[Info-vax] Hobbyist Systems (was Re: openvms support for ultra3 scsi on xp1000)

[Stephen Hoffman]

repost - with some updates - this doesn't appear to have gotten posted 
the first time.

On 2012-10-28 21:19:47 +0000, Phillip Helbig---undress to reply said:

> Hoff wrote:
>>> If this is a hobbyist system, there are often less-old (newer?) choices
>>> around.  (And I happen to like the XP1000; it's cheap, it's quiet, it's
>>> a decent-sized box and - when it works - it works.  But it's cheap for
>>> various reasons, not the least of which is its age, and the antique SRM
>>> firmware version.)
> 
> I also like the XP1000 as a hobbyist system.  What would you recommend
> as better?  A DS10?


The answer to that question depends on what you want and on what you 
can afford, and what your mounting and power and cooling and acoustical 
budget looks like, and how much you want to invest in OpenVMS.

In general, roll forward five years or so from the AlphaStation XP1000, 
and see what's available and that fits your budget.

Or emulation; Alpha and VAX emulators are either free, or are free for 
hobbyist use.

The AlphaServer (or AlphaStation) DS10/VS10/XP900 series would be a 
reasonable choice, but the Alpha boxes are old enough that they're 
starting to get (are) more expensive.  The front storage cage was 
available on some members of the DS10 series, and makes swapping disks 
easy, too.  The DS15 boxes are nice, but yet more expensive.

In the newer OpenVMS hardware, one of the zx2000 series boxes, which 
are Itanium systems that can accept standard-sized storage peripherals 
and (though this is unsupported) can also boot OpenVMS.  These boxes 
are somewhat scarce, but are available.

Or an Integrity rx2600 or rx2620, and preferably with the 
office-friendly configurations.  Also preferably with the management 
console, too.

The Itanium servers are probably the cheapest of the servers listed 
here.  I'd expect an EV6-class Alpha to be more expensive than an 
Itanium.  (And an EV6 is my performance-minimum processor for a useful 
Alpha, in my experience.  And on the topic of performance, an EV6 at 
~600 MHz is roughly comparable to a 900 MHz McKinley.  
Subsequent-generation Itanium boxes are rather faster.)

If you've got the budget, there are better boxes.

But then I'm not a hobbyist, either.

-- 
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