Re: Possibilites on 164LX

From: Dennis Grevenstein (dennis_at_pcde.inka.de)
Date: 06/14/04 

Date: 14 Jun 2004 13:45:24 GMT

Ghazan Haider <ghazan@ghazan.haider.name> wrote:
> I have a new PC164LX with 533MHz 21164 CPU that I cant get to boot. I
> tried a Matrox Millennium (not sure what version) card, a Voodoo3,
> both com ports at 9600 8n1, and it doesnt show anything up. I short
> the power jumper, the CPU fan spins and ... nothing. I have 2x128MB
> sticks installed and tried each stick individually at bank 0.

I don't think it will show you anything on the 9pin
serial ports, but only on the MMJ console port.
You need PC100 ECC SD-RAM for this machine. Faster or
slower RAM won't work.
THen, IIRC the board will let you know what's wrong
through the speaker. I don't remember the beep codes though.

> I want to build it as a multi-OS system. So:

> (1) Which video card will work under Windows NT/OpenVMS/Tru64 UNIX?

The Voodoo3 should work with SRM in general, so it should
work with Linux. For VMS or Tru64 I can recommend an Elsa
Gloria Synergy.

> (2) Will an IDE disk work under all those above?

I have never tried that, but I heard IDE would work with Tru64.
I can confirm that IDE is very slow on the 164LX. SCSI is
generally recommended.

> (3) what can I use the 64-bit PCI slots for beside gigabit ethernet?

Anything PCI like. You can insert "normal" PCI cards.

> (4) How can I use the strange RJ-11 type console port? Is it serial
> 9600?

Exactly. That should be the serial console. The connector
is a DEC "standard". There are various adaptors, but I
admit they might be somewhat hard to find.

> (5) Any possible CPU upgrades beside the 600MHz? Can I use a 21264?

No. That's why it's called "164" LX. You could try overclocking
the 533MHz CPU to 600MHz, but of course overclocking is a
bad idea by definition.

> (6) Of Linux and the 3 BSDs, which one is the most mature and
> well-supported OS? I'm tempted to believe its Linux but FreeBSD has
> been supporting Alpha for a while...

Which one do you like best? Use that. I have only used Linux,
Tru64,VMS and NetBSD on Alpha. I gave up that single try to
get NetBSD running, because it didn't support the graphics
card I had at that time.

mfg
Dennis 

-- 
"I remarked to Dennis that easily half the code I was writing in Multics was
error recovery code. He said, "We left all that stuff out. If there's an error,
we have this routine called panic, and when it is called, the machine crashes,
and you holler down the hall, 'Hey, reboot it.'"
       Tom van Vleck and Dennis Ritchie about Multics <-> UNIX relationship

Relevant Pages

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