21 May
2003
21 May
'03
9:32 p.m.
OK, a bit of an odd question here, but I'm wondering what people think as I'm used
to a PWS 433au.
A co-worker of mine just bought a VAXstation 4000/90 and a DEC 3000/400. She wants to use
one of them as a Mail Server running OpenVMS. The VAX looks to have 104MB, the Alpha
looks to only have 96MB. Any idea on which would work best for her? Part of what has me
concerned is the lack of RAM on the Alpha. If she uses the VAX, it will probably end up
running V7.3, if the Alpha probably V7.2-1H1. DECwindows won't be loaded, which will
help get the Alpha down to a better memory footprint.
Oh, she'll probably also want to run a Webserver on the system so that the mail can be
accessed via the web.
Zane
--
--
| Zane H. Healy | UNIX Systems Administrator |
| healyzh(a)aracnet.com (primary) | OpenVMS Enthusiast |
| | Classic Computer Collector |
+----------------------------------+----------------------------+
| Empire of the Petal Throne and Traveller Role Playing, |
| PDP-10 Emulation and Zane's Computer Museum. |
| http://www.aracnet.com/~healyzh/ |
21 May
21 May
11:39 p.m.
OK, a bit of an odd question here, but I'm
wondering what people think as I'm used to a PWS 433au.
A co-worker of mine just bought a VAXstation 4000/90 and a DEC 3000/400. She wants to use
one of them as a Mail Server running OpenVMS. The VAX looks to have 104MB, the Alpha
looks to only have 96MB. Any idea on which would work best for her? Part of what has me
concerned is the lack of RAM on the Alpha. If she uses the VAX, it will probably end up
running V7.3, if the Alpha probably V7.2-1H1. DECwindows won't be loaded, which will
help get the Alpha down to a better memory footprint.
Oh, she'll probably also want to run a Webserver on the system so that the mail can be
accessed via the web.
Make that a VAXstation 4000/60.
Zane
--
--
| Zane H. Healy | UNIX Systems Administrator |
| healyzh(a)aracnet.com (primary) | OpenVMS Enthusiast |
| | Classic Computer Collector |
+----------------------------------+----------------------------+
| Empire of the Petal Throne and Traveller Role Playing, |
| PDP-10 Emulation and Zane's Computer Museum. |
| http://www.aracnet.com/~healyzh/ |
22 May
22 May
2:16 a.m.
On Thu, May 22, 2003 at 01:38:00AM -0700, Zane H. Healy wrote:
Make that a VAXstation 4000/60.
Use the DEC
300-400, it will run circles arond the VS4k60.
But keep an eye open for more RAM.
--
tsch??,
Jochen
Homepage: http://www.unixag-kl.fh-kl.de/~jkunz/
21 May
21 May
11:43 p.m.
On 2003.05.22 08:30 Zane H. Healy wrote:
A co-worker of mine just bought a VAXstation 4000/90
and a DEC
3000/400. She wants to use one of them as a Mail Server running
OpenVMS. The VAX looks to have 104MB, the Alpha looks to only have
96MB.
The DEC 3000-[456789]00 need very special 100 pin 40 bit ECC SIMMs. One
memory bank consists of 8 SIMMs. This gives a memory bandwith of
[viewing ek-d3sys-pm.ps.gz] 427 MB/s (model 400) to 640 MB/s (model
800). That is a lot for a 10 year old design. The low end DEC 3000-300
are in the range of 200 MB/s to 329 MB/s. 96MB is not much for an
Alpha...
The VS4k90 maxes out at 128 MB RAM. Are you sure it has 104 MB RAM? The
VS4k90 has 8 SIMM sockets and one bank consists of 4 SIMMs. It needs
special 80 pin ECC SIMMs. It can take 4 MB or 16 MB SIMMs. So the
machine can have 16, 32, 64, 80 or 128 MB RAM.
Maybe it is a VS4k60? The VS4k60 has 8 MB on board and 6 SIMM sockets.
It takes the same RAM as the VS4k90 and one bank consists of 2 SIMMs. So
you get 104 MB RAM with the 8 MB on board 6 x 16 MB SIMMs.
The VS4k60 has 12 VUPs and the VS4k90 24 VUPs (or 30, don't remember).
If it is a VS4k60, it would be best to epay some RAM for the DEC
3000-400 and use it. If it is a VS4k90, well, the DEC 3000-400 eats
about twice (!) as much electricity as the VS4k90. So if this is
importand... Depending on the load, the VS4k90 may be better as it has
more RAM and the VAX is _very_ memory efficient. 128 MB is a _lot_ for a
VAX.
--
tsch??,
Jochen
Homepage: http://www.unixag-kl.fh-kl.de/~jkunz/
22 May
22 May
7:17 a.m.
A co-worker of mine just bought a VAXstation 4000/90
and a
DEC 3000/400. She wants to use one of them as a Mail Server
running OpenVMS. The VAX looks to have 104MB, the Alpha
looks to only have 96MB. Any idea on which would work best
for her? Part of what has me concerned is the lack of RAM on
I suspect that either would work. I run a VS4000-90A here
at home and it hums along quite nicely doing the odd compile
and running a web server. If I let the your hordes get to
the webserver I suspect the connection would die well
before the VAX!
The Alpha will be perhaps 2-3 times faster (at least
going by the SPEC numbers I can find for related
models and guessing a little based on frequencies).
104MB is certainly enough for the VAX to happily function
as a workstation - the additional cpu and memory load
from a webserver and mail server will be negligible
- at least for home use, I'd not plan on running a
large enterprise based on this! I forget exactly what kind of
memory the DEC 3000 took, but it's probably cheap enough
on ebay these days that it can be maxed out
if it's a problem.
Either OpenVMS or NetBSD would probably be fine for
this usage (although be sure to get the NetBSD 1.6
or so that fixed the non-fatal overwriting of
part of the console flash ... I think it was the
VS4000-9x that was hit).
I use the OSU webserver under OpenVMS and Apache
under Solaris. As a single user I'm unable to
cause either to die under load :-)
Antonio
--
---------------
Antonio Carlini arcarlini(a)iee.org
9:23 a.m.
On 2003.05.22 18:16 Antonio Carlini wrote:
The Alpha will be perhaps 2-3 times faster (at least
going by the SPEC numbers I can find for related
models and guessing a little based on frequencies).
Really? The Alpha has about
twice as much MHz, but the 21064 is known to
need a lot of MHz per MIPS.
Either OpenVMS or NetBSD would probably be fine for
this usage (although be sure to get the NetBSD 1.6
or so that fixed the non-fatal overwriting of
part of the console flash ... I think it was the
VS4000-9x that was hit).
Yes. The dz(4) probe routine in NetBSD prior to 1.6 (1.5?)
modified some
bytes in the FLASH ROM of the VS4k9x. This causes a FLASH checksum error
at startup und thus preventing autoboot but everything else works. It is
save to use 1.6 and there is a MOPable FLASH ROM update for the VS4k9x
available that repairs this.
--
tsch??,
Jochen
Homepage: http://www.unixag-kl.fh-kl.de/~jkunz/
10:17 a.m.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Jochen Kunz" <jkunz(a)unixag-kl.fh-kl.de>
To: <cctalk(a)classiccmp.org>
Sent: Thursday, May 22, 2003 11:49 AM
Subject: Re: VAX vs. Alpha for OpenVMS
<SNIP>
Yes. The dz(4) probe routine in NetBSD prior to 1.6
(1.5?) modified some
bytes in the FLASH ROM of the VS4k9x. This causes a FLASH checksum error
at startup und thus preventing autoboot but everything else works. It is
save to use 1.6 and there is a MOPable FLASH ROM update for the VS4k9x
available that repairs this.
--
tsch??,
Jochen
Homepage: http://www.unixag-kl.fh-kl.de/~jkunz/
Where would I find this Flash ROM update? I have several 4000-90's and would
like to know more about this.
Thanks,
Stuart Johnson
12:50 p.m.
On 2003.05.22 21:12 Stuart Johnson wrote:
Where would I find this Flash ROM update? I have
several 4000-90's and
would like to know more about this.
Grepping the NetBSD/port-vax archive gives:
http://hermes.tubas.net/vs4000-90A_firmware.zip
The ZIP contains a VS4000.doc and a cougar_v1_3.zip...
--
tsch??,
Jochen
Homepage: http://www.unixag-kl.fh-kl.de/~jkunz/
1:31 p.m.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Jochen Kunz" <jkunz(a)unixag-kl.fh-kl.de>
To: <cctalk(a)classiccmp.org>
Sent: Thursday, May 22, 2003 3:05 PM
Subject: Re: VAX vs. Alpha for OpenVMS
On 2003.05.22 21:12 Stuart Johnson wrote:
Many thanks!
Stuart Johnson
Where would I find this Flash ROM update? I have
several 4000-90's and
would like to know more about this.
Grepping the NetBSD/port-vax archive gives:
http://hermes.tubas.net/vs4000-90A_firmware.zip
The ZIP contains a VS4000.doc and a cougar_v1_3.zip...
--
tsch??,
Jochen
Homepage: http://www.unixag-kl.fh-kl.de/~jkunz/
12:03 p.m.
The Alpha will
be perhaps 2-3 times faster (at least
going by the SPEC numbers I can find for related
models and guessing a little based on frequencies).
Really? The Alpha has about
twice as much MHz, but the 21064
is known to need a lot of MHz per MIPS. autoboot but everything else works. It is save to use
1.6 and
there is a MOPable FLASH ROM update for the VS4k9x available
that repairs this.
There is indeed - I remember sending one version to a few
people to recover their boxes (very brave of them to try
it since I'd never actually needed it myself!). Then
someone found a more recent version and made it
available via ftp. And then someone went and fixed
the problem.
Antonio
--
---------------
Antonio Carlini arcarlini(a)iee.org
7:19 p.m.
The data I have for the VS4000-90 is about 32
SPECmarks
and similar numbers for SPECint/fp89.
I don't have any numbers for the DEC 3000-400 but it
runs a 21064 @ 133MHz. I have numbers for other members
of the family that run at various speeds from 100MHz
to 175MHz, so I guessed.
It's about 71-75 SPECint, and I think around 110 SPECfp.
Zane
--
--
| Zane H. Healy | UNIX Systems Administrator |
| healyzh(a)aracnet.com (primary) | OpenVMS Enthusiast |
| | Classic Computer Collector |
+----------------------------------+----------------------------+
| Empire of the Petal Throne and Traveller Role Playing, |
| PDP-10 Emulation and Zane's Computer Museum. |
| http://www.aracnet.com/~healyzh/ |
11:33 p.m.
On 2003.05.23 06:17 Zane H. Healy wrote:
>The data I have for the VS4000-90 is about 32
SPECmarks
>and similar numbers for SPECint/fp89.
[DEC 3000-400 ]
It's about 71-75 SPECint, and I think around 110
SPECfp.
Surprising for me. I thought that the gap was smaler.
Maybe I should run a benchmark (== building the NetBSD world) on my
machines.
--
tsch??,
Jochen
Homepage: http://www.unixag-kl.fh-kl.de/~jkunz/
23 May
23 May
7:27 a.m.
On 2003.05.23 06:17 Zane H. Healy wrote:
I was in a hurry last night, here are the actual SPEC92 numbers from:
ftp://ftp.cs.toronto.edu/pub/jdd/spectable
For VUPS see (unfortunatly the later VAXen have SPECmark89, and the Alphas have
SPECint92/SPECfp92):
http://anacin.nsc.vcu.edu/~jim/mvax/vax-perf.html
Amazingly my memory was very close. My VMS server was originally a 3000/300LX,
unfortunatly I can't remember if it acted as a mailserver, or if it was just serving
up disks at that time.
I've included numbers from the 'spectable' file for most of the Alpha's
that are listed, and are likely to be in hobbyist hands. I've also listed the smaller
VAXen in that list.
Zane
System CPU ClkMHz Cache SPECint SPECfp Info Source
Name (NUMx)Type ext/in Ext+I/D 92 92 Date Obtained
================= ========== ======= ========== ======= ======= ===== =========
DEC VAX4000/60 KA46 22.2 ? 11.1 12.6 Mar93 DECinfo
DEC 3000/400 A21064 27/133 512+8/8 74.7 112.2 Apr93 c.arch
DEC VAX3100/38 ? ? ? 3.5 3.8 Mar93 DECinfo
DEC VAX3100/76 REX520 ? 128 7.1 6.6 Mar93 DECinfo
DEC VAX4000VLC SOC ? 25 5.8 6.3 Mar93 DECinfo
DEC VAX4000/90 NVAX 71 2/8 ? 30.2 Sep92 SPEC news
DEC 3000/300 A21064 30/150 256+8/8 66.2 91.5 Apr93 c.sun.mc
DEC 3000/300L A21064 20/100 256+8/8 45.9 63.6 Apr93 c.sun.mc
DEC 3000/300LX A21064 25/125 256+8/8 63.5 75.5 May94 SPEC news
DEC 3000/300X A21064 35/175 256+8/8 84.4 100.5 May94 SPEC news
DEC 3000/500 A21064 30/150 512+8/8 84.4 127.7 Apr93 c.arch
DEC 3000/500X A21064 40/200 512+8/8 110.9 164.1 Apr93 c.sun.mc
DEC 3000/600S A21064 35/175 2M+8/8 114.1 162.1 Oct93 c.arch
DEC 3000/700 A21064A 38/225 2M+16/16 162.6 230.6 Jul94 Digital
DEC 3000/800S A21064 40/200 2M+8/8 138.4 187.6 May94 c.sun.hw
DEC 3000/900 A21064A 39/275 2M+16/16 189.3 264.1 Jul94 Digital
DEC 200/4/100 A21064 ??/100 512+8/8 74.6 95.2 Feb95 Digital
DEC 250/4/266 A21064A ??/266 2M+16/16 198.6 262.5 Apr95 www.dec
DEC 255/233 A21064A ??/233 1M+16/16 180.0 210.0 Mar96 Digital
DEC 255/300 A21064A ??/300 1M+16/16 215.0 245.0 Mar96 Digital
DEC 500/266 A21164 43/266 2M+96+8/8 329.0 405.0 Mar96 Digital
DEC 500/333 A21164 46/333 2M+96+8/8 389.6 480.1 Mar96 Digital
DEC [24]00/4/166 A21064 33/166 512+8/8 116.2 134.8 Jul95 Digital
DEC [24]00/4/233 A21064A 39/233 512+16/16 157.7 183.9 Apr95 Digital
DEC 600/5/266 A21164 38/266 2M+96+8/8 289.0 405.0 Jul95 Digital
DEC 600/5/266 A21164 38/266 4M+96+8/8 292.8 433.5 Jul95 Digital
DEC 600/5/300 A21164 75/300 4M+96+8/8 337.8 502.1 Jul95 Digital
DEC 600/5/333 A21164 83/333 4M+96+8/8 412.4 545.2 Jan96 Digital
System CPU ClkMHz Cache SPECint SPECfp Info Source
Name (NUMx)Type ext/in Ext+I/D 95 95 Date Obtained
================= ========== ======= ========== ======= ======= ===== =========
DEC 200/4/100 A21064A ??/100 ?+16/16 1.88 2.79 Aug96 Digital
DEC 200/4/166 A21064A ??/166 ?+16/16 2.95 3.64 Aug96 Digital
DEC 200/4/233 A21064A ??/233 ?+16/16 4.28 4.32 Aug96 Digital
DEC 250/4/266 A21064A ??/266 2M+16/16 5.18 6.27 Apr95 www.dec
DEC 255/233 A21064A ??/233 1M+16/16 4.27 5.09 Mar96 Digital
DEC 255/300 A21064A ??/300 1M+16/16 5.23 5.81 Mar96 Digital
DEC 500/266 A21164 43/266 2M+96+8/8 7.93 11.1 Mar96 Digital
DEC 500/333 A21164 46/333 2M+96+8/8 9.82 12.5 Mar96 Digital
DEC 500/400 A21164 53/400 2M+96+8/8 12.3 14.1 Jun96 Digital
DEC 500/500 A21164 48/500 8M+96+8/8 15.0 20.4 Aug96 Digital
DEC 600/5/266 A21164 38/266 4M+96+8/8 7.91 11.8 Sep95 Digital
DEC 600/5/300 A21164 75/300 4M+96+8/8 9.78 13.4 Sep95 Digital
DEC 600/5/333 A21164 83/333 4M+96+8/8 9.23 13.2 Feb96 Digital
DEC 600A/5/500 A21164 ??/500 8M+96+8/8 14.8 17.4 May97 www.dec
DEC PW433AU A21164 ??/433 2M+96+8/8 13.9 18.1 Jul97 www.specb
DEC PW500AU A21164 ??/500 2M+96+8/8 15.7 19.5 Jul97 www.specb
DEC PW600AU A21164 ??/600 2M+96+8/8 18.4 21.3 Jun97 www.specb
DEC 3000/500 A21064 30/150 512+8/8 2.15 3.65 Sep95 Digital
DEC 3000/700 A21064A 38/225 2M+16/16 3.66 5.71 Sep95 Digital
DEC 3000/900 A21064A 39/275 2M+16/16 4.24 6.29 Sep95 Digital
--
--
| Zane H. Healy | UNIX Systems Administrator |
| healyzh(a)aracnet.com (primary) | OpenVMS Enthusiast |
| | Classic Computer Collector |
+----------------------------------+----------------------------+
| Empire of the Petal Throne and Traveller Role Playing, |
| PDP-10 Emulation and Zane's Computer Museum. |
| http://www.aracnet.com/~healyzh/ |
>The data I have for the VS4000-90 is about 32
SPECmarks
>and similar numbers for SPECint/fp89.
[DEC 3000-400 ]
It's about 71-75 SPECint, and I think around
110 SPECfp.
Surprising for me. I thought that the gap was smaler.
Maybe I should run a benchmark (== building the NetBSD world) on my
machines. 
4:55 p.m.
On Thu, 22 May 2003, Jochen Kunz wrote:
Of course any NVAX-based VAX would stomp all over a 21064, but the 4k60 is
significantly slower than a 4k90.
Peace... Sridhar
The Alpha will
be perhaps 2-3 times faster (at least going by the SPEC
numbers I can find for related models and guessing a little based on
frequencies).
Really? The Alpha has about twice as much MHz, but the 21064 is known to
need a lot of MHz per MIPS.
7727
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13 comments
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