HP X-Terminals are a line of X terminals from Hewlett Packard introduced in the early- to mid-1990s, including the 700/X and 700/RX, Envizex and Entria, and the Envizex II and Entria II. They were often sold alongside PA-RISC-based HP 9000 Unix systems. The primary use case was connecting several graphical consoles to a single server or workstation to allow multiple users access the same (expensive) processing system from (less expensive) terminal systems. These X-Terminals all allowed high-resolution, color-graphics access to the main server from which they downloaded their operating system and necessary program files. All models featured limited expandability, in most cases additional I/O options for peripherals and memory for more programs or local storage. HP did not use its own PA-RISC platform for these systems, the first design used an Intel CISC processor, while all later systems used RISC platforms, first Intel i960 and later the popular MIPS.
These 1990s X-Terminals, together with offerings from many other vendors from that time, were precursors to thin computing: the use of small dumb front-end systems for I/O and a larger processing system as back-end, shared by many concurrent users.
These were the first X-Terminals HP produced, featuring a similar case to that of some HP 9000/300(Motorola 68000-based) workstations.They were driven by a pretty obscure CPU combination, an Intel 186 with a TI DSPas video coprocessor.
These are the direct successors to the 700/X line of X-Terminals and changed the architecture significantly.They were the first in a line of terminals to be driven by an Intel i960 RISC CPU and introduced a case which also was used on later systems. They have a (albeit very quiet) fan.
Several submodels were available, featuring different video-options:
All models have these base features in common:
The Entrias were the low-cost line of X-Terminals, featuring the same architecture as the 700/RX terminals, but in a plastic case the same style as the HP 9000/712 workstation. They are very small and quiet.
The Entrias were available in different video configurations, depending on the exact model:
Common:
The Envizex were the successors to the 700/RX terminals, featuring the same flat pizzabox case and a slightly modified architecture with a faster version of the Intel i960 RISC CPU.They have a (very quiet) fan inside.
Three different series were available which featured different speeds of the CPU:
Common aspects:
These were the successors of the low-cost Entria X-Terminals, keeping their HP 9000/712-style small footprint plastic case.The system architecture was changed completely and is shared with the later Envizex II terminals. It is based around a NEC R4300 CPU and PCI-based I/O devices.
These are the bigger brothers of the Entria II X-Terminals, driven by the same R4300 MIPS CPU and PCI I/O architecture.The case was redesigned, is very easy to open and does not have any fans, making the terminal rather quiet.
These X-Terminals/stations run a proprietary operating system from HP — Netstation, formerly Enware, with some versions apparently based on VxWorks (probably those with RISC support).
This software runs on theoretically any Unix system, native support is available for HP-UX 10, HP-UX 11, IBM AIX and Solaris 2.x. A generic installation image is provided for other Unix flavors; this can be used to install the software via the provided installation shell script on for instance various Linux or BSD flavors.
The older Enware/Netstation Version 7.1, HP product B.07.11, supports the following i960-based terminals:
It was downloadable from a public HP FTP service (hprc.external.hp.com/B.07.11/), which however was apparently discontinued.[1]
Read the included documentation and technical reference and refer to the installation instructions. Generally, a Unix server is needed from which the station can boot its kernel and load its X server.This is done via TFTP; the station can be managed locally via a configuration screen or remotely on the server via customizable configuration files.
The most current available Netstation version is 9.0, HP product B.09.11. This version supports the newer MIPS-based X-Terminals:
Same as with the older Netstation software, version 9.0 was available from a HP FTP service, which was discontinued. (See above)
The newer X-Terminals (IIs) can boot in different ways, over a NFS mount, a SMB share or plain TFTP.Included in the Netstation software is a native Java environment which makes execution of local Java applets on the terminal possible.
Specific references:General references: