On 1021336965 seconds since the Beginning of the UNIX epoch
"Daniel Perry" wrote:
>
>Hi,
>Does anyone know anything about the dec alpha 500a?
>I've been offered one, and found the specs of it, but would be interested to
>hear peoples oppinions of them.

Is it a PWS500a?  In that case, I have a PWS433a which is basically
a slightly slower version of the same machine.  It is a '97 vintage
machine, I think.  It is pretty quick for its age, and the interesting
performance characteristics are:

	o  500MHz 21164a processor
		o  8k+8k L1 cache?  96k on-chip L2 cache
	o  200MB/sec main memory bandwidth
	o  1.5GB memory limit (at around $200 right now)
	o  2 64bit 33MHz PCI slots, and
	o  4 32bit 33MHz PCI slots.

The 500a probably comes with builtin 100BaseTX ethernet (tulip).

If that fits your use pattern, then its a pretty reasonable machine.
The only thing about it that annoys me is that it has soft power
which is a little bad for the server use that I've put mine in.
(I've heard that you can snip a lead and fix that, but I have not
yet researched that option.)

The other thing that may be an issue is that it is a pretty solid
heavy machine---which has good and bad qualities.

It is a fun alpha to play around with, and I've enjoyed having mine.

 == Roland Dowdeswell                      http://www.Imrryr.ORG/~elric/  ==
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