Just got a DEC AlphaServer 800…

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All 100lb of it. It is HEAVY.

Anyways, long story short, after hauling it around Financial District, and Times Square, it’s now safe and installing Windows NT 4.0 Terminal Server.

AlphaServer 800

AlphaServer 800

It’s got a single 5/500 CPU, along with 256MB of ram, and 2x 36gig disks. I’ll have to check to see if I have any ram that’ll fit it. I may very well turn it into a public access thing too….. But we’ll see.

12 thoughts on “Just got a DEC AlphaServer 800…”

  1. so i have a AlphaServer 1000A and Windows 2000 RC1, whenever I run ARCINST it wont format it the right way because Windows setup always says 'no partition available' but I had it working once… and messed it up.

    Any notes on Win 2000 on alpha would help!

    -AKS (RIT)

  2. according to the release notes before you get started you *MUST* have a super new version of your ARC BIOS… Check there first, and see if you can create the system partition inside of the BIOS… I've kind of wimped out of the idea of 2000 for the moment, since it'll self destruct after 444 days….

  4. Well a screwed up Elsa video driver (it pulled the i386 stuff) screwed up my install… So I tried the 2072 build of 2000 server, and on it's install it said that the terminal server portion will only run for 90 days!… So it's back to NT 4.0 TSE for me… I'll just skip the video.

    On that note, I noticed that I've got the 5.70 BIOS with all the flags for Windows 2000… I'm not sure where the bios came from, as the only download is for 5.69. At any rate, 2000 installed fine, but I need multiple users for more then 90 days.

  7. Hmm well the 'easy' way out for me, with a UNIX background would be to do something like this:

    find out what kind of hard disk is in the MicroVAX. Setup a copy of SIMH with that hard disk, then install VMS to it with the tape images from that great site.

    Get the NetBSD VAX setup and netboot the VAX, and dd the simh image onto the real disk….

    I'm not sure if there is a netboot for VMS, but considering all the MOP stuff there probably is.. it'll be easier to setup a machine with SIMH, and get the microvax to netboot then work out some kind of restore strategy…..

    Sorry it's not great, but that's all I can come up with right now. Otherwise, you could try asking on the SIMH mailing list, that's where a LOT of old VMS people hang out.

  9. Hello
    Nice machine, that AlphaServer 800!
    Don't waste your time with Windows NT, you could use an up to date operating system like Debian or NetBSD.
    Or take the chance to install OpenVMS on real hardware.
    OpenVMS hobbyist program offers you free licenses for hobbyist use, visit http//www.openvmshobbyist.com and enjoy!
    Ciao!
    gl

  10. I still prefer NT because it's something more fun from the era. And I have the tools, unlike vms. And while I do have a tru64 media set, it runs in an emulator just fine… nt on the alpha is more interesting to me because it cannot be emulated.

    And it's familiar and fun.

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