Subject: Re: Crippled Alpha chips?
To: G. Scott Lloyd <gscott@altatech.com>
From: Martin Heller <mheller@student.uni-kl.de>
List: port-alpha
Date: 07/16/1997 09:58:21
On Tue, 15 Jul 1997, G. Scott Lloyd wrote:

> I've put together a new system consisting of a AlphaPC 164 motherboard
> and a 21164-P7 CPU (500 MHz for NT) with the intent of running *BSD. The
> system will not even boot the SRM console. I tried another 21164-P7 chip
> and it behaves the same (no boot SRM). The P7 chips boot the ARC console
> and run NT just fine. If I plug in a 21164-P6 (433 MHz), the SRM console
> boots fine. Apparently DEC has followed through with crippling the NT
> versions of the Alpha chips starting with P7 so that you can't run digital
> UNIX (and apparently the SRM console which is of interest here) without
> spending a few thousand dollars more for the UNIX version of the chips?
> Is this true? What other issues are involved here?
there are two versions of Alpha CPUs . One for NT + ARC console only and
one for Digital UNIX + SRM & NT + ARC . These CPUs are more expensive, as
this extra money is used for the development of Digital UNIX.

> 
> Without a working  SRM console from DEC, are there any alternative
> consoles that can boot *BSD, or are there plans to make or adapt a
> console (like the Linux lilo) to *BSD ?
> 
I don`t think so ....

MARTIN