Well they are not what we are used to calling computers. When someone says computer or PC what they mean is IBM PC Compatible. Now I'm not talking about something like AMD or Cyrix, I'm talking about the difference between Intel and Mac or Acorn or Amiga.
The DEC Multia is a workstation based on hardware know as Alpha AXP. Just as Intel, AMD processors are known as Ia32 Compatible (Intel Ach. 32bit) or these days Pentium compatible. This Intel advertising is so well done that the other day I saw someone describe a computer as "Early Pentium probably 486", but back to the Multia.
The Multia has a 166MHz Processor, now you would think this would be quite fast, but as the Alpha processor is a RISC type processor you need to have a few more processor cycles to get the same performance, but RISC CPUs can be run faster so it gives better performance per
instruction. You need about twice as many instructions to do something, so a 166MHz Alpha is about the same as a Pentium 90MHz to 120MHz.
Now the Multia was designed as a Multimedia computer (hence the name), but it's also 64Bit so uses more memory per instruction, but it can transfer more information per instruction
(Twice as much as an Intel computer). So what does this mean. Well the multia design, at the time, was about the best for multimedia, but when you look at today's computers it was not very good for multimedia. The Multia had a motherboard with built on XGA (Like SVGA
only only it can not do more than 256 colours, it could do 640x480 up to 1280x1024, so I don't complain), built in Sound (Microsoft Sound System), IDE (for Laptop hard drives) and SCSI for either internal mini (2.5") drives or internal full size or external
devices. Most Multias don't come with the external port, but mine did so I was lucky. It takes up to either 256Mb or 128, I forget which. So all in all this computer is a very well setup computer. Oh yes did I forget to mention it has a built in Network card with the three
main sort of connectors on, and it has 2 type 2 PCMCIA (Now know as PCcard). Yep those things you find on Laptops. I've not had a chance to see how well these work with Linux, but I will...
So what can you do with 'em?
Well first off you need to think what you want to run on it. You could run the special version of windows NT (v4 or bellow), or different version of digital unix or Linux. It does not matter what you run on it after that as you can find
software to do the same things on both. Now I've only ever run Linux on mine so That's what I'm going to talk about.
Now Linux Likes Ram. Linux is not designed to do things like Windows '9x, I'm not saying it can't, because it can, it just likes more memory. So I run with 32MB ram, I need more than that if I want to run a GUI like the X window system (Or X windows to those that don't now). I believe that windows NT likes far more than that on the Multia. I would not like to run it with less than about 96MB in X, that way it can load the things it needs into ram and leave them there as Laptop drives are VERY slow. Now if you use the internal SCSI full size hard
drive you lose the PCI slot (I forgot to say before that it had one of those), but the SCSI drives are almost fast enough. I'm getting some in the external boxes to run everything faster.
I run my Multia for X10 (Home control), Internet things (Like the gateway for the internal network [You just talk to your Lan as if it were the internet, and the Multia dials out connects to the net and you don't even notice], Mail [While the Multia is connected it grabs mail for people here, so they don't have
to use Internet time getting it, they just talk to the Multia], NFS server [Just holds files]), and while it's not doing anything it runs Seti@Home units.
So why a Multia and not an old 486? They're different they have SCSI and they are small. Everything all in one box, that you may need
Ian Wilkinson.
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