Paul Weissmann’s OpenPA, the invaluable archive on anything related to the HP’s PA-RISC architecture, devices, and operating systems, has branched off for a bit and started collecting information on RISC laptops.
Technical computing in the 1990s was mostly done on RISC workstations with Unix operating systems and specialized applications. For mobile use cases, some of the popular RISC vendors built RISC Laptops for mobile Unix use in the 1990s.
Often based on contemporary Unix workstations, these RISC laptops were often marketed for government and military uses such as command, technical analysis and surveillance.
↫ Paul Weissmann at OpenPA
OpenPA has always had content beyond just PA-RISC (like HP’s Itanium machines), so this is not entirely surprising, and it also happens to be something that’s sorely needed – there’s remarkably little consolidated information to be found on these RISC laptops, and it’s usually scattered all over the place and difficult to find. They were expensive and rare when they were new, and they’re even rarer and often more expensive today.
What we’re talking about here are laptops with PA-RISC, SPARC, (non-Apple) PowerPC, and Alpha processors, running some variant of UNIX, like HP-UX, SunOS/Solaris, AIX, and even Windows NT. A particularly interesting listing at the moment is the Hitachi 3050RX/100C, a laptop based on the Hitachi PA/50L PA-RISC processor that ran something called HI-UX/WE2, a UNIX from Hitachi I can’t find much information about.
The most desirable laptop listed is the amazing Tadpole Viper, which was the most powerful SPARC laptop Tadpole ever made, and I’m pretty sure it’s the most powerful SPARC laptop, period. It was powered by a 1.2Ghz UltraSPARC IIIi processor, and was also sold as the Sun Ultra 3, in 2005. I would perform some seriously questionable acts to get my hands on one of these, but they’re most likely virtually impossible to find.
Anyone who can help Weissmann find more information – feel free to do so.
And now I’m reading this on a RISC Unix laptop, an M1 MBP.
Not a laptop, but here’s a RISC machine that made me dream when it first appeared on the market in the late 1980s:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aviion (Data General AViiON Workstation)
Ad : https://www.1000bit.it/ad/bro/datageneral/aviion_works/aviion_works.pdf
I would be happy just seeing a Sun Ultra 3 in a video, either the Tadpole Viper variant or the later Naturetech 888P and Mesostation 999 variants (which are btw missing from the above list).
All reviews of units I’ve found online have their original branding (for example Mesostation 999), which makes me question the very existence of Sun Ultra 3-branded units. It’s a lot like that Alienware DLP ultrawide monitor which was just a rebadged Ostendo CRVD 43 monitor. Alienware had a branding deal with Ostendo but no Alienware-branded units were actually made. Similarly, I wouldn’t be surprised if no Sun Ultra 3-branded laptops were made either.
I have a Sparcbook 3TX… 170Mhz model.
Most of the 3 series could also have been ordered with special memory modules with double capacity, I have photos of the modules I think I posted on VCFED forum ages ago. I guess they wee just low profile 60ns or better modules.
It is worth noting that standard height modules do not fit… you have to have low profile ones.
Also worth noting the 3000ST has IDE internally not SCSI… so you dont need a SCSI2SD with it just a PATA IDE 2.5 drive (probably a PATA SSD would work fine). It still has SCSI externally though.
Reference:
https://jasoneckert.github.io/myblog/sparcbook3000st-the-coolest-90s-laptop/
Strange that the Alphabook is described as 32bit laptop, when the Alpha has always been a purely 64bit cpu.
I assume you mean on this page:
https://www.openpa.net/risc/tadpole_alphabook.html
That is very strange I agree. It says it in more than one place. Yet, the same page also clearly states that the CPU is 64 bits. As you say, an Alpha CPU had no “32 bit” mode and used 64 bits at all times even when running 32 bit code ( like Windows NT ).
I have no idea what they are talking about.