Bet you've never seen one of these...
I bought myself a "new" computer at a surplus store the other day. Unfortunately, it was DOA and is gonna cost me an arm and a leg to get running. But, it was cheap ($15), and I can all but guarantee that you guys won't have seen one of these before.
It's a Digital AlphaStation 200 4/166. Those of you that know what that is can skip this next bit. Digital (aka DEC, Digital Equipment Corporation) was a company that made *very* high end workstations and servers in the 1990s, until they were bought out by HP/Compaq.
They are *not* PCs. They use Digital's own Alpha processor, of their own design, and it is nothing like an x86 CPU (which is what all consumer level CPUs made since the late paleolithic are). It was the world's first 64-bit processor, and is a RISC CPU (most CPUs made today are CISC).
The one in my machine is a 166MHz chip... doesn't sound like much but it has 512kb of on-die cache and another 512kb of on-board cache, and even though it's only 166MHz it will decimate a 400MHz P2.
This particular machine was made in 1995, and was pretty well loaded as far as I can tell. Since it doesn't boot, I can't verify the RAM amount, but if I'm reading the stickers on the SIMMs right it has 384mb of ram, which is the maximum the board could take, and a hell of a lot of RAM for 1995. As far as drives go, it's got 2 1.05GB Quantum SCSI hard disks, a Toshiba CD, and a floppy.
Graphics are handled by a PCI graphics board with a DEC chipset on it, and the machine will run Unix, Linux, Windows NT (3.5, possibly 4.0), VMWare, BSD, and possibly Solaris.
As I've said... this was not a consumer-level machine. It probably sold for around $15k in 1995, and was intended for CAD work, computer animation (like the stuff Pixar does, although SGI is the big name in CGI stuff afaik), and complex simulation modeling.
Some more info on this thing:
http://www5.tsl.uu.se/tsl/computing/migrated_vms_www_server_files/hardware/info/dec/a200.html
And the pics. 28 in total, of disassembly, various components, and reassembly. The only ones that I think really need any explanation is the couple closeups of the power connector on the bottom hard drive, which shows just how little clearance there is between that and the SIMM slots. I damaged a couple clips on the slots getting that thing out.
Oh, and the laptop is in some of the pics because I was IMing people while I was tearing this thing down.
Pics (thumbnailed, click for full version):
It's a Digital AlphaStation 200 4/166. Those of you that know what that is can skip this next bit. Digital (aka DEC, Digital Equipment Corporation) was a company that made *very* high end workstations and servers in the 1990s, until they were bought out by HP/Compaq.
They are *not* PCs. They use Digital's own Alpha processor, of their own design, and it is nothing like an x86 CPU (which is what all consumer level CPUs made since the late paleolithic are). It was the world's first 64-bit processor, and is a RISC CPU (most CPUs made today are CISC).
The one in my machine is a 166MHz chip... doesn't sound like much but it has 512kb of on-die cache and another 512kb of on-board cache, and even though it's only 166MHz it will decimate a 400MHz P2.
This particular machine was made in 1995, and was pretty well loaded as far as I can tell. Since it doesn't boot, I can't verify the RAM amount, but if I'm reading the stickers on the SIMMs right it has 384mb of ram, which is the maximum the board could take, and a hell of a lot of RAM for 1995. As far as drives go, it's got 2 1.05GB Quantum SCSI hard disks, a Toshiba CD, and a floppy.
Graphics are handled by a PCI graphics board with a DEC chipset on it, and the machine will run Unix, Linux, Windows NT (3.5, possibly 4.0), VMWare, BSD, and possibly Solaris.
As I've said... this was not a consumer-level machine. It probably sold for around $15k in 1995, and was intended for CAD work, computer animation (like the stuff Pixar does, although SGI is the big name in CGI stuff afaik), and complex simulation modeling.
Some more info on this thing:
http://www5.tsl.uu.se/tsl/computing/migrated_vms_www_server_files/hardware/info/dec/a200.html
And the pics. 28 in total, of disassembly, various components, and reassembly. The only ones that I think really need any explanation is the couple closeups of the power connector on the bottom hard drive, which shows just how little clearance there is between that and the SIMM slots. I damaged a couple clips on the slots getting that thing out.
Oh, and the laptop is in some of the pics because I was IMing people while I was tearing this thing down.Pics (thumbnailed, click for full version):
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Comments
PS is shot. Completely shot. Even though it looks fine in the pic... no bulging caps, no craters where resistors should be, etc... it's dead Jim. The switch checks out OK, as does the fuse... just that if i hit the power switch nothing happens. At all. Not even the PS fan spins.
Refurbed PSes are $150-$500. Not paying that kind of money for a 180w PS for a 10 year old computer. I'll fix this one myself if I can or adapt an ATX ps, or just get a different DEC Alpha.
...same surplus store has a couple SGI Indigo 2s and some Sun SPARCstations. I may pick up one of each at some point.
So. I'm re-building my G4 (which I killed) with a DA logic board, and I'll be able to run OSX on that... But an Indigo and a SPARCStation would be fun to play around with... useless or not.
I vividly recall seeing magazine ads for those saying "WARNING! 500MHz in a 300MHz zone!" (at the time, the P2 300 was the fastest chip available from Intel). Good days, good days.
Those 500-600mhz alphastations are still >$1k O_O :-|
If you don't want windows and are geeked out by Linux try downloading Solaris 10 for x86 systems instead.
Tex
BTW, IM me. I want you to talk me out of buying a super low mileage beautiful 380SL convertable with both tops.