Jiaotong University in Shanghai has bought China’s first Hewlett Packard Spectrum RISC machine. The contract was signed earlier this year before the US lifted its ban on the sale of high-tech goods to China, but neither side would comment on whether the machine, a Model 950 with HP-UX Unix, which has not yet been delivered, had been covered by the ban. The contract was signed with China Hewlett-Packard, a joint venture between the manufacturer and three Chinese organisations. The University already uses an old HP3000 mini, and the new machine will be used for teaching and development of software for the HP3000. Because of Hewlett’s backlog of orders for the new RISCs, the university is unlikely to see the machine before the end of the year.
