Last of the DEC Alpha’s

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A bit on computer history this time. Although this DS10 computer is badged Compaq it was a Digital Equipment Corporation design (DEC) using it Alpha processors. Compaq took over the DECs PC business in 1998 but it wasn’t long before HP picked up both. The Alpha processor held the speed record for a RISC processor at the time and was used in machines that could support DECs own operating system VMS, but also UNIX and Windows NT. Unlike Microsoft who clamed NT stood for 'New Technology', DEC circles claimed it was the 3 next letters in the alphabet from VMS becoming 'WNT' reflecting the design input from DEC.
There is a bonus end to the video on an unusual mouse used by DEC on earlier VAX machines.

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31 дек 2021

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Комментарии : 74

@bunter6 2 года назад

I worked at Compaq/HP in Erskine and these unit were running the Pre-Test & Run-In lanes right up until the end of production in 2011. super reliable kit.

@tuopeeks 2 года назад

The Alpha was impressive in its day. I was in the networks business at the time in DEC AYO but I later saw these used constantly for years as radar display drivers.

@brettbuck7362 10 месяцев назад

DEC equipment was the standard, dead-nuts reliable both with the hardware and the software stability. A professional-level system, not some PC crap. I still use it almost daily, and I can't recall it ever having crashed for any reason, the only times it has been down was during power failures

@GazzaBoo 10 месяцев назад

The 'olden days' of computing were far more interesting for enthusiasts. There were so many companies, so many different makes of hardware, OS's, drive types, peripherals, configurations to play with. It was all very exciting and innovative with some really amazing machines in their day. I'm glad I was there with that stuff before it all vanished.

@KirbyZhang 9 месяцев назад

it all morphed into something no-one can "play with" anymore unless you're a full-time career professional. the lego building days seems won't be coming back in IT technology.

@leeoberto5618 3 месяца назад

Wow. I was logging back onto my workstation at CAT in the 1990's there for a moment. Thanks for the cool video. Brought back some great memories of a young hard chatging engineer!

@mrcpu9999 10 месяцев назад

man, this brings back memories. Decstations, vaxstations, microvaxes, clusters, PDP's, alpha's, ultrix, VMS, DECnet...... Digital had great stuff. Thanks for the trip down memory lane.

@gregreynolds5686 2 года назад

All that lovely engineering, now almost completely obsolete. Thanks for the video.

@boardernut Год назад

oh my, we had two of those at work, just to monitor our TruCluster , a pair of GS1280 and several DS25 , We had VMS on the workstations just for fun, but the whole environment was Tru 5.1, so many good memories it was great and you thougt it would never end

@nakfan 2 месяца назад

Very interesting... Looking forward to watch your videos. Subscribed 😊

@DavidL-ii7yn 10 месяцев назад

We have stacks of these still sitting around. DS20s ES40s. They were the fastest microcomputers you could buy in their time. First time we ran our code, the prompt came right back and I said, "It could not possibly have run that fast." But it did.

@maarkaus48 6 месяцев назад

I worked on a Dec Alpha in the mid 90's running win NT. It was much more powerful than my intel Pentium 75. We were running Softimage and it was pretty good at it. All the systems were networked together and rendered to a farm. Fun times.

@learigg 2 года назад

That's a blast from the past. Happy New Year.

@rabidbigdog 10 месяцев назад

In the early 2010s, it was my sad duty to help a client retire their VMS cluster which had operated for nearly 25 years uninterrupted. All the *nix users have no idea.

@jfbeam 8 месяцев назад

There are many UNIX's that lasted that long, too. It was more a testament to one's ability to keep them powered, than to any magic software. (I've seen old NT [3.5/4.0] setups last decades, too. But they were not desktops, and they aren't on the f'ing internet.)

@tcpnetworks 10 месяцев назад

Had 500 of the DS10's running VMS in a datacentre in Canberra - running Airservices Australia's Aviation management systems. They were literally the best machines for the job.

@tuopeeks 10 месяцев назад

This particular machine ran VMS in banking industries, but I also saw this exact machine used as the display end of radar data processing in air traffic control using Skyline software on DEC Unix OS. The only issue I heard of was they could get choked with dust running 24/7 without filters.

@tcpnetworks 10 месяцев назад

@@tuopeeks Pretty much - we had rooms of vector-graphics modules and under-desk VMS machines drawing 2-3 screens each. They were workhorses. Every year we'd change the hard disks out.

@AnonyDave 10 месяцев назад

Oh damn, I used to work around the corner from there. Alphas were more of a hobby to me, but never managed to find anything newer than the ol' ev5 generation ones.

@rabidbigdog 10 месяцев назад

VMS still runs US air traffic control.

@rabidbigdog 10 месяцев назад

I've been told RT-11 on PDP11 still runs some US nuclear power plants and they were looking for people with experience!

@niallsommerville9941 2 года назад

I remember that mouse and having to take them apart frequently, who knew fluff was magnetic. A good new year to all.

@tuopeeks 2 года назад

Not as bad as cleaning a ball mouse. :-)

@tmk761 6 месяцев назад

If you want to see the startup on the graphics display, enter "set console graphics" at the >>> prompt. "set console serial" puts it back to the serial port. You may need to give an "init" command at the prompt to get it to take effect (or power cycle, but it is best to avoid power cycling old machines if possible). Probably the most common problem these days, after the DS chip battery, is the plastic on the pushbutton / LED panel becoming brittle and cracking. The usual symptom is the Halt button getting stuck, which will cause the console to complain and refuse to boot. I just finished restoring a DS20 (this system's much bigger brother) for a museum.

@tuopeeks 6 месяцев назад

thanks for the info.

@lawrencedoliveiro9104 10 месяцев назад

There were four main operating systems available for Alpha machines. From DEC/Compaq/HP itself, there were Tru64 Unix and OpenVMS†. From third parties, there was Windows NT, and also Linux. Both the *nixes, Tru64 and Linux, were full 64-bit. VMS was a mix of 32-bit (VAX legacy) and 64-bit parts (just enough to take advantage of Alpha capabilities). Windows NT was 32-bit-only. †The joke among those of us who remember VMS from VAX days was that the “Open” was silent.

@VK2FVAX 10 месяцев назад

Those "puck mice" (also called "Burger Mouse") were very common on the MIPS based DECServer and DECStation 5000's. Also the VAXStation 4000VLC ..etc. I always enjoy mine and it sits on my Personal DECStation5000/50

@tess4647 Год назад

Ohgosh I'd still love to have one of these! A long long time ago I learned to admin Tru64 on the job and I really loved that OS!

@lmantuano6986 Год назад

Hey! I happen to have a few of them, happy to give you one if you're still interested.. Obviously depending where you are, the freight cost might be a bit stiff.. ciao, LM

@MVVblog 2 года назад

Cathode Ray Dude has made a video on that mouse.

@tuopeeks 2 года назад

Think his is the original type, this is the DEC copy.

@SvenKillig 10 месяцев назад

I replaced the dead DS1287 in the DEC 3000 AXP Model 600 I inherited from my father with a coin cell powered GW-12887-1 Works nicely, what a luck it's socketed!

@tuopeeks 10 месяцев назад

That's good to know as I think it hard to find the original backup ram module these days

@Lion_McLionhead 10 месяцев назад

CDE on VMS is new. You'd never guess it was VMS except for the 1 crazy directory name shown. The internet says it was 600Mhz maximum speed , 2GB maximum memory, from 2001. Us little people are obviously more interested than Scott Manley in such a measly machine.

@allezvenga7617 10 месяцев назад

Thanks for your sharing

@joetheman74 3 месяца назад

They still make the Dallas RTC chips. You can easily replace that if you know how to solder. (Or if it's socketed but it did't look like yours was.) I know this was two years ago but it would be nice to see a modern Linux distro on this machine. Gentoo Linux is still available for the Alpha platform. I know that Gentoo is not the easiest OS to install and requires manually compiling packages (I know I've installed and run Gentoo before) but if your up to it and have the knowledge it would be a fun project for this machine. Gentoo does have a very thorough install Wiki that guides you through the installation process. It just takes several hours to do.

@tuopeeks 3 месяца назад

good to know the Dallas RTC is still available. This one is still holding out last time I checked. I haven't mucked about with the OS as yet , in fact I there is a newer UNIX version I could use too.

@dougholtz 10 месяцев назад

DEC Storage Works was a great product that I think is still manufactured today under the HPe name. Great product then, still great today.

@tuopeeks 10 месяцев назад

Had a stint working in DECs networks business, so profitable they sold a lot of it off to companies like Cabletron at the time.

@betounix7217 Год назад

I will love to have one like this =D

@MVVblog 2 года назад

Happy 2022

@jaytheblader6701 10 месяцев назад

Had one of these at the container terminal I worked at running tru64 Unix with an Oracle database for our container operations system.

@doalwa 10 месяцев назад

I have a Digital PWS 433au in storage. Haven’t turned it on in a few years, might just try after watching your video. An awesome machine back in the day, able to run OpenVMS, Tru64, NT, Linux and *BSD. Modern day hardware is so boring in comparison 😢

@maItre_gonzo 10 месяцев назад

never used one of those, but looks very close to HP/UX on HP9000 we used for network monitoring at the time....a loooong time ago.

@arm-power Год назад

Is EV7 CPU type inside? Too bad Alpha EV8 CPU was never finished (cancelled by Intel after acquisition from Compaq, although Intel used DEC patents developed for EV8 in his future CPUs, mainly Core2Duo). EV8 was a beast, 4-way SMT, 8x ALU units and 4x FPU (today's AMD has 4xALU, 4xFPU and 2-way SMT) all that in 2003. Basically EV8 was 20 years ahead. Only Apple M1 today somehow match EV8 because M1 uses 8-wide scalar int core (although using 6xALU + 2x branch units, while EV8 has 8xALU and branch units shared on those ALU, probably 4 of them). Thank you Intel for 20 years of CPU stagnation.

@tuopeeks Год назад

EV6 in this machine but manufactured by Digital, I've seen some by Samsung under licence. I remember DEC and Intel in a court battle over patents shortly before their demise.

@arm-power Год назад

@@tuopeeks EV6 is great too. BTW legendary Jim Keller were working on it as his last CPU in DEC. AMD K7 Athlon had DDR front side bus from EV6. AMD bought a license from DEC back then. Patent battles are another dirty business game - I remember 3DFx bankrupted during court battle with Nvidia about illegally using their patents. Just before their new GPU chip called Rampage was finished Nvidia bought 3dfx, cancelled Rampage but used all their patents (basically same what happened to DEC EV8).

@manw3bttcks 10 месяцев назад

Huh? Dont you mean HP? Compaq was bought by HP not Intel

@rabidbigdog 10 месяцев назад

Intel couldn't afford someone else having better processors. In the Computer History Museum oral history he talks about the call he got from AMD to extend x86 to 64-bit, helping them f'k over Intel. I often wondered if that wasn't some kind of payback.

@Darryl_Frost 7 месяцев назад

I had to upgrade a few of them puppies for Y2K in large SCADA systems, they were good machines back in the day. had to replace teh BIOS, the OS (VMS 7.1) and the SCADA application. On all the machines in the system. otherwise no water and sewer and bad stuff happening.

@tuopeeks 7 месяцев назад

These machines like yours, seemed to be often used in important systems. This one originated from a banking system and I also know of them being used in Air Traffic control systems. All working continuously .

@tekcomputers 2 месяца назад

@@tuopeeks It is no wonder, AlphaServers could maintain some serious runtime. Had an AlphaServer at one job years ago that was installed in 1995, this was in 2001 and doing the math on the runtime the system basically had not been shut down since she was commissioned. They were beasts and reliable as hell.

@gdevelek 9 месяцев назад

These machines were very very fast, and the Digital Unix and VMS OS's were very reliable, plus they also ran Windows-NT, yet they never took off. Digital's marketing was not at the same level as their workstations and servers. No wonder they had to sell the entire company.

@tuopeeks 9 месяцев назад

Think they were quite popular in some commercial situations but, although good they were pricey.

@gdevelek 9 месяцев назад

@@tuopeeks They offered unparalleled performance, so their prices were not unjustified. However I think if DEC had priced them down a bit they would have broken the market wide open and dominated it in 12 months time.

@lawrencedoliveiro9104 10 месяцев назад

10:24 One way you can tell that’s a VMS screen, not a Unix screen, is the syntax for the parent directory is “[-]” on VMS, as opposed to “..” on Unix.

@gorak9000 9 месяцев назад

I did some parallel processing (with MPI) work for some physics profs that ran DECStations - brings back memories to see OpenVMS. I never actually ever used those machines, but the things that stood out to me were they had big beautiful 21" high DPI displays long before the PC ever did, and that in OpenVMS, it automatically kept many revisions of every file - sort of like built in version control, but on every file automatically. Don't know if that was the default, or that was an option, but I thought that was a REALLY slick feature.

@rabidbigdog 10 месяцев назад

The destruction of Digital is a crime in business history.

@tuopeeks 10 месяцев назад

It certainly was a sad day for such a big name in the computer industry. I guess some of it's history still lingers on under the HP badge now.

@lawrencedoliveiro9104 10 месяцев назад

Ken Olsen was a Unix hater, and so were quite a few other DEC engineers, including a certain Dave Cutler. When his project to create a successor to the VAX and VMS was cancelled in 1988, he left in a huff, and turned up a few months later working for Microsoft. He was put in charge of the OS development that later turned into Windows NT. That anti-Unix mentality was baked so thoroughly into Windows NT that Microsoft is still paying the price for it today. Which is why they have had to resort to WSL.

@rabidbigdog 10 месяцев назад

@@lawrencedoliveiro9104 Bwahahahahaa.

@sbrazenor2 9 месяцев назад

The weird thing for me was that I was a technician, and at one point my job was to cover a school department in the same city Digital/DEC was located in, and I wasn't even aware of them. My position mostly supported Apple and other manufacturers, but over the years I gain more respect for DEC as a company. We need more companies with the vision they had. I still see the DCU locations they helped to create.

@tekcomputers 2 месяца назад

@@lawrencedoliveiro9104 Interestingly enough he was why Microsoft was for years required to support NT on Alpha hardware. It turned out some of the Digital owned code used for the VMS sucessor was found during patent litigation in the source code for the NT Kernel.... secons basicallt just repurposed for the original NT Kernel.... notes and all. Which is why in the lawsuit suddenly everything settled and Microsoft supported NT on Alpha up till the first release Candidate of Windows 2000.

@lawrencedoliveiro9104 10 месяцев назад

10:12 Looks like they got CDE working just as nicely on VMS as on Tru64 Unix. By the way, DEC had a big hand in the original development of X11 as it was. So no surprise it was well-supported on VMS.

@thegeforce6625 2 года назад

what hard drive models does this particular machine use?

@tuopeeks 2 года назад

2x SCSI Compaq (FUJITSU) 9.1Gb model : BB009222B5

@noth606 2 месяца назад

I would have been a bit more gentle with it, they don't grow on trees and are fairly valuable as basically obsolete systems go. 21264 boxes are as nice as these things get after all, in terms of small size alpha systems, there was a time I very much wanted one but I gave up on it as $2k roughly was what they were asking. DS10 and DS20's if memory serves, what would have been cool is running VMS on it pretending it's a big ass 11/780 or so. That's what they are cool for imo, all the other shizz you can do on much more easily available hardware. Except maybe Ultrix, which if I'm not mistaken there theoretically is some reason to run still - I can't remember what though.

@T2D.SteveArcs 2 года назад

😎

@eshgholah 2 года назад

Could you please install NT on the machine and make a video for it? Thanks

@tuopeeks 2 года назад

I'll look into it. I did have NT on an Alpha machine many years back but can't remember how I went about it. Seem to remember something about licenses but might just have been for Unix and VMS OS.

@tekcomputers 2 месяца назад

@@tuopeeks If you have a NT 4.0 disk with a license, it will work. There was not seperate and licenses.... NT 4.0 disks could install on Alpha, PowerPC, RS4000 or intel with the same license.