When (OS level) did HP-UX change from only 32 bit kernel to 64/32 bit?

[Thomas Mereness]

We are trying to determine the probability that our mixed 32/64 bit application will get installed on a 32 bit only HP system.

Can someone tell me the approximate date and OS level at which HP made the switch from 32 bit only OS and hardware to the current 64/32 bit machines?

Thank you,

Tom Mereness

[Court Campbell]

Not sure about dates. But I believe the last 32 bit only was 10.20. and the first 64 was 11.00.

[James R. Ferguson]

Hi Tom:

Well, 64-bit support first appeared with 11.0 and that release first appeared in November 1997 (!).

http://www.hp.com/softwarereleases/releases-media2/history/slide2.html

Regards!

...JRF...

[Patrick Wallek]

It is not just the OS that you need to take into account, but the hardware that the OS is installed on as well.

As said, 11.0 was the first 32/64 mix.
11.11/11iv1 continued that.
I believe that 11.23/11iv2 was 64-bit ONLY as is 11.31/11iv3.

All hardware since about 1999/2000 has been 64-bit only hardware. The D-series and K-series and the only remotely recent models that will support both 32-bit and 64-bit.

The A400/500, L series, N series and ALL rp-series machines are 64-bit ONLY hardware architecture, thus can only run a 64-bit OS.

Keep in mind though that a 32-bit program will generally run just fine on 64-bit hardware/OS.

[A. Clay Stephenson]

11.0 was the first OS version that offered 64-bit (although 32 bit is possible), The bad news is that 11.11, unlike 11.0, is still a current release (and will be the terminal release for a number of old platforms, e.g. D-boxes, K-boxes) and could be installed as either a 32-bit or a 64-bit OS.

If you don't need 64-bit features such as larger address space then you could choose to compile/link it as a 32-bit executable and it would thus run everywhere.

The real question is what 3rd party libraries your application might have to link against. More and more, libraries are available only in their 64-bit versions.

[rick jones]

PA 2.0 was the first PA Architecture version to support 64 bit addressing (strictly speaking, 64 bit address offsets - PA 1.0 supported 32-bit offsets and 32-bit spaceids back in 1987 so in that sense was already "64-bit" but most of the time people are thinking about the offsets...)

The first PA 2.0 CPU was the PA-8000. IIRC that beastie shipped in systems in 1996. The aforementioned D and K class were some of the servers - there were a number of "three digit" workstations which shipped with PA-8000's as well. At install time, someone installing on a system with PA-8000 or PA-8200 CPUs can select either a 32-bit or 64 bit kernel.

With the PA-8500 and alter PA-RISC CPUs (shipped initially 1998 IIRC, in the L's, N's and "four-digit" workstations), at install time there is no longer a choice of 32-bit kernel - only a 64-bit kernel. Similarly, on IPF (Itanium, Integrity) systems one only has a 64-bit kernel.

When you say "mixed 32/64 bit application" I presume you mean an application with discrete binaries, some of which are 32-bit, some of which are 64 since there is no way to mix 32 bit and 64 bit objects in the same executable image.

[Dennis Handly]

>We are trying to determine the probability that our mixed 32/64 bit application will get installed on a 32 bit only HP system.

Well, if you document it properly, the probability would be low. ;-)

And if you set up your PSF correctly, you can make sure it won't swinstall.

[Marcel Burggraeve]

There's one more 'recent' model which is capable of running 32/64 bits HP-UX.
It's the B2000 workstation which is as far as I know the most recent HP9000 which can run HP-UX 10.20 as well.

[Thomas Mereness]

Thanks to all, I now have the info I need to estimate and minimize the risk.

I will do the points thing shortly.

Thanks much!

Tom