[Info-vax] Alpha V8.4-2 distribution

[Steven Schweda]

> [...] asked David Turner for DVD drives ....

   With a hardware description so detailed as "my Alpha", I
hesitate to offer much specific advice on optical drives,
but, in my main XP1000 I have "ALP$DKA600:, device type
TOSHIBA DVD-ROM SD-M1711" (with a Sun-gray bezel, consistent
with its origin).  I have another in a Sun 911 box (another
poor color match), which has helped with my
optical-drive-free rx2600 systems.  As all this might
suggest, it has a SCSI interface.

   In my spare/experimental XP1000, I have DQA0, "SONY DVD RW
AW-Q170A  1.73", with a PATA interface, and amazingly slow
(CPU-bound) I/O.  It seems to be ok (boot, read, write), if
you can stand the sloth associated with the sub-SCSI
interface/driver.  I seem to recall some other (non-Sony)
PATA drive not working properly there.

   All this stuff is old, and, I'd expect, difficult to find
these days, and/or expensive.