2 Quick Dec PWS Questions

[alex-16]

Hi,
Looking at aquiring an Alpha box (preferably a PWS or similar) and have
a couple of questions about these machines.
First, is there any hardware difference between the A and AU series, or
are the diferences just in firmware? If it's just firmware, can a
A-series machine be flashed with SRM so VMS or True64can be run?
Second, Do these take standard SDRAM? I've seen conflicting reports on
this, and am not sure what to believe.
Thanks for any answers.
-Alex


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[Brian Wheeler]

On Wed, 2009-09-23 at 21:32 -0400, alex@... wrote:

> Hi,
> Looking at aquiring an Alpha box (preferably a PWS or similar) and have
> a couple of questions about these machines.
> First, is there any hardware difference between the A and AU series, or
> are the diferences just in firmware? If it's just firmware, can a
> A-series machine be flashed with SRM so VMS or True64can be run?
> Second, Do these take standard SDRAM? I've seen conflicting reports on
> this, and am not sure what to believe.
> Thanks for any answers.
> -Alex
>

The only difference I know of is the firmware, although I seem to recall
that the au versions had a scsi controller and a different video card
when sold.  With openvms you have to have the non-intel chipset to boot
the ide cdrom: otherwise you have to boot using a scsi cd.

As to the memory, I think it was PC100 ECC.  I was actually looking at
my 500au this afternoon and wondering where I could acquire some memory
cheap.  The 192M I have isn't a whole lot...

Brian
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[Jochen Kunz]

On Wed, 23 Sep 2009 21:32:31 -0400
alex@... wrote:

> First, is there any hardware difference between the A and AU series, or
> are the diferences just in firmware?
Firmware and the add on components build into the box. The A was soled
with IDE HDD / CDROM, the AU came with an additional SCSI adapter and
SCSI HDD / CDROM. If you want add SCSI yourself: Any Symbios Logic or
QLogic SCSI (or FC) adapter of that vintage should work.

> If it's just firmware, can a
> A-series machine be flashed with SRM so VMS or True64can be run?
Yes. But it may be tricky to get SRM on a A.

> Second, Do these take standard SDRAM? I've seen conflicting reports on
> this, and am not sure what to believe.
Plain SDRAM, ECC, CL-2!!!, PC100 or PC133. Can't remember if
registered / buffered or not. IIRC They need at least PC83, but will
also run with PC100 or PC133. I had PC133 in mine. The important part
is AFAIK CL-2.
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tsch|_,
       Jochen

Homepage: http://www.unixag-kl.fh-kl.de/~jkunz/
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[Andrew Gaylard]

On Thu, Sep 24, 2009 at 9:16 AM, Jochen Kunz <jkunz@...> wrote:
> On Wed, 23 Sep 2009 21:32:31 -0400
> alex@... wrote:
>
>> First, is there any hardware difference between the A and AU series, or
>> are the diferences just in firmware?
> Firmware and the add on components build into the box. The A was soled
> with IDE HDD / CDROM, the AU came with an additional SCSI adapter and
> SCSI HDD / CDROM. If you want add SCSI yourself: Any Symbios Logic or
> QLogic SCSI (or FC) adapter of that vintage should work.

For the record, my 433au came with SCSI HDD, and IDE CDROM.
It was new in January 1999.

- Andrew
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[Sandwich Maker]

" From: Jochen Kunz <jkunz@...>
"
" On Wed, 23 Sep 2009 21:32:31 -0400
" alex@... wrote:
"
" > []
" > Second, Do these take standard SDRAM? I've seen conflicting reports on
" > this, and am not sure what to believe.
" Plain SDRAM, ECC, CL-2!!!, PC100 or PC133. Can't remember if
" registered / buffered or not. IIRC They need at least PC83, but will
" also run with PC100 or PC133. I had PC133 in mine. The important part
" is AFAIK CL-2.

nb. pc133 comes in 2 flavors; 'high density' is not backwards
compatible with pc100 and pc66...
________________________________________________________________________
Andrew Hay                                  the genius nature
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[alex-16]

Hi,
Thanks for this information.  Why would it be hard to get SRM installed
on an A-series workstation?
Sorry my knowledge of these is limitted, I did a couple of projects on
some 600AUs in college and have always wanted to aquire an Alpha of this
vintage.

On Thu, Sep 24, 2009 at 09:16:19AM +0200, Jochen Kunz wrote:

> On Wed, 23 Sep 2009 21:32:31 -0400
> alex@... wrote:
>
> > First, is there any hardware difference between the A and AU series, or
> > are the diferences just in firmware?
> Firmware and the add on components build into the box. The A was soled
> with IDE HDD / CDROM, the AU came with an additional SCSI adapter and
> SCSI HDD / CDROM. If you want add SCSI yourself: Any Symbios Logic or
> QLogic SCSI (or FC) adapter of that vintage should work.
>
> > If it's just firmware, can a
> > A-series machine be flashed with SRM so VMS or True64can be run?
> Yes. But it may be tricky to get SRM on a A.
>
> > Second, Do these take standard SDRAM? I've seen conflicting reports on
> > this, and am not sure what to believe.
> Plain SDRAM, ECC, CL-2!!!, PC100 or PC133. Can't remember if
> registered / buffered or not. IIRC They need at least PC83, but will
> also run with PC100 or PC133. I had PC133 in mine. The important part
> is AFAIK CL-2.
> --
>
>
> tsch|_,
>        Jochen
>
> Homepage: http://www.unixag-kl.fh-kl.de/~jkunz/
> _______________________________________________
> rescue list - http://www.sunhelp.org/mailman/listinfo/rescue
>
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> This message has been scanned for viruses and
> dangerous content by MailScanner, and is
> believed to be clean.
>

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[Ryan Thoryk]

On Wed, 23 Sep 2009, Brian Wheeler wrote:

> On Wed, 2009-09-23 at 21:32 -0400, alex@... wrote:
>> Hi,
>> Looking at aquiring an Alpha box (preferably a PWS or similar) and have
>> a couple of questions about these machines.
>> First, is there any hardware difference between the A and AU series, or
>> are the diferences just in firmware? If it's just firmware, can a
>> A-series machine be flashed with SRM so VMS or True64can be run?
>> Second, Do these take standard SDRAM? I've seen conflicting reports on
>> this, and am not sure what to believe.
>> Thanks for any answers.
>> -Alex
>>
>
> The only difference I know of is the firmware, although I seem to recall
> that the au versions had a scsi controller and a different video card
> when sold.  With openvms you have to have the non-intel chipset to boot
> the ide cdrom: otherwise you have to boot using a scsi cd.
>
> As to the memory, I think it was PC100 ECC.  I was actually looking at
> my 500au this afternoon and wondering where I could acquire some memory
> cheap.  The 192M I have isn't a whole lot...
>
> Brian
>
>

In order to boot OpenVMS, you need a Qlogic SCSI controller - I got one a
while back for mine, and VMS boots just fine.  Tru64 can be installed and
booted off either the internal IDE, a Qlogic controller, or controller
with a Symbios 53C8XX chip, but like I said, VMS *needs* the Qlogic, both
for the CDROM and the disks (if you use the Symbios, it thinks it's a
certain DEC-branded card and tries to load the related firmware, but
can't, and the install fails). More info's on Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Personal_Workstation

There is no firmware difference between the A and AU systems - mine is a
433a, and I've run Linux, NT4, Tru64 5.1 and OpenVMS 8.3 on it.  To boot
Tru64, the os_type variable needs to be set to "Unix".  To boot OpenVMS,
it needs to be set to "OpenVMS":
http://www.alphalinux.org/faq/x31.html

Also if yours is one of the later machines with USB ports, you should have
an onboard Qlogic SCSI controller (mine's one of the older ones).

I also upgraded the RAM in mine with regular PC100 chips - don't know if
they needed to be ECC or not.

Pics of mine if you're interested - some pics show it booting VMS:
http://ryan.tliquest.net/gallery/main.php?g2_itemId=6993

Ryan Thoryk
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[Ryan Thoryk]

Here's a pic showing what happens if you try to boot VMS off a Sym53C8XX
controller (the machine thinks it's an Intraserver card, and fails during
the firmware load):
http://ryan.tliquest.net/gallery/main.php?g2_itemId=7019

On Thu, 24 Sep 2009, Ryan Thoryk wrote:

> In order to boot OpenVMS, you need a Qlogic SCSI controller - I got one a
> while back for mine, and VMS boots just fine.  Tru64 can be installed and
> booted off either the internal IDE, a Qlogic controller, or controller with a
> Symbios 53C8XX chip, but like I said, VMS *needs* the Qlogic, both for the
> CDROM and the disks (if you use the Symbios, it thinks it's a certain
> DEC-branded card and tries to load the related firmware, but can't, and the
> install fails). More info's on Wikipedia:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Personal_Workstation
>
> There is no firmware difference between the A and AU systems - mine is a
> 433a, and I've run Linux, NT4, Tru64 5.1 and OpenVMS 8.3 on it.  To boot
> Tru64, the os_type variable needs to be set to "Unix".  To boot OpenVMS, it
> needs to be set to "OpenVMS":
> http://www.alphalinux.org/faq/x31.html
>
> Also if yours is one of the later machines with USB ports, you should have an
> onboard Qlogic SCSI controller (mine's one of the older ones).
>
> I also upgraded the RAM in mine with regular PC100 chips - don't know if they
> needed to be ECC or not.
>
> Pics of mine if you're interested - some pics show it booting VMS:
> http://ryan.tliquest.net/gallery/main.php?g2_itemId=6993
>
> Ryan Thoryk
>

Ryan Thoryk
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[Jochen Kunz]

On Thu, 24 Sep 2009 10:25:18 -0400
alex@... wrote:

> Why would it be hard to get SRM installed on an A-series workstation?
There where some versions of ARC firmware without an option to switch
to SRM. I dim remember a user on the NetBSD/alpha mailing list with
this problem. He finaly got to SRM by hitting ^C at a very special
point in POST, "set os_type Unix" and he was done.

Hmmm. I should undust my PWS 500au and play a bit of NetBSD on it again.
--


tsch|_,
       Jochen

Homepage: http://www.unixag-kl.fh-kl.de/~jkunz/
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[Jochen Kunz]

On Thu, 24 Sep 2009 08:44:29 -0400 (EDT)
adh@... (Sandwich Maker) wrote:

> nb. pc133 comes in 2 flavors; 'high density' is not backwards
> compatible with pc100 and pc66...
Interresting, I didn't know about this.

BTW: Max RAM for the PWS is 1.5 GB, i.e. 256 MB per DIMM and it needs
two DIMMs per bank.
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tsch|_,
       Jochen

Homepage: http://www.unixag-kl.fh-kl.de/~jkunz/
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