On Fri, 24 Oct 1997, Tim Rightnour wrote:

> It, right now is in the mail, so to speak..  but it's totally bare.. no HD or
> memory..  What suggestions would you have on adding memory to this machine?  I
> would probably like to use it as a lower end Xterminal..  I have heard these
> machines are somewhat slow for thier high clock rate..  (mine is the VX40B 166)
> and I'm wondering if that would make it somewhat pointless to put more than 32
> megs or so into it..

It really depends on what you're running. Don't use less than 32
MB. I get along fairly well with 32 MB on my AXPpci33s, but I don't
run any graphics or anything like that on them; just lots of
compiles. The only thing that ever really drives me into swap is
a kernel link.

> Also.. what HD would you reccomend I buy and put in here?

You'll need an external one, most likely; all you can fit inside
(if you have the one with a PCI slot) is a 2.5" drive. Even if you
do have the mounting bracket for a 3.5" disk which replaces the
PCI slot, you may not want to use it; the machine generates quite
enough heat already, and the cooling isn't so hot.

> I'm quite competent with i386.. this is my first venture into the alpha world
> though..  I assume there will be pitfalls.. Namely.. is it possible to boot
> this thing and get it installed without having digital unix or any other OS
> pre-installed on it?

Yes. You can boot over the network pretty easily (see the documentation
on this somewhere off the alpha ports page on www.netbsd.org) or
I will have a new boot floppy available in a couple of days.

cjs

Curt Sampson    cjs@portal.ca	   Info at http://www.portal.ca/
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