In Colorado, I designed two system boards for HP Workstations. The first integrates a commonly-configured graphics board with the HP4xxS system board, while the second provides a board upgrade from the Motorola 68040-based HP4xxS to the PA-RISC-based HP715.

Both system boards integrated the CPU, caches, memory control, and I/O interface, together with a collection of standard workstation I/O: Graphics, LAN, SCSI, Serial, Parallel, Keyboard and Mouse Connection, and Audio. A power supply, memory boards, disks, monitor, keyboard, and mouse are connected to the system board to make a complete workstation.

For both designs, I generated schematics and net-lists for layout using a combination of HP and Mentor CAD tools. Substantial pieces of these designs were leveraged from existing workstations. My original design work focused on: system clocking design, layout, and delay timing; one I/O bridge to support the graphics connection, and another to support connection to an optional EISA chip-set; and a conversion circuit to support HP4xx memory boards in the upgraded HP715 system.

I designed the first board alone, and worked with Dave Dahms, who was responsible for a similar HP4xxT upgrade, on the second.


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