Looking to give away *old* linux PCs

[Lennart Sorensen]

On Fri, Jan 08, 2010 at 01:01:17PM -0500, D. Hugh Redelmeier wrote:
> Yeah.
> 
> Dave loaned me a Multia some years ago.  I found it quite difficult to
> get running under Linux.  I ended up passing it on to Lennart.

It works, unfortunately with 32MB ram you can't boot linux on it anymore.
Needs 64MB at least and I can't find any more ram for it.  The newer
and bigger alphas boot fine.

> Drew also had one.
> 
> The Alpha-based Multias were actually quite slow, at least if you
> didn't have the optional memory cache.  They had required notebook
> hard drives, and even then, not all fit.  They had firmware that
> supported NT and not Unix, or vice versa (I don't remember).  Linux
> seemed to require the firmware for NT, if I remember correctly.  The
> ARC firmware for the Multia had a severe bug that would cause it to go
> into an infinite loop if some (emulated) instruction was executed.

They were notebook scsi drives.  Good luck finding one.

> Summary: although the Alpha chip had a great architecture, DEC did a
> number of things to kneecap it, especially in the Multia.

DEC marketing did mostly everything wrong.

-- 
Len Sorensen
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