The Aurora system is a Hewlett-Packard 9000/712. It is a "pizza box" consisting of a 60 MHz PA-RISC 1.1 7100LC CPU, 64MB ECC RAM, single ended SCSI-2 controller, 10BaseT/AUI Ethernet interface, serial port, parallel port, Quantum VP31110 1GB disk, 3.5" floppy drive, built in 16 bit CD quality stereo audio, and integrated color graphics card (1280x1024). The Quantum disk has temporarily been replaced with a 2.13GB HP disk. The system is currently running the HP-UX 11.00 operating system from Hewlett-Packard. Hopefully, it will soon be capable of running Linux as well since there is a port in progress for PA-RISC.

This system was acquired at the last Foundation for Amateur Radio hamfest (1998-09-13) to be held in Gaithersburg, Maryland, for the paltry sum of US$50. The front panel placard identified it as an "HP 16505A Prototype Analyzer" but it was recognized as the 9000/712 that it really is.