From: Gary Moody (gary.m.moody@gmail.com)
Date: Fri Nov 12 2004 - 15:20:11 EST
Hi folks,
Thank you to Denise McCracken, Russ Schaefer, Ben Ingwersen, Elizabeth
Harvey-Forsythe, Tom Linden, Derek Haining, Marco Benton, and Tom
Blinn for the responses to my inquiries.
I asked several questions:
1. The suitability of the DEC PWS500a s for Tru64
2. The appropriate video card
3. The oddball IDE/SCSI internal drive interface
4. Any technical documentation related to this box.
Several folks pointed out the the -au, rather than the -a, model was
the box setup for UNIX. The -a models were setup for NT4.0. This is
true, and the boxes I have currently have NT4 on them. I also
understand, with some additional hardware, this box can run Tru64, as
well as VMS and several versions of Linux, without issue.
The boxes come with the Matrox Millenium video cards, which several
folks pointed out was not Tru64 compatible. In testing, it's not that
they don't work, per se, but they only work in 640X480/256 color mode.
X is ugly on these cards. I've since purchased a Powerstorm 4D40T
card and have downloaded the drivers for Tru64. Several cards would
work, including other Powerstorm cards, S3 chipset cards, a Stealth 3D
card which has a Permedia chipset, an ELSA GLoria Synergy card, or an
Oxygen video card.
The IDE controller in the -a model is a bit bizarre. It presents
itself as a SCSI device to Tru64, and the OS can be installed on it
without issue. Several folks stated that the controller would handle
a larger drive, with at least one person stating that their machine
HAD a larger IDE drive in it, which is what I needed to know.
The reason I was looking for fibre HBA info is that I have been able
to scrounge a fully poopulated and working Sun StorEdge A5000 fibre
array that I was hoping to use with these boxes for network storage.
One person suggesteda KGPSA controller was compatible with the SRM,
and possibly more with the latest firmware. Others flatly stated the
FC cards are not compatible with this system. I'll continue to look
for a solution.
A japanese web site that contains compatibility information (in
english) for video cards, SCSI cards, and Gb NIC cards is located at
http://moon.hanya-n.org/comp/alpha/
Several folks were able to share some of their library of
documentation on this box (*very* helpful, thank you!), and some
suggested looking into the HP Alphaservers site
(http://h18002.www1.hp.com/alphaserver/workstations/retired/), where
there was some additional documentation.
Background: I acquired the boxes for no cost, as well as the array.
I'm hoping to put together a rather extensive home automation project,
using Oracle and GPL software. The 64 bit architecture will help with
some of the AV aspects, and as data servers. I'll configure a single
head, and the rest as data or web servers.
I thank you all for your time and effort in your response! I'll keep
the group apprised of the progress, and I'm sure I'll have more
questions as I go forward with this.
Regards,
Gary
Gary.M.Moody*NOSPAM* at gmail.com
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.7 : Sat Apr 12 2008 - 10:50:11 EDT