HP Integral PC
| Industry | Computer hardware, Software |
|---|---|
| Founded | January 1, 1939 |
| Headquarters | Palo Alto, California , United States |
| Products | HP Integral PC (HP 9807A), HP-UX operating system, HP ThinkJet printer |
The HP Integral PC (HP 9807A) is a portable UNIX workstation developed by Hewlett-Packard, introduced in 1985 with a launch price of £5450. It is powered by a Motorola 68000 CPU clocked at 8 MHz and runs the HP-UX 1.0 operating system.
Hardware
This portable computer operates on mains electricity and features a 9-inch amber electroluminescent screen capable of displaying 512×255 pixels or 80×25 characters. It comes equipped with a 710 kB 3.5" floppy disk drive alongside an HP ThinkJet ink-jet printer. The base memory includes 256 KB of ROM and 512 KB of RAM, which can be expanded up to 7.5 MB. Connectivity for peripherals is provided through expansion slots and an HP-IB bus. Its mechanical construction was inspired by the earlier HP-85 model.
The central processing unit integrates several components on a single logic board, such as RAM, ROM, memory management, I/O buffering, system timing, and the keyboard interface. Peripheral devices connect via fourteen modular boards, each smaller than letter size and equipped with its own timer to facilitate diagnostics. The I/O board supports two optional add-on ports; the keyboard interface, "Human Interface Link" (HP-HIL), and the power supply can all be tested independently.
A custom graphics processor (GPU) controls the electroluminescent display or alternative monitors, managing a bitmapped screen with 32 KB of dedicated display memory. It provides hardware acceleration for rendering lines, rectangles, alphanumeric characters, a hardware cursor, and handles the interface with display RAM.
The electroluminescent panel uses thin-film technology developed jointly by HP and its partners, delivering high-quality visuals tailored for technical use.
Software
Embedded in ROM is the HP-UX operating system kernel, which also contains the HP Windows graphical user interface along with the Personal Applications Manager (PAM). Additional HP-UX commands and utilities are supplied separately on floppy disks, categorized into standard Unix commands (including the C shell), utilities, diagnostics, and system programming tools. An optional ROM module offers HP-BASIC, allowing immediate BASIC execution upon startup on the Integral PC.