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The Hewlett-Packard 3000 series is a family of minicomputers released by the company in 1973 after a difficult development project. It was intended to be the first minicomputer delivered with a full featured operating system with timesharing.
The early machines were based on a 16-bit custom CISC processor. Around 1988 machines using HP's PA-RISC processors shipped in volume, bringing 32 bit addressing. Binary compatibility with the older machines was (and is) maintained.
The 3000 series operating system is called MPE and includes a built-in database called TurboIMAGE.
In 2003, HP discontinued 3000 series sales. All support will be terminated beginning Jan 1,2007.
The Classic HP 3000 (http://www.robelle.com/library/smugbook/classic.html) - detailed early history.
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