Re: Is this list alive?

["Aaron J. Grier" <agrier%poofygoof.com@localhost>]

slow on the uptake, but still here.

alpha-wise, I'm down to the 1000A, a 3000/400, and some multias of
various repair.  The 1000A continues to be my primary machine; the rest
are collecting dust.

hw.model = AlphaServer 1000A 5/400
 8:52AM  up 623 days, 15:57, 15 users, load averages: 0.19, 0.17, 0.11
NetBSD arwen.poofy.goof.com 4.99.25 NetBSD 4.99.25 (ARWEN) #2: Sun Jul 22 
17:51:27 PDT 2007  agrier%arwen.poofy.goof.com@localhost:/var/obj/ARWEN alpha

Updating it to NetBSD-6 (or at least to 5) has been on the todo list for
a while, but there's some outstanding NFS-related patches from Michael
Hitch that don't appear to have been merged yet.
(http://gnats.netbsd.org/cgi-bin/query-pr-single.pl?number=35448)

The 1000A 5/400 is still usable for my purposes.  it's certainly more
stable and faster than a pentium pro contemporary.  updating the aging
storage subsystem away from SCSI (add gig-E for iSCSI or add a SATA
controller for local disk) in an attempt to cut power consumption seems
like it would be beating a dead horse.

part of me realizes I should just suck it up and migrate all the
services over to (potentially virtual) amd64 systems, but there are
still aspects of the DEC systems (like BIOS vs SRM, chassis
construction, motherboard layout) that I feel are still a level above
commodity x86 boxes.

I keep the 3000/400 with the intention of testing, but with only 128MB,
it's quite ram starved for modern workloads.  it also eats over 220W
while idle, so I don't keep it on much.

the multias are pathetic, not stable, but they don't take up much space,
and I have higher priority (larger) systems to dispose of first...  :)

I would think a more modern alpha (EV68CB or later) with plenty of
memory and modern disk would be good for at least another half decade,
but they seem to be pretty rare.

any advice (or merely consolation) is welcomed.  :)

-- 
  Aaron J. Grier | "Not your ordinary poofy goof." | 
agrier%poofygoof.com@localhost