Post by Paul SturePost by Hans VlemsThe official name was Compaq Professional Workstation XP1000. There was
also an XP900, never seen one myself though.
FWIW I never managed to find a definitive list of differences between
the XP900 and XP1000.
DEC history time... From a couple of decades ago, and definitely from
sometimes fallible memory. Mistakes are mine, no offense is intended,
etc.
This is all from several era when DEC had its own unique approach
around its products and product groups and product differentiation, and
of what comprised a server or a workstation, and of what operating
systems booted and ran on which boxes. Though many parts could be
shared across DEC groups, names such as AlphaServer, AlphaStation,
DECserver, DECstation, VS, DS, ES, GS, XP and other prefixes were
usually based on the DEC-intended customer use for the computer, and
variously on the DEC hardware group most directly responsible for the
particular product. The particular details and groups changed over
time, too. There were reorgs and product and strategy changes, too.
The DEC group that was producing Alpha workstations targeted for use
with Microsoft Windows was disbanded when the Alpha Windows effort
ended for instance, though production of Alpha server products and some
workstation variants of those servers for OpenVMS and Tru64 UNIX /
DIGITAL UNIX continued.
There tend to be larger differences between servers and workstations
now and particularly in the x86-64 space than had existed back in the
era of DEC and its Alpha systems. Back then, the biggest differences
among the Alpha boxes tended to be whether OpenVMS or Microsoft
Windows, or Tru64 UNIX / DIGITAL UNIX booted on the particular box, and
the contents of the then-current hardware and software support matrix.
Yes, there are a number of Alpha systems that will not boot OpenVMS.
There are some that will only boot using hacks. There are some that
won't work reliably. Check the relevant SPD for the official support.
XP900, DS10 and VS10 are all different names for the same system. DS10
was the server variant, the others were workstation variants.
Probably the biggest difference across that whole series is whether the
particular box has the front storage cage or not. DS10L is the same
basic parts as the DS10, with a rack form factor and rather more
limited expansion and the DS10L is not at all good for home use sans
acoustical enclosure or server closet. IIRC, DS10 and the DS series
in general was the nomenclature from the server group at DEC for
low-end servers, and that DS10 box was the basis of al of the systems
in that series, The XP900 name was from the workstation group at DEC,
and the VS900 provided an OpenVMS workstation. That all eventually
got rolled together into one product. Irrespective of the names, the
XP900, DS10 and VS10 systems differed only in the I/O options provided.
XP1000 is a completely different package and different enclosure, and
was from the DEC workstation group like most or all of the other XP
products. Most of the XP boxes and designs originally targeted
Windows, but some specific models became supported by OpenVMS or Tru64
UNIX. This is part of why the control buttons tended to be a little
odd with the XP1000 and other systems; they were intended for Windows
configurations. Most of these XP boxes could then select the button
behavior from an internal jumper or such, but the default button
behaviors for the systems intended for Microsoft Windows often weren't
those that OpenVMS folks might have expected.
XP1000 does boot and is supported with OpenVMS Alpha up through V8.4
and almost certainly boots with the VSI releases, but the SRM firmware
for that particular box is very old and specific OpenVMS patches are
required to boot OpenVMS Alpha, or the box will prompt for the time at
boot. It's a decently-expandable tower system with both internal and
front-accessible storage bay, and it's very quiet. It doesn't support
any of the server-era removable storage bricks. Internal expansion is
rather larger than what's possible with DS10-class boxes, though I'd
probably look for an external BA356-class StorageWorks box as those
make swapping storage much easier than rummaging around inside the
XP1000 enclosure. Rummaging inside an XP1000 is about the same cabling
mess for any storage-related changes or upgrades as other similar-era
tower systems, though the PCI-X slots in that box are really easy to
get to.
As per usual, make sure all of the I/O hardware is supported, and
particularly the graphics controller.
If you can scrounge one, the Radeon 7500 PCI graphics board can be
gotten to work with OpenVMS Alpha across most any EV6 Alpha system I've
encountered, and is decently fast. Avoid the ELSA GLoria Synergy
board, as that works and is supported by OpenVMS, but it's very slow.
The QuickSpecs or the DIGITAL Systems and Options Catalog (SOC) pages
for DS10 and XP1000 should still be around the net. Somewhere.
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