WTB: DEC Alpha

[legodude]

Looking for a few DEC Alpha systems. I'd like to span the lifespan of the architecture, so I've settled on a DEC 3000 of some sort, and a DS10 or DS15.

Happy to pay a fair price, or willing to trade an Octane if you happen to be in the St Louis-ish region.

 

[johnnym]

Looking for a few DEC Alpha systems. I'd like to span the lifespan of the architecture

On Linux?

 

[legodude]

On Linux?

Linux on vintage workstations doesn't interest me all that much. If I wanted to run a vintage linux distribution, I'd just use a PC - I run whatever proprietary OS is most interesting. In this case, I'd like to run VMS, Tru64, OSF, even Windows NT, etc.

I did use a lot of OpenBSD and NetBSD on Sparc and others in the early 2000s when I was actually using the systems, but now I'm just looking for flavor and fun.

 

[johnnym]

I see, thanks for clarifying. I think I misunderstood "to span the lifespan of the architecture", well, I'm not a native speaker. I hope you get what you want.

 

[7spirals]

I can tell you that certain workstations get bought up by government. Any of the personal Alphas or the slimline models are rare. The one that used to be dirt cheap and easy to get was the DEC Multia, but that's turned into gold, too. I remember buying one for $50 off Ebay at a certain point. The one to really lust for is a DS25, but you do have to do a special boot process to get Tru64 running on it (not that hard, though). I'd recommend against trying any rackmount system unless you have an isolated rack. They are extremely loud and heavy. The only one worth having IMHO is the ES80. Any of the GS series that use the QBB architecture are very failure prone and buggy, even though the fastest Alpha ever, the GS1280 is in that family sporting the sexy EV7 CPU(s). The easiest ones to get are DS10's and DS20's. Check Islandco, who often has them in stock and tell David that Swift sent you.

 

[legodude]

I remember when the Multia was given away for free:

Free Multias (Pay Shipping Only) - Slashdot

Richard Fifarek noticed an odd little note on the Linux Store's website. Apparently they are giving away Free Multias. Just pay shipping ($30) for a free Multia. link is giving away Multias. My multia ran Slashdot for the first few million pages. Nice little machines. Very cute. Ran...

tech.slashdot.org

There was a spate of DS10s on Ebay a while ago for reasonable prices - I had just gotten back into vintage computing and didn't realize it might be a while before I saw one for sale again. If I had known, I would have pounced...

Prices on Islandco are not for the faint of heart.