DECing Out The Homelab With An AlphaServer 2100

Retrocomputer fanatics have a nasty rap as nerds who simply wish to play outdated video video games. There’s some reality on this, however the actuality is that we’re nerds who wish to do all kinds of issues with outdated {hardware} — all the things from consoles to servers. Servers just like the DEC AlphaServer 2100 [derelictelectronics] picked up at Vintage Computer Festival Midwest this 12 months. He was type sufficient to record a tour for these of us who missed seeing these early Alpha machines of their heyday.

DEC did promote these items with multiple-CPU reviews from the get-go, however the [derelictronics] specific mannequin has  a single CPU board carrying a 64-bit Alpha RISC processor. This machine from 1994 dates to close the peak of the RISC wars when it appeared everybody wanted to have their very own high-end structure, all of them RISC. While the machine may host as much as 2GB of RAM, the instance [derelictelectronics] discovered solely has 256 MB, which was nonetheless not a small quantity for 1994!

He does get the machine powered on across the 20-minute mark, however doesn’t get to see an working system. We’ve seen earlier than that booting an Alpha machine is a bit different, however the issues he’s having seem to be power-related. Hopefully he will get it up and working with OpenVMS as promised. In the meantime, the VAX-descended OS lives on in the cloud and within the digital machine of this operating system museum.