---
title: Convex Computer Corp. C3800
categories:
- Computers
types:
- Professional Computer
origins:
- U.S.A.
years:
- '1991'
cpus:
- 2 to 8 processors
params:
  name: C3800
  image: /media/museum/photos/convex_3800_system_s1.jpg
  company: /companies/convex-computer-corp
  company_name: Convex Computer Corp.
  specs:
  - label: NAME
    value: C3800
  - label: MANUFACTURER
    value: Convex Computer Corp.
  - label: TYPE
    value: Professional Computer
  - label: ORIGIN
    value: U.S.A.
  - label: YEAR
    value: '1991'
  - label: BUILT IN LANGUAGE
    value: None
  - label: KEYBOARD
    value: Video terminal
  - label: CPU
    value: 2 to 8 processors
  - label: SPEED
    value: 240 Mflops to 2 Gflops
  - label: RAM
    value: 512 MB to 4 GB
  - label: TEXT MODES
    value: Depending on the video terminal used
  - label: GRAPHIC MODES
    value: Ditto
  - label: SIZE / WEIGHT
    value: 178 (H) x 201-328 (W) x 224 (D) cm / 1270 to 2631 kg
  - label: I/O PORTS
    value: At least 8 x 80 Mbytes/sec PBUS slots, Integrated Disc Channel (IDC), Tape Library Interface (TLI)
  - label: BUILT IN MEDIA
    value: From 34 GB hard disk
  - label: OS
    value: Convex OS
  - label: POWER SUPPLY
    value: Power consumption from 19.8 to 57.2 KVA - Forced air cooling
  - label: PERIPHERALS
    value: Unknown
  - label: PRICE
    value: Unknown
  tabs:
  - photos
  - links
  forum_thread: 957
  photos:
  - title: 3800 CONFIGURATIONS
    subtitle: ''
    text: Taken from a Convex brochure
    image: /media/museum/photos/convex_3800_config_s1.jpg
  links:
  - title: ExConvex
    url: http://www.ex-convex.org/
    text: Convex ex-employees mailing list (offline ?)
  oc_id: 983
  source:
    url: https://web.archive.org/web/20230608160752/http://www.old-computers.com/museum/computer.asp?c=983
    date: '2023-06-08'
---

The C3800 belonged to the C3 series which included the Convex C3200, C3400, C3800 scallable supercomputers. Scallable means that the computer power scales up with the number of installed processors and the amount of shared memory. Such systems were also made by IBM, Cray, HP.

The Convex 3800 used advanced technology gallium arsenide gate arrays. The Basic system held two processors, 512 Mbytes of RAM and 34 GB of disk capacity. It was air-cooled. Its higher speed was of 240 Mflops (Millions of floating-point operations per second) in 64-bit and 480 Mflops in 32-bit computations.\
Fully configured with 8 processors and 4 gigabytes of RAM (pictured configuration), the monster could hit a speed of 2 gigaflops.

Such performance enabled scientists to study problems involving very high speed calculations and quantities of data that posed severe problems on smaller systems.\
Convex computers were widely used for visualisation in computational fluid dynamics, medicine, computer-aided engineering, petroleum and seismic exploration, and finance.

The Convex OS was an Unix variant which managed the specific features of the beast: processor allocation, memory caching, storage capabilities, etc. Major language compilers were C, Ada and Fortran.

Thanks to **Mattias Persson** who provided us with the Convex brochures.

<table> <tr> <td></td> <td>We need more info about this computer ! If you designed, used, or have more info about this system, please send us pictures or anything you might find useful.</td> <td></td> </tr> </table>