The A-series was eventually replaced with the LX, NX series in the 1990s and finally Libra series of mainframes in the 2000s. The larger models contain CMOS CPUs implementing the evolved e-Mode architecture. The smaller systems are based on Intel x86 CPUs and host e-Mode via an emulator product known as MCPvm (wrapped up in the ClearPath product family). Some configurations include a mix of native e-Mode CPUs and x86 so that Windows NT / Unix and ClearPath MCP can co-exist in the same hardware system sharing disk, network and other peripherals (particularly tape drives and terminal concentrators).

This single package under a large silver cover is a multi-chip-module (MCM) - it contains the core processing logic chip surrounded by 10 static ram chips which contain the microcode personality loaded at bootstrap time by the host. In the smaller systems like the A1 / A4 / A6 these machines contain a 80186(TBD?) which controls the initial microcode load. In the PC desktop based machines like the microA and A7, where the SCAMP processor is located on an ISA or EISA plugin card, the host CPU (either a Intel 80386 or 80486) running OS/2 hosts the system loader and manages the initial microcode load.

The small cabinet (low-end) range of A-series machines with designations such as A1, A4 and A6 used the same processor cabinet with variations on the amount of memory, disk expansion and presumably processor clock speed (based on the differences which existed in the reported benchmarks). The Unisys System 80/7E used the A4 configuration but loaded different microcode into the SCAMP to support the Univac System 90 architecture, which in turn was based on the IBM 360/370 architecture, using the Univac developed OS3 operating system.

A typical Unisys A6 configuration would consist of: dual SCAMP CPUs (picture below shows two SCAMP CPUs on an A4 / System 80/7E CPU board) , 48MW (48-bit words + ECC + tag bits, approximately 384Mbytes of memory), 15 terminals, 1200 LPM (lines per minute) line printer, 3.2GBytes of hard disk, CP2000 communications processor supporting X.25, TCP/IP, BNA (Burroughs Networking Architecture) running MCP version 3.9.2 providing programming languages such as LINC, DMS II, COBOL, C, Pascal, ALGOL, FORTRAN and PL/I.  This example configuration is a translation of recursos-computacionales/a6.html

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DS (USA) snapped these pictures of a Unisys A6 which was being de-commissioned in 2003 . This system consists of the CPU and an expansion cabinet. The console terminal is sitting on the expansion cabinet, terminal type is unknown but appears to have the K series keyboard layout (note the two columns of function keys at the left side of the keyboard). The right hand picture shows the desktop 9-track SCSI tape drive system and the small tower to the right contains the DDS tape drives (top, middle), the device below the two DDS tape drives has not been identified.