[Info-vax] Multia

[Bill Gunshannon]

On 11/7/21 6:31 PM, MG wrote:
 > On 11/7/21 16:07, Bill Gunshannon wrote:
 >> I used to have one of these.  Sadly, I let it go during my last
 >> household move.  Any chance anyone still has these sitting around
 >> taking up space (OK, they don't really take up much space) that
 >> would want to get rid of them?  I would love to have a couple to
 >> play with again.  Pretty sure I even have the stuff for how to
 >> get VMS to run on them stored away in my files somewhere.
 >
 > What's the fascination with this particular system, I wonder, it's
 > most certainly one of the least reliable and failure-prone systems
 > that had a DEC logo on it.
 >

I used mine for years with never a failure.

 > In total I had two of them (one ending up to be a de facto 'parts'
 > system), where both had terrible heat-dissipation (even after the
 > 'community-recommended' modifications and operating it vertically)

The heat problem was well known.  Other than ensurinf that it was
always stood on end to allow for heat flow a small fan made this
a non-problem.

 > and overall power supply/-related issues.

Never had any power supply problems.

 >                                          I remember that even if
 > I could get one of these systems up and running, it wouldn't run
 > reliably for a longer period of time.

MIne ran reliably for weeks at a time and only went down when I
chose to power it off.

 >
 > I think if I wanted actual AXP hardware, I'd go for something like
 > an AlphaStation of some sort or even a VMS-compatible AXP board
 > and install it into a modern PC chassis with proper active cooling.

Usually too big and too expensive to get shipped to me and also
too big and noisy to run in the house.  Wasn't a problem when I
had labs and datacenters when I was working at the University
but not really practical any more.  Multia's will do all that
I need to do now and I really liked the little box.  Ran VMS,
Linux and BSD on it and all of them performed very well.  I
wanted to try Windows NT but never got around to trying it.

bill