AXP vs VAX (was Re: Aaaaahhhh... 'Tis Good to be Back!!!)

From: healyzh_at_aracnet.com <(healyzh_at_aracnet.com)>
Date: Wed Mar 22 10:46:57 2000

> Ow... that's scary. I am in the process of _finally_ building up this AXP133
> "no-name" board I bought a few years ago. Currently, it has 64Mb because
> parity
> 16Mb SIMMs are stunningly expensive. I lucked out at the Dayton Computerfest
> a couple of weeks ago and cleaned a vendor out at $15 per stick. Now my Alpha
> has 64Mb, my LX will have 64Mb and even my main SPARC-IPX. It's been a
> memorable experience. ;-)
>
> The Alpha has on it an older version of NetBSD. I'm considering upping it
> to the latest rev or going to RedHat. At the moment, I can't seem to get
> the 3C509 working, but I'd rather use something a little more advanced like
> a Tulip-based 10/100 NIC or even a 3C905C (since we have them around the
> office).

It looks like you're in better shape than I am generally since I prefer
running OpenVMS on them. However, I've got a AlphaStation 200 4/233 and a
Multia running OpenBSD and I've had Tru64 and NetBSD on the AlphaStation
500/333.

The AS200 I believe has 20MB of RAM, and functions quite happily for a
firewall, NAT, web and FTP. The Multia I believe has 16MB, and is rather
slow (well it's noted for being slow), and swaps a lot during compiles (the
only thing I use it for).

I've only barely tried Tru64 V5 (Hobbyist) and NetBSD 1.4.1 on the AS500. In
96MB RAM NetBSD seemed happy (again no X-Windows though as it doesn't
support the video card), but I didn't feel 96MB was really enough for Tru64.

Since you're running Sparc's with 64MB, to give you an idea of what I
consider acceptable performance, I don't consider Solaris 2.6 acceptable in
64MB, but it's quite nice in 96MB on my Sparc 2.

In the case of OpenBSD I was able to get a Tulip-based 10/100 NIC working
with no problem in the AS200. I *can not* get one working under OpenVMS, it
looks like I need a real DE500 to work under OpenVMS.

On the RAM, I *always* check for used True Parity 72-pin SIMMS when I'm
anywhere that has used RAM. I've never seen used 32MB SIMMS, but grab the
8MB and 16MB SIMMS that I find in pairs. I did buy one new pair of 32MB
SIMMS, but that was before they got so expensive and hard to find.

> One other piece of fun with this "no-name" board was locating compatible
> cache RAM. I stripped several 486s before I found a set of chips that
> would let the Alpha come up. The manual mentions a list of preferred
> vendors. Believe it.
>
> -ethan

You're lucky. The AS500 requires custom RAM, the only way I'm going to get
it more memory is by spending about $500 :^(

                                Zane
Received on Wed Mar 22 2000 - 10:46:57 GMT