daryl@hpcllla.HP.COM (Daryl Odnert) (12/14/88)
comp.arch fans know that it is fairly common to see information/
arguments about SPARC, MIPS, 88K, 68K, and others in this group.
For a variety of reasons, the HP Precision architecture is not
discussed much here in comp.arch. (Although I would like
to thank John Mashey of MIPS, who always seems to remember to
mention HP whenever he talks who is serious about RISC machines.)
For reasons which I won't go into here, HP discourages us engineers
from posting information such as benchmark timings and future product
specifications to publicly readable news groups. If, however, you
are interested in reading about the HP Precision architecture, I've
listed a bibliography below of HP authored articles and manuals
related to the HPPA. (This is a first draft of the bibliography,
so I apologize to anyone who wrote something that I neglected to
include.) I hope to expand it to include other materials including
non-HP authored articles and books, so if you know of any such references,
please send me the info.
Briefly, the HP Precision Architecture is a non-window-RISC-like architecture.
o 32 general purpose 32-bit registers in the CPU.
o 64-bits of virtual addressing space.
o Only loads-stores access memory
o Pipelined CPU
o Delayed branches
o Lots of interesting little features in the instruction set
(just to make it fun for us compiler writers to work on :-)
o Floating-point coprocessor is IEEE standard, has 12 registers
(which can be used for single or double precision values) plus
4 status/exception registers
o Runs HP-UX (our version of UN*X)
o Runs MPE/XL (our commercial transaction processing operating system,
which means, believe it or not, we know how to compile COBOL and RPG
onto a RISC.)
I would recommend reading both the Birnbaum and the Mahon HP Journal
articles for general introductions to HPPA.
Enjoy,
Daryl Odnert daryl%hpcllla@hplabs.hp.com
Hewlett-Packard California Language Lab
19447 Pruneridge Ave. MS 47LH
Cupertino, CA 95014
Permission to copy this bibliography is granted.
----------
HP Precision Architecture Bibliography
Last updated 12/88
Please mail any additions/corrections to:
Daryl Odnert daryl%hpcllla@hplabs.hp.com
Hewlett-Packard California Language Lab
19447 Pruneridge Ave. MS 47LH
Cupertino, CA 95014
J. S. Birnbaum and W. S. Worley, Jr., "Beyond RISC: High-Precision
Architecture," Hewlett-Packard Journal, Vol. 36, No. 8, August 1985.
D. S. Coutant, C. L. Hammond, and J. W. Kelly,
"Compilers for the New Generation of Hewlett-Packard Computers,"
Hewlett-Packard Journal, Vol. 37, No. 1, January 1986.
HP Precision Architecture Procedure Calling Conventions Reference Manual,
Hewlett-Packard Company, 1986. HP part number 09740-90015.
HP Precision Architecture and Instruction Reference Manual,
Hewlett-Packard Company, 1986. HP part number 09740-90014.
Mark S. Johnson and Terrence C. Miller, "Effectiveness of a Machine-Level,
Global Optimizer," Proc. of the SIGPLAN '86 Symp. on Compiler Construction,
ACM SIGPLAN Notices, Vol. 20, No. 7, July 1986.
D. S. Coutant, "Retargetable High-Level Alias Analysis", Conference
Record of the 13th ACM Symposium on Principles of Programming Languages,
January 1986.
P. Gibbons and S. Muchnick, "Efficient Instruction Scheduling for a
Pipelined Architecture," Proceedings of the SIGPLAN '86 Symposium on
Compiler Construction, ACM SIGPLAN Notices, Vol. 20, No. 7, July 1986.
M. J. Mahon, et. al., "Hewlett-Packard Precision Architecture:
The Processor," Hewlett-Packard Journal, Vol. 37, No. 8, August 1986.
D. V. James, et. al., "Hewlett-Packard Precision Architecture:
The Input/Output System," Hewlett-Packard Journal, Vol. 37, No. 8,
August 1986.
Alan S. Brown, et. al., "Data Base Management for HP Precision
Architecture Computers," Hewlett-Packard Journal, Vol. 37, No. 12,
December 1986.
F. W. Clegg, et. al., "The HP-UX Operating System on HP Precision
Architecture Computers," Hewlett-Packard Journal, Vol. 37, No. 12,
December 1986.
K. W. Pettis and W. B. Buzbee, "Hewlett-Packard Precision Architecture
Compiler Performance," Hewlett-Packard Journal, Vol. 38, No. 3, March 1987.
David A Fotland, et. al., "Hardware Design of the First HP Precision
Architecture Computers," Hewlett-Packard Journal, Vol. 38, No. 3,
March 1987.
D. J. Magenheimer, L. Peters, K. Pettis, and D. Zuras,
"Integer Multiplication and Division on the HP Precision Architecture,"
Proc. of the Second Intl. Conf. on Architectural Support for Programming
Languages and Operating Systems (ASPLOS-II), ACM, New York, October 1987.
Steven T. Mangelsdorf, et. al., "A VLSI Processor for HP Precision
Architecture," Hewlett-Packard Journal, Vol. 38, No. 9, Sept. 1988.
J. Busch, et. al., "MPE/XL: The Operating System for HP's Next Generation
of Commercial Computer Systems," Hewlett Packard Journal, Vol. 38, No. 11,
December 1987.
Jeffry D. Yetter, et. al., "HP Precision Architecture NMOS-III Single
Chip CPU," Hewlett-Packard Journal, Vol. 38, No. 9, Sept. 1988.
Craig S. Robinson, et. al., "A Midrange VLSI Hewlett-Packard Precision
Architecture Computer," Hewlett-Packard Journal, Vol. 38, No. 9, Sept. 1988.
Gerald R. Gassman, et. al., "VLSI-Based High-Performance HP Precision
Architecture Computers," Hewlett-Packard Journal, Vol. 38, No. 9, Sept. 1988.
D. Coutant, S. Meloy, and M. Ruscetta, "DOC: A Practical Approach to
Source-Level Debugging of Globally Optimized Code", Proceedings of the
SIGPLAN '88 Conference on Programming Language Design and Implementation,
June 1988.
S. Jain and C. Thompson, "An Efficient Approach for Data Flow Analysis in a
Multiple Pass Global Optimizer", Proceedings of the SIGPLAN '88 Conference
on Programming Language Design and Implementation," June 1988.daryl@hpcllla.HP.COM (Daryl Odnert) (12/15/88)
I've already recieved a couple of mail messages asking me about
the HP Journal. The address of the Journal is
HP Journal
3200 Hillview Ave.
Palo Alto, CA 94304
USA
When I get some time, I'll try to contact them to get some information
about to whom the Journal is distributed and who may subscribe. I'll
post the information when I get it.
Also, I thought I'd post some info about a book which has been published.
The authors do not work for HP. Although we've seen a few minor technical
inaccuracies in the book, it is a good overview of the architecture and
the MPE/XL operating system. I think you can buy/order it in technical
bookstores.
Beyond RISC!
An Essential Guide to the Hewlett-Packard Precision Architecture
Wayne E. Holt (ed.) ISBN O-9618813-7-2.
The publisher is
Software Research Northwest, Inc.
17710 100th Ave. SW
Vashon Island, WA 98070
Daryl Odnert
daryl%hpcllla@hplabs.hp.com
Hewlett-Packard California Language Labaglew@mcdurb.Urbana.Gould.COM (12/17/88)
I'd like to thank Daryll Odert for his HP Precision bibliography. Now, can somebody give me an address to send away to for some of those HP Part Number documents? Approximate costs would be nice, too. Andy "Krazy" Glew aglew@urbana.mcd.mot.com uunet!uiucdcs!mcdurb!aglew Motorola Microcomputer Division, Champaign-Urbana Design Center 1101 E. University, Urbana, Illinois 61801, USA. My opinions are my own, and are not the opinions of my employer, or any other organisation. I indicate my company only so that the reader may account for any possible bias I may have towards our products.
daryl@hpcllla.HP.COM (Daryl Odnert) (12/21/88)
aglew@mcdurb.Urbana.Gould.COM asks: > Now, can somebody give me an address to send away to for some of > those HP Part Number documents? Hewlett-Packard Direct Marketing Division 1320 Kifer Road Sunnyvale, CA 94086 Phone: (408) 738-8858 or (800) 538 8787 Products can be ordered over the phone with a credit card. Daryl Odnert Hewlett-Packard
daryl@hpcllla.HP.COM (Daryl Odnert) (12/22/88)
I've been told that the price for the HPPA manuals is pretty steep right now (for reasons that only a marketing person could explain.) My apologies to anyone who wanted to buy them for Christmas presents :-) However, I've also been told (unofficially) that HP plans to reprint these manuals and give them a reasonable price after a round of revisions. This reduced cost version should become available in the first half of '89. Daryl Odnert HP