[rescue] Ok, so I went and looked at my Alpha box...

[Brian Hechinger]

On Tue, Jul 17, 2001 at 07:03:51PM -0400, Ken Hansen wrote:
> 
>     It is an Alphaserver 200 4/166,

166Mhz CPU, i think you can just drop in a 266Mhz CPU if you come across one.

>     with 256 Meg RAM,

not bad.

>     some HD (assume it is a 4 Gig Barracuda ?),

hard to say without looking (pull it apart, get on the console?)

>     a CD-ROM drive (Plextor, IIRC),

plextor rules.

>     and a ZLXp-E3 graphics card (refered to as PBXGA-BA/BN) 24 planes, 8
> MB...

pretty nice card.  don't know how well it's supported by NetBSD though.  the
only think i could turn up is someone added support to -current for it. no
acceleration, blah, blah blah, but that was a year ago, so it should work well
by now i would think.  see NetBSD/alphaserver 200 comment later in this mail.

> Oh, and a dual PCMCIA adapter in a PCI slot ;^)

that seems to have been a very common option in the PCI alphas.  wonder why.

> It looks like a nice box, but I don't know that I ever got it running
> anything seriously (maybe NT, as it was the easiest install - sorry
> ;^)...

NT, fooey. :)

> Anyway, I can hear Dave McGuire yelling "Schweet! NetBSD will fly on

Schweet!!  NetBSD will FLY on that box!!!

> that box!", but any other thoughts - is this a decent box, a nice box or
> a good box? (relative, I suppose, to an SS/5-170 w/TGX, just as a point
> of reference...)

you options are NetBSD (although i'm not certain that the alphaserver 200 is a
supported platform, i don't see it on the supported hardware list, but those
things tend to be wildly out of date) NT, VMS or OSF/1 (or whatever it's called
this week)

two are unix, one is a PITA to learn if you don't know it already, and one 
sucks.

pick one. :)

-brian