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SonicBritGot a DEC Alpha
I was browsing a local thrift (charity) shop and they usually have pentium 3's and what not, but saw a machine from the back that had a BNC (kinda like a TV ariel connection) type network connection (it has RJ45 as well) and I thought thats odd, turned it around and it was a DEC Alpha and I thought to myself I must have this :) So here I am with an Alpha, it boots to Tru64 Unix although I dont know the password or how to get past it so I'll probably install windows NT first since I have the disc for alpha (as well as word/excel and visual basic for alpha :) ) Whats funny when I booted it, it mentioned during the startup that the last time it was booted was over 5 years ago (poor little guy) I'll post some shots once I get it setup :)		2009-09-0110:28 PM
BrandonRe:Got a DEC Alpha
What model is it? What specs? Anyways a quick google turned this up: http://www.alphalinux.org/ I wouldn't want you to ruin good hardware with WinNT :P		2009-09-0111:22 PM
SonicBritRe:Got a DEC Alpha
Its a 200 4/233 MHZ It has 64mb of RAM, 4*16MB Modules Which I will replace with some 32MB Modules I have It uses the old 72-pin RAM Just booting it to version of UNIX its running takes a good 10 minutes (I'm Not kidding!!!) Anyways I'll tell more once I have another os running, currently trying to get the boot manager to boot anything other than the disk and I havent been fruitful yet :(		2009-09-0212:50 AM
BrandonRe:Got a DEC Alpha
233Mhz isn't a lot :P I have a few machines at that speed (x86) and they are good for about only 1 OS: DOS :P But a DEC Alpha is sweet anyways, I wish I had more machines that were "different"		2009-09-029:43 AM
SonicBritRe:Got a DEC Alpha
Well the nice thing about an alpha isn't the mhz translation is exact, depending on the os and code running it could be 2x as much as a pentium of equivalent speed.		2009-09-024:17 PM
BrandonRe:Got a DEC Alpha
Yeah, I wish other CPU architectures could compete with x86, and in the process maybe stir up OS choices.		2009-09-025:07 PM
ksrRe:Got a DEC Alpha
yeah let's not forget the Alpha was a RISC machine so it probably flies at 233 MHz, especially with efficient code.		2009-09-027:45 PM
BrandonRe:Got a DEC Alpha
I really need something like that, all I've got is x86, some old (pre-g3) macs, and a 400mhz iMac with image burned into the screen. Its to bad anything unique costs an arm and a leg on ebay.		2009-09-027:52 PM
ksrRe:Got a DEC Alpha
Speaking of ARMs, I love Acorn RISC PCs. They used to have a load at my old primary school, which was odd because RISC OS isn't the most intuitive of systems. (They eventually replaced them with iMacs which were fun. It was quite nice to be able to use systems other than Windows :P)		2009-09-028:05 PM
BrandonRe:Got a DEC Alpha
At school I run a web-site and requested a new mac this year, and from what I've been told they got me one :P (Admittedly its not really mine, but I'll be able to use it for the 40mins a day I'm on a computer at school, and it beats using a windows pc!)		2009-09-028:36 PM
SonicBritRe:Got a DEC Alpha
Finally upgraded the firmware last night to ARC instead of SRM. SRM is like an old unix boot/setup thing, where as ARC is a nice boot menu (normally for NT), but linux can use it too. Downloaded Debian Alpha last night, so will be installing that tonight once I get home from college :) I'm gonna dual boot it and see how it goes. Probably need to upgrade the disk, just bought 256mb Parity RAM for 25$ on ebay, sadly the RAM I had was non-parity and it wouldnt take it :(		2009-09-036:04 PM
BrandonRe:Got a DEC Alpha
I wish I had a cool project like that :)		2009-09-036:22 PM
SonicBritRe:Got a DEC Alpha
Well I got the RAM today and it took a bit of fiddling to install it, older motherboards seem to like to put everything together. I tried to get Linux installed but that was proving harder than I thought it would so I installed Windows NT, which is probably better so it wont kill the Linux loader. So I installed Windows NT Terminal Server 4.0, which comes with IE 4, I installed Word and Excel 97 and Visual Basic 6. Sadly XP Remote Desktop wouldnt connect to it so I had to use the older RDP Client. [img size=808]http://theguiblog.com/images/fbfiles/images/alpha1.gif[/img]		2009-09-059:10 PM
SonicBritRe:Got a DEC Alpha
Visual Basic 6, it looks and feels very much like the regular version, sadly though I couldn't find any service packs or anything so pretty much is at the first version. [img size=808]http://theguiblog.com/images/fbfiles/images/alpha2.gif[/img]		2009-09-059:17 PM
SonicBritRe:Got a DEC Alpha
And Word and Excel 97, it even includes the annoying Clippy guy just so you too can get frustrated on any windows machine that you happen to install Office onto :P [img size=808]http://theguiblog.com/images/fbfiles/images/alpha3.gif[/img]		2009-09-059:20 PM
SonicBritRe:Got a DEC Alpha
Well now thats done, onto Linux.		2009-09-059:23 PM
BrandonRe:Got a DEC Alpha
Forget Windows :P It's not good enough for hardware as unique as a DEC Alpha.		2009-09-0610:12 AM
SonicBritRe:Got a DEC Alpha
Well linux was a pain in the butt to try and install, the sad thing is I've only got a 2gb harddisk. I do have a spare SCSI 30gb harddisk but it has 80 pins with a 68 pin adapter, so I've ordered a 80 pin to 50 pin adapter, should get here next week, I think I'll make it a web server and email box :)		2009-10-108:45 PM

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