AlphaServers

[Peter Coghlan]

>
> How many more years do you think it'll take before decent, practical-sized
> Alphas, like the DS15, and to some degree, the DS10, will be obtainable at
> hobbyist-friendly prices?
>

A former colleague of mine has a DS10L.  I don't like these very much.  It
makes the wrong kind of noise, a loud high pitched squeal and can only take
one PCI card.  This one was probably got for nothing because the services it
was running were shut down.  Marketplace prices probably reflect whether
people are still using them for useful work and will probably remain high if
there continues to be demand for them.

>
> I have an ES47 I got for a price I could stomach, but it's sans rail kit,
> drinks power like it's going out of style, and can anchor a 40-ft yacht.
>

That's more like it.  A nice big animal of a machine you can use to heat the
room.

A few years ago, I had lots of fun looking after a few racks of ES40s running
VMS.  They ran great but the memory had to be exactly right to avoid wierd
failures under heavy load.  Unfortunately, I didn't manage to snag any of them
when they went out of service.  

>
> Anyone out there do Alphas anymore?
>

I've got a few:

An Alphaserver 2100 (old and slow but makes the right kind of noise)

A PWS 500a(u?) (faster but doesn't look the part, needs more memory)

An Alphaserver 800 with rails but not currently in a rack.

3 x Alphaserver 1000A (lots of problems, none working now)

2 x DEC 3000 / 600 and 1 x DEC 3000 / 300 (none currently working either)

Regards,
Peter Coghlan.