[geeks] Hmm... now what? DEC Alpha challenge?

[Mark Benson]

Okay. Thanks to a very fine fellow in Cambridge who contacted me via the
Rescue list I now have a DEC PWS 500a. After some digging and a little eBay
shopping the spec looks like this:

500MHz 21164 Alpha CPU [*]
4MB L3 Cache Module [*]
1.5GB PC100 ECC RAM
9GB + 18GB hard drives
ELSA GLoria 8MB Graphics card [*]
DVD-ROM (yes it's bootable)

I have installed Tru64 UNIX 5.1B on it for the moment. All seems to be well. A
RAM test in the firmware prompt passed 9 times without errors.

I'm just wondering what to do with my new baby. I don't have access to OpenVMS
as yet - i'm struggling with that one, don't know if I'm supposed to be
waiting for a membership number or if I have missed a step or what. It seems
contacting the community is hard work (and by that I mean I don't seem to be
able to find much in the way of open doors) :\

Any suggestions (that don't involve it being on 24/7, preferably) are
welcomed.


--
Mark Benson

My Blog:
<http://markbenson.org/blog>
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"Never send a human to do a machine's job..."