Digital Alpha Systems

[stack]

I have several Digital Alpha systems that came my way. I have had my fun with them and experimenting with VMS so I am ready to pass them on.

If anyone wants them, then I will bring them next week to the meeting. If no one claims them (or has a suggestion for someone I can give them to) then I am just going to junk them (sad loss for working Digital Alpha Systems I know, but I don't have the means to keep them around right now). I am not going to bring them to the meeting unless someone asks (they are heavy beasts) but I will certainly deliver them if need be.

Also, VMS is just a wee-little-bit before my time (didn't start getting into computers till 94' well on the tail end of DEC). Does anyone know how to access the BIOS on these things? Or at least tell how fast the processor is from VMS? My GIS-ing has not returned a working solution.

If anyone wants details on the systems, just post.

[Insanity5902]

Can you provide some specs on them (if there are any to be given, I know next to nothing about these)?

I don't know much about it, but there might be some Gentoo Dev's who are interested, I will pass on the info I get about these to them.

Physical specs would be nice or a model number to where I can look them up. If I have room and can talk the wife into I might be interested.

[stack]

The first is an Alpha Station 400 4/233
The second is a Personal Workstation 433a
The last is a Server 3000.

I am not sure about the processor speeds, and they all have a varying amount of memory. I also have a bunch of spare memory that we can put into these boxes, however, since I have been unable to figure out how to boot from CD I have been unable to run memtest to see if the memory is still good. So I have not yet added any hardware.


Hopefully there are some takers.

[shultzjr]

I would be interested in the server if it is not too terribly big (can't fit into trunk of car). It looks like the little googling I did do indicates that one can make a boot floppy but that is as far as I got. Does the thing actually boot up and one can get to a command prompt?

charles.....

[stack]

Only one of them is a massive beast. The other two are about the size of a normal computer.

They all boot up into VMS.

Since there is interest, I will go a head and bring them to the meeting on Saturday.

Also, I got a box of computer cables that was donated to me. Just about every kind of cable I can think of is in there (from what I have sorted anyway). If you know you need a certain cable, let me know and I will see if I can find it. Otherwise, I will just bring them all and let ppl dig through them to see what they can find.

Thanks!

[Insanity5902]

I'm interested

[shultzjr]

could you post exact model of alpha server? it would make it easier for doing research before meeting. looks like netbsd is the "best" chance for a full/new os reload from scratch unless you have a set of os media for the machine.

later,
charles.....

[Randy]

Stack,

Looks like you should put this in the "For Sale" section... Just a thought.

[stack]

Meh, I don't care enough to make a few bucks. I would much rather have them go to those who want them and put them to use.

It looks like I have certainly found a few good homes. That makes me happy

[Insanity5902]

Stack - the sun converter we talked about is mde by Raritan, the model is APSSUN http://raritan.com/products/accessories ... emulators/

They run about $150 new, but you can pick them up on ebay for around $20 http://search.ebay.com/search/search.dl ... category0=

[shultzjr]

I got the beast home and it was a few days before I got it all connected up. I turned it on and it said 128M of ram, yuck, and it finally gave me a >>> prompt. From there I have no clue so I typed in help and got a bunch of commands. It didn't boot into VMS so I am stuck. Any suggestions?

later,
charles....

PS. It is the 500MHz version of the alpha cpu.!!!

[shultzjr]

More on the server,

It is a "white box" DIGITAL Server 3000 Model FR-K7F4W-AB and it was designed to NOT run VMS or Ultrix (Digitals Unix). It only officially supports Windows NT 4.0 with Service Pack 6a being the last one in the line. This machine was designed from the beginning to be "crippled". I did get the computer to boot to the hard drive with the boot command to the scsi controller. It booted into NetBSD. The hd is a scsi 4.5Ger and the cdrom is a Toshiba 12x scsi. I did find several sources for the ram but they all wanted at least $50 for a 32M stick, that would make it $200 just to bring it up to 256M of ram, yuck. The cost of upgrade parts is so expensive that it is cheaper/wiser to build an amd64 clone server from scratch that would use a lot less electricity over its' life cycle. I did download a Debian version of the net install for alpha but I have not burned the cd yet. The proper thing to do at this point if I wanted to continue is to upgrade the version of the rom from the current V5.4-U3 to V5.8 and the PAL code to its' current version. Then put Debian on it and add ram and more hd's for a small net server. But it may use more electricity than I want over its' life cycle. I did find the group that is known as the "hobbyist" version of VMS now called OpenVMS. I could get the code but I am not sure at this point that it would even install, same with Ultrix. There seems to be quite a bit of activity still with OpenVMS. It seems that the "blue boxes" are the ones that can do it all by installing/running all of the different os's available for alpha. I have been thinking of letting it go with the old empty Pepsi bottles and Twinky wrappers but that would be a terrible end for a machine like this. Stack if you have any other thoughts let me know.

[stack]

Nope. If you have had your fun with it, by all means pass it on. I don't think I did much with that system other then just check to see if it booted. I played around with one of the others.

You might want to check with Insanity5902. I believe he is working with the Gentoo team to experiment with Alpha processors. Maybe someone in that group would be interested in taking it off of your hands. I still have one system left that wasn't taken and I was thinking about doing that very same thing with it.

[shultzjr]

Some better news,

I found a guy who volunteered to send me some more ram for the price of shipping, don't know if it is a good deal yet. I found a place to get OpenVMS but one has to be a member of a special group and there is a membership fee. U did find the place and plans on how to "hack" the machine so I can install anyhing I want to on it. I have already done the hack no harm so far. Now, I am just waiting for the ram feedback.

later.....

[stack]

What kind of ram is it?