Re: alpha box and licence too? - Suggestions

From: Phillip Helbig---remove CLOTHES to reply (helbig_at_astro.multiCLOTHESvax.de)
Date: 11/15/03 

Date: Sat, 15 Nov 2003 16:13:34 +0000 (UTC)

In article
<rdeininger-1511030829570001@user-105n83l.dialup.mindspring.com>,
rdeininger@mindspringdot.com (Robert Deininger) writes:

> I'll agree with Jeff's recommendations, except for the turbochannel part.
>
> The TC systems are old and relatively slow, but they tend to be
> significantly cheaper. An alpha hobbyist with a low budget should not
> ignore these systems.
> DEC 3000-400, -600, and -700 systems can be found for $25-$50 in working
> order with enough memory. These systems are fairly compact and quite
> reliable. The -800 and -900 models are similar, but are too big and heavy
> for many hobbyists.

The DEC 3000 machines also have METAL CASINGS. They are robust. Yes,
slow by modern standards, but faster than all but the fastest VAXes.
The DEC 2000 machines are now longer supported for the latest version of
VMS (note: NOT the ALPHAserver 2000 machines).

> In these systems, 64 MB is minimal for current versions of VMS, 128 MB is
> comfortable for most tasks, and 256 MB seems luxurious. When new, many of
> these systems shipped with 32-64 MB of memory. The systems take memory
> not used anywhere else, so try to buy a system with the memory you need
> already included.

I felt really lucky when a nice chap gave me a 3000/600 with 192 MB (and
two SCSI controllers) a few years ago. In fact, I'm using it now,
running DECwindows on a beautiful huge DEC monitor. (I'm actually
logged in to my main cluster 500 km away---both locations have DSL---and
am accessing the news server from there.)

> Any of the older alphas work well with early Storageworks SCSI equipment,
> which is obtainable cheaply. BA350, BA356, and BA353 enclosures with
> compatible storageworks disks are all fine provided you obtain the right
> cables.

You do have to be careful about which disks will work in which
enclosures, though. You can't use wide disks in a narrow enclosure, and
4 GB disks might generate too much heat for a BA353 (pizza box).

> I'd avoid any of the DEC 3000-300 family unless they were VERY cheap.
> These have lower memory bandwidth don't perform as well. The exception
> would be someone looking for a "portable" VMS system -- these are among
> the smallest alpha systems commonly available.

I recently bought a DEC 3000/300 for EUR 40 and an ALPHAserver 2000 for
EUR 60. These are from the same time frame, but the 300 is tiny
compared to the 2000 (which is actually a little big for home use). If
you build a cluster, you want to have at least 3 machines, so that you
can take them down one at a time for upgrades, hardware maintenance.
Something like a 3000/300 is ideal as a "quorum machine" which doesn't
have to do much other than sit there. (Keep in mind, though, that there
are many tasks which don't require much computing power---running SMTP
servers, WWW servers etc; no reason to not allow the 300 to do that
stuff in the cluster as well.)

> That is one of the nice things about old alphas. They were designed to
> run for a decade or more, and they usually do. VMS is one of the
> least-bloated operating systems around, and doesn't mind old hardware.

I recently did a fresh install of VMS 7.3 VAX on a VAX 4000 built about
1989 or so. It has 64 MB RAM, which was a lot for those days. The
installation warned me to make sure I had at least 4, since that is the
minimum for VAX-VMS!

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