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I actually bought myself an Alpha for my home machine as a grad student in 1996. I think they were remaindering low end machines; the Multia[1], a little 21066a

I actually bought myself an Alpha for my home machine as a grad student in 1996. I think they were remaindering low end machines; the Multia[1], a little 21066a machine probably designed to run WNT. What I remember about it in particular is it came with a bum memory chip, and ... somehow they sent an actual service engineer to come fiddle with my computer in the Berkeley hills. He had to do this twice. Can't imagine what it cost for that kind of service; I think I paid a few hundred bucks for the Multia -I was poor! Kind of guessed DEC needed to adjust their business model. The computer itself was fairly poorly designed, and I remember the memory bus (and g77 compiler) in the thing kept it only about as fast as a contemporary intel chip; it eventually suicided itself during one of Berkeley's frequent power outages. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DEC_Multia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DEC_Multia

saltcured 7y ago
I had one of those too, though I feel like I might have gotten it in 1995. I immediately put Linux on it and found that it was quite fast for some tasks where the open source software compiled well on Alpha. The biggest practical drawback for me was that Netscape wasn't available as an Alpha binary. Running it with the open source FX32 x86 emulator was too slow. It performed about as well as a Python-based browser at the time. I ended up using ethernet to run Netscape and other x86-focused software on a 486DX4-100 with remote X display back to the Alpha which had my nice monitor. I brought that Multia with me to my first job, and used it to do 64-bit portability work (on Linux) for an middleware/communication project that we were busy porting to many obscure 64-bit HPC platforms. It was fun to have a 64-bit Linux at home, long before x86_64 came onto the scene.
- scottlocklin 7y ago
  Somehow I don't recall this limitation. Maybe someone compiled a version of Mosaic for it? I probably wasn't very webby at the time; grew up on text based interbutts. Was definitely ringing up the University internets using a 19k modem. I do remember playing Quake on the thing; that was pretty cool.
EvanAnderson 7y ago
I got a Multia surplus in '99. I've had it sitting in the shipping box ever since. I keep meaning to get it out and tinker with it but never have. I had one Customer in the late 90's w/ an Alpha-based application (based on SQL Server under Windows NT on an Alpha Server 5305). As a tech who had only used x86-based servers up to that point I found the machine to be very easy to setup and use. It just felt like a strange PC. (I knew it was different-- one look inside was enough to tell that-- but it didn't feel tremendously different than, say, a fat and heavy dual Pentium Pro-based system from Intel in a similar chassis.)
- scottlocklin 7y ago
  I'd be curious if it still works. The power supply had some fragility that caused it to eventually nuke the mainboard in a power outage situation. Not sure mine made it to Y2K to see if it was all there on that front.

saltcured 7y ago

I had one of those too, though I feel like I might have gotten it in 1995. I immediately put Linux on it and found that it was quite fast for some tasks where the open source software compiled well on Alpha. The biggest practical drawback for me was that Netscape wasn't available as an Alpha binary. Running it with the open source FX32 x86 emulator was too slow. It performed about as well as a Python-based browser at the time. I ended up using ethernet to run Netscape and other x86-focused software on a 486DX4-100 with remote X display back to the Alpha which had my nice monitor. I brought that Multia with me to my first job, and used it to do 64-bit portability work (on Linux) for an middleware/communication project that we were busy porting to many obscure 64-bit HPC platforms. It was fun to have a 64-bit Linux at home, long before x86_64 came onto the scene.

scottlocklin 7y ago
Somehow I don't recall this limitation. Maybe someone compiled a version of Mosaic for it? I probably wasn't very webby at the time; grew up on text based interbutts. Was definitely ringing up the University internets using a 19k modem. I do remember playing Quake on the thing; that was pretty cool.

EvanAnderson 7y ago

I got a Multia surplus in '99. I've had it sitting in the shipping box ever since. I keep meaning to get it out and tinker with it but never have. I had one Customer in the late 90's w/ an Alpha-based application (based on SQL Server under Windows NT on an Alpha Server 5305). As a tech who had only used x86-based servers up to that point I found the machine to be very easy to setup and use. It just felt like a strange PC. (I knew it was different-- one look inside was enough to tell that-- but it didn't feel tremendously different than, say, a fat and heavy dual Pentium Pro-based system from Intel in a similar chassis.)

scottlocklin 7y ago
I'd be curious if it still works. The power supply had some fragility that caused it to eventually nuke the mainboard in a power outage situation. Not sure mine made it to Y2K to see if it was all there on that front.