Definition: HP 3000

A family of business-oriented servers from HP that ran under the MPE/iX operating system. Models were available from entry level to mainframe class. Introduced in 1972, the HP3000A was HP's first business computer. With 128KB of RAM and costing about $250,000, it set a standard for reliability that was unmatched for that era.

In 1986, the line began to migrate to HP's PA-RISC chips, while maintaining compatibility with the original CPUs. Over the years, HP 3000s migrated from the central minicomputer architecture to client/server, in which intelligent workstations and PCs have replaced the dumb terminal. Later named the e3000 server, production of this venerable product line ended in 2004.