[Info-vax] Alpha CPU revision & serial number, blank?

[Steven Schweda]

> Better?  I thought an XP1000 was a later generation system than
> the DS10 (or XP900, in AlphaStation terms)?  Or, did HP/Compaq
> retract support for AlphaStations earlier than the AlphaServer
> systems?

   The XP1000 was an odd-ball, a low-end workstation,
unrelated to any server (unlike the XP900/DS10).  Originally
(according to my Golden Egg file and several other
documents), it was intended for use with Tru64 or Windows NT,
not VMS.  Its firmware development stopped long before that
of the DS10, so, as we've seen, it has no idea what a Radeon
graphics card or a gigabit Ethernet card is.  Its console
firmware has no wwidmgr, so its ability to deal with
fibre-connected storage is limited.  It has no management
processor.  Does "CPU Type  EV6  Pass 2.5 (21264)" sound more
advanced than what you see on your DS10 systems?  (I'll admit
that 500MHz might be slightly better than 466MHz, but both
systems eventually got 667MHz (or 600MHz) CPU options.)  The
XP1000 appeared around 1999.  I don't know when the DS10
appeared, but I'd guess that it wasn't far from then.

   So, an XP1000 was (for a while) the best cheap-junk EV6
Alpha bargain which could be found.  Not so nice or fancy as
the DS10 (and up), but not so pricey, either.

> I did write off the idea of having GbE in my DS10s.  [...]

   As I said (and discussed in this forum at the time), I
recently put cheap-junk ($6, $10) gigabit Ethernet cards into
my XP1000 systems.  The console can't use them, but I still
have the built-in 10/100MHz interface if I ever need to boot
over the network (which I can't recall ever having done with
these things).  Newer console firmware might be entirely
satisfied.  Again, "a GbE NIC" is not a very detailed
description of anything.  My experience suggests that, with a
little ID fiddling, any card with a supported Broadcom chip
(BCM5703, say) ought to have a good chance.  (I had success
with Compaq NC7771 and IBM PN: 73P4119 (FRU: 73P4109),
especially after I bent the IDs so that they looked more like
genuine DEGXA-TB cards.)

> I did successfully install several Ultra320 SCSI
> controllers. [...]

   Again, not a very detailed description of anything.  As I
recall, my cheap-junk "SYM53C895 LVD SCSI" card has a 33MHz
bus speed, so it's probably not so spiffy as one with a 66MHz
bus.  But the console knows that it's a SCSI card, and I boot
from a disk on it these days.  My external tape and external
disks are connected to a (slower) Qlogic card.

ALP $ show devi /full pkc

Device PKC0:, device type SYM53C895 LVD SCSI, is online,
 error logging is enabled.

ALP $ show devi /full sys$sysdevice

Disk ALP$DKC0:, device type SEAGATE ST336607LC, is online,
[...]