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Technology

Free Multias (Pay Shipping Only) 132

Posted by CmdrTaco from the for-shits-and-giggles dept.
Richard Fifarek noticed an odd little note on the Linux Store's website. Apparently they are giving away Free Multias. Just pay shipping ($30) for a free Multia. link is giving away Multias. My multia ran Slashdot for the first few million pages. Nice little machines. Very cute. Ran Linux quite nicely.The folks over there said that you guys have managed to crash their e-mail/web AND phone system. So-let 'em catch up. A phone system. Heh.
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Free Multias (Pay Shipping Only) More

Free Multias (Pay Shipping Only)

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  • yeah, heeh lol, sorry, I forgot to mention that :) It is a nice piece of information to have ;) Thanks :)
  • Just found this article (Sunday) and I am wondering about what exactly premium price equates in US$s? I need to purtchess a cheap system for someone and I think I have an EIDE or similar HD so the sticking point is the ram.
  • Network - AUI, 10bT, 10b2. Pick one. :)

    Is it possible to use both simtaneously?
  • I just looked into internal IDE 2.5" HD's at Dirt Cheap Drives. $150 seems like an awful lot for only 4 gigs.

    I figure I could get one of these puppies to boot over my home network with a floppy drive and a few megs of parity memory (~$37 for 16MB). Correct me if I'm wrong, but I would assume these devices use regular floppy drives.

    There seems to be some interesting info here:
    http://www.multimania.com/multia/
    According to google there once was information on digital's website, but it would appear that digital has finally become one with that evil, unsupportive hardware empire, aka Compaq.

    Compaq can make monitors (and that's about it :-)
  • And is that AOL on the screen?
    Stan "Myconid" Brinkerhoff
  • uhh, no on both accounts...

    A Dell Latitude, and it is E... I run Linux fools :)
  • If I didn't have central heating I'd consider one of these things. :)

    - A.P.
    --


    "One World, One Web, One Program" - Microsoft Promotional Ad

  • No more than you can use both the 10bT and 10b2 ports on a cheap nic.

    But it does have two pcmcia slots, and you can put a cheap pcmcia nic in one
  • While these boxes are dirt slow, they are great platforms for testing the portability of your code. Since they are both big-endian and 64bit all the size and byte order problems are covered.

    And it's damn cool to tell people that you own an Alpha.

    (btw, for those of you getting one, external SCSI is the only way to go, $50-100 for a drive and $30 for an enclosure.. and no heat problems).
  • Ok, in theory, the AS200 is a better machine, but I wrestled with one of those goddamn things for two weeks, on behalf of a coworker, who picked it up cheap on EBay. I couldn't get it to do anything. There's some kind of weird thing where the 200's have 1/2 the ROM as most alphas, so they can only run one version of the firmware (which is usually the SRM console), thus making them a royal bitch to set up if they're OS-less.

    Granted, I might just be an idiot. This was my only experience with alphas, so it was a whole new world for me. But I was trying to get Linux to run on it, and that I'm familiar with. I did read a lot of similar experiences on Usenet around that time, though (there was a whole crop of these things cheap on ebay), so I'm inclined to think maybe they are just a bitch to set up.

    I did hear later that the guy got Digital Unix to run on it. He had a brother-in-law that worked for DEC, or something. No way could many of us afford a licensed copy of DEC Unix. :-)
    ----------------------
    "This moon-cheese will make me very rich! Very rich indeed!

  • Nope they just dont come with anything:

    "We are giving away the rest of our Multias! These are 166Mhz Alpha Barebones systems, no RAM, Harddrives, Floppies, or OS, but they are yours for $29.50 shipping! Call us at 1-800-217-9035 ext. 1039. "
  • Okay. So no hard drives, RAM, etc., that's understandable. But since I know squat about Alphas, a few questions:

    What kinds of RAM/HD do they tolerate? Can I stick an IDE drive and some EDO RAM in, or do I need to buy funky Alpha-based hardware?

    Can anyone think of a good reason not to buy one?

    I have a feeling that, if I want one, I'd better hurry, as /. readers are going to have them all bought up rather quickly.

    Thanks.
  • Multias are really slow by today's standards, and require some pretty expensive add-on hardware to function properly. You're probably better off buying a second hand Pentium and putting Linux on it. The only attraction would be the nice case - oh, and of course "Alpha" bragging rights :)

  • Re:Multia Questions (Score:5)

    by etax ( 7124 ) on Sunday August 01, 1999 @05:38PM (#1771506)
    I bought one of these a few months back...

    For memory, you will need true parity, this is more expensive, but definately obtainable.

    A disk is a bit trickier. Multia's can take internal IDE or SCSI2 lap-top disks without any problem. There does seem to be enough room to fit a regular 3.5 inch disk inside, and you can rig the external scsi2 cable to go internal instead, but I wasn't able to draw sufficient power from the internal lap-top ide connector to power a 3.5 inch scsi disk, thus you're better off going with an external scsi2 if you don't want to get a lap-top disk.

    Also make sure it has, or you can get, a floppy. Getting it to boot without one is very difficult.

    Otherwise, these make nice machines, don't expect anything in the way of speed, but they serve well as rock solid light servers.

    Good luck.
  • They use half height floppy drives, just like a laptop uses. I tried to get a newer 4gig SCSI-2 HD to work in my multia, but it wouldn't boot. I think it had something to do with the power supply. Anyway, my multia runs with an older 1 gig SCSI drive. Luckily when I recieved my multia CPU micromart forgot to strip it. Inside was 24mb of ram and a 340mb HD. It booted up to NT 3.51, which I promptly replaced with RH 5.2.
  • I ordered mine on 6/23 and it was shipped on 7/6. It didn't come from Seattle, but from Cluster NJ. Took quite awhile to recieve.
  • First, a lot of these boxes have very tired cmos batteries. They won't boot if the battery voltage is too low. They use a standard 4.5 volt battery, and in my case i ended up taping together three AAA batteries.

    Second, these do indeed run hot. I had one running at about head-level on top of some other equipment. The experience was not unlike blowdrying my hair. But there are some things you can do to improve the situation.

    Most importantly, run these in vertical configuration, processor end up. This is the side with more holes drilled in the casing. These all came from the factory with a metal bracket to hold them upright, but some are now missing them. Mine is missing that bracket.

    Also, you may notice there's two wires leading out from the fan clipped to the side of the power supply with a little dark thing about the size of a match head attached. This is a temperature sensor, and in many cases these are no longer effective. If you clip those wires, the fan will spin at it's top speed instead of relying on a temperature reading from the sensor. This, in addition to running the system in the vertical position, often overcomes overheating problems.

    You can put just about any PCI video card that will fit in these, if you have the right riser card for the job. But the xfree86 ports to linux/alpha don't support nearly as many cards as the intel version. The Matrox mil2 is very popular in these. I have a #9 motion 771 in mine. s3 vision 968. It barely fits.

    If you want a little more oomph in an alpha, computersurplusoutlet.com in vegas is selling 266mhz alpha-pci motherboards for $150, including the processor. These, like the multia, are a 21064 processor, and none too fast, but they are a bit snappier. They need +3.3v supplied from the power supply in addition to the usual voltages - it would be possible to modify a cheap ATX power supply to supply the regular AT voltages and the additional 3.3v, and thus avoid buying the hugely expensive power supply ComputerSurplusOutlet tries to pawn off with it.

    standard disclaimers apply, I don't work for anyone, blah blah blah. (well, i have a job, but, you know.)
  • I've ordered several times from X10 recently (camera, firecracker, wireless video, etc.), and all orders have arrived almost immediately. You just weren't lucky.

  • First of all, I remember the big deal with all of the Multias a while ago (januaryish?) and apparenty some people got them to work and others turned them into paperweights. I noticed that they were selling tech support for $25 an hour...which is cheap as tech support goes, but you will probably need it.

    Anyway, here is the thing that really bugs me. The Linux Store is selling linux boxes as its main product apparently. Makes me wonder why I get this:


    [~]>telnet www.thelinuxstore.com 80
    Trying 216.160.206.18...
    Connected to www.thelinuxstore.com.
    Escape character is '^]'.
    HEAD / HTTP/1.0

    HTTP/1.1 200 OK
    Server: Microsoft-IIS/4.0
    Content-Location: http://216.160.206.18/index.htm
    Date: Mon, 02 Aug 1999 04:39:22 GMT
    Content-Type: text/html
    Accept-Ranges: bytes
    Last-Modified: Sat, 05 Jun 1999 23:39:08 GMT
    ETag: "076d79aacafbe1:51c2"
    Content-Length: 1476


    Hmm...I would be skeptical about their commitment to be honest. As a business, I wouldn't buy from someone who didn't run the product they sell, makes me question the quality of the product. Like when Microsoft didn't upgrade to IIS 3.0 on www.microsoft.com until 6 months after it came out.

  • I recently obtained a 233 MHz Multia in exchange for some work I did on the side -- it's a nice machine, and has provided me with some valuable experience with installing Linux on a non-x86 platform.

    It is a bit slow compared to my main box, but it's been quite a bit of fun getting it running.

    I first installed RH 6.0 on it, and most recently I installed Debian 2.1 just for kicks. My main problem has been getting X to work properly.

  • Is this the same company that was giving away Multias as a door prize at LinuxExpo in Raleigh this year? A friend of mine was contacted a few days after the Expo with a very nice note saying that he had won one, and if he provided a shipping address, it would be arriving on his doorstep shortly.

    Unfortunately, it never arrived and he has been too busy to track things down with the company... If it is the came company, I hope that if you pay the shipping you really will get the machine.

  • Heh... Damn it people, stop giving away the info on the Alphas at CSO... I live 4 miles from them, but damned if I can ever manage to save up enough cash for the setup. I'll have to remember the tip on modifying an ATX PS...

    I also have my heart set on a rackmount quad PPro... -Sigh-
  • Yes, it is. Mine arrived, broken, over two months after I won it -- two of the pins connecting the power supply to the motherboard were slightly bent. I think I fixed this, but the CMOS battery seems to be dead (Which isn't their fault -- that's common for Multias) and I don't have any true parity RAM.
    I've never bought anything from The Linux Store, but I'd imagine prizes usually take a long time to ship, seeing as they're not making any money to cover the shipping costs. I'd give them the benefit of the doubt.

    SA
  • Man, some people just can't be pleased.

    $30 bucks is about average for a CPU. Since it's an alpha, it's probably fairly well built, so it's probably fairly heavy for it's size. Considering that the case alone would cost at least $20 new, $30 for the case, CPU & MB ain't bad.

  • I think the ComputerSurplus MBs are 275MHz (at least, they were when I bought one about a year ago).

    When it arrived, I tried to get it working and failed; it then sat in its box for three months, until I worked up the energy to try again. After reseating the SIMMs and cache chips, it came up fine, and I've been using it as an X terminal since then.

    It's been rock solid (it fell over one time about three months ago, but I'm pretty certain that was a kernel problem), but it's not particularly fast (about equivalent to my K6-200). It helps if you put in decent SCSI and video cards. I've got an 8MB Matrox Mill2 and an Adaptec 2940UW with a 7200rpm UW-SCSI drive, and it's fairly snappy. Wouldn't mind buying another one if there wasn't the problem with the non-standard power supply (I'm too lazy to knock my own together from an ATX supply).
  • No, they aren't laptops, and they don't come with a monitor, keyboard, or anything else. It's a pizza box with an old, slow 166 MHz Alpha 21066 processor (think Pentium 100 class). But you have to add memory, disk drives, and whatever else you want.

    The motherboard does have VGA video out, PS2 keyboard and mouse in, one parallel port, two serial ports, and two PCMCIA slots. There's an IDE connector for a 2.5 inch IDE drive. There's (barely) room for the 2.5 inch hard drive and a laptop (slim) floppy drive. Some models can accept a 3.5 inch hard drive, but then you lose the potential for PCI expansion. There is *no* room inside for an internal CD-ROM or any other drives. Also, the power supply isn't designed to power more disk drives. Don't even think about putting a 7200 RPM or 10000 RPM drive inside.

    If you're lucky, the machine *might* come with a riser card that has a SCSI interface and a slot for a single PCI card.

    If you're *really* lucky, the riser might even have an external SCSI cable.

    Executive Summary:
    This is a good deal if you're familiar with Multias and don't mind scrounging the other needed pieces. But if you think it's a complete computer, forget it. Also, if you think it's some screaming fast Alpha, guess again.

    Eric (owner of two 233 MHz VX42 Multias)

  • They're running NT because the site is built in ColdFusion. I've talked to them before, and they have every intention of switching as soon as the Linux ColdFusion port is available (beta in a few weeks, release by the end of the year)

  • Re:Going the cheap route... (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    well, they already can boot over the network (this thing is a PC with workstation features). you can have it use bootp to get it's IP address, then TFTP the kernel. if the kernel has root-NFS stuff enabled then yes, it can boot the rest of the way off of that. that's the majority of what i did to do the over-the-network installation...
  • I forgot to mention a few things.

    The Multia also has built-in 10 Mbps Ethernet, with 10-base-T (twisted pair), 10-base-2 (thin coax), and AUI connectors.

    Some Multia owners have experience reliability problems which can be solved by replacing a chip and/or the fan. Details are in the Net/BSD alpha Multia Frequently Asked Questions [netbsd.org].

    Since I used to use my Multias pretty heavily as web/mail/etc. servers, I collected a bunch of info about them here [brouhaha.com], including the service manual in PDF form.

    Oh yeah, and if you don't think that $30 is a good deal for one of these, bear in mind that I paid an average of $1250 for mine. :-)

  • $30 or so for a 16M 4x36 SIMM (you must use pairs), so $60 for 32 megabytes, which is the absolute minimum amount I'd consider sticking into a Multia to use as a thin client. I'd recommend 64 megs or greater to use the Multia for actual work, as Alphas tend to suck more memory.

    The Multia has four SIMM slots, so keep that in mind when sizing your SIMMs.
  • I'm going to be getting an AMD486DX3/100 back from a loan in a few days. I've got 24MB of RAM ( I don't expect to be able to use any of it in an Alpha :( ) and a Quantum 2.5GB 3.5" EIDE drive in it. I've also got a standard desktop 3.5" floppy drive lying around.

    FWIW, that RAM consists of one 16MB 72pin SIMM, with 8 1MB 30pin SIMMs. I don't know about parity on any of them.

    I'm planning to put FreeBSD on this thing and use it to power my own domain with services off my DSL line.

    Would it be feasable to grab one of these things instead?

    Could someone who knows these systems please tell me everything I would need to make a headless server box. I have a spare screen/keyboard lying around for the setup.

    Also, how well does FreeBSD currently run on these things? It's been too long since i've used it.

    Oh, and just to piss people off : FIRST POST!
    By that I mean this is my first post to slashdot, up until now i've just been a lurker. :)

    Totally off-topic, but why do I have to add [BR]s to my sig to get it to show right in Plain Old Text preview?

    "Binaries may die but source code lives forever"
    -- Unknown

    SkyHawk
    Andrew Fremantle
  • Mmm, you're right, I overlooked that.

    However, the 21066 is merely the "low cost" version of the 21064, and the two chips aren't signifigantly different.

    the other poster was also right about the 275mhz thing at CSO. what can i say, i've had a cold all weekend.

  • They had a noted earlier this year that the only reason they were hosted on NT servers is because the Shopping Cart software used only ran on NT. They then claimed that a port to Linux was in the process and they should be on Linux soon. So much for soon.

  • The NetBSD folks have put together a FAQ [netbsd.org] about the Multia, which includes information on a part that needs to be replaced to help avoid heat death.

    Note that this is a fairly slow machine, mostly due to the very slow memory controller in it; DRAM access is about one half to one third the speed of a Pentium at the same clock speed.

    In terms of disk and stuff like that, if you get one just to play with cheaply, you can just net boot it (at least under NetBSD [netbsd.org]).

    cjs

  • ...why I live in Brazil and not in the US?

    (Sending a Multia like this down the Ecuator would be... ahn... something like $100 or more!)

  • when i turn on my multia (bought it new, when it was new... oh well, i've done dumber things.) i get an error message in the SRM that says that the arc cant be loaded, any ideas on what to do?

    snagey@usa.net
  • Indeed-- I am a PC person, and the whole firmware thing was a new one on me. The problem seemed to be it was really easy to install linux from ARC, but really hard from SRM. And it was hard to change from SRM to ARC without an OS already installed. I know there was some way to do it, but man, I tried everything. Read the newsgroups, searched everywhere. I got about a dozen different procedures and tried all of them and no dice.

    So the overall upshot seems to be, yes, I am an idiot. But at least I'm an idiot in a totally un-unique way. :-)
    ----------------------
    "This moon-cheese will make me very rich! Very rich indeed!

  • I have several multias running in my home & on various networks.. they're great little boxes for the price.. you can throw a small ide drive inside, but might as well go scsi.. scsi-2 ports built-in.. the ram is true parity 70ns ram.. i'm not sure.. maybe from alphalinux.org .. but you can get a pdf of the multia hardware-spec that's easy to read and answers all the specifics.
  • Give them a break, people.

    Until recently, affordable yet quality e-commerce and web application scripting environments for Unix (esp. Linux) were in scarce supply. There have always been high-end tools for large Digital Unix/Irix/Solaris sites (like Sapphire/Web) but nothing really stood out for the average *nix developer like the NT world has with ASP/CF. PHP until recently has not been perceived as being as robust, solid and scaleable as, for example, Cold Fusion, although I believe PHP4 will definitely be up to par.

    Anyway, my point is that even a year ago it was really difficult and expensive for the average joe to do database-driven web sites under Unix, and the choices for Linux were even fewer. I know, I've been there, and had to search all over hell's half acre just to find a professional shopping cart system for Linux (a year ago). That is all changing now, thankfully, and I would expect that Linux will become the more robust platform for web development in rather short order.

    Please, spare me the comments about mod_perl, CGI shopping carts and the like. I am talking about professional, integrated application servers for high-traffic sites, not add-on scripting languages.

    So, I can understand why they might have felt the best choice at the time was CF/NT. Give them a break, wait until CF/Linux ships, and see if they switch then.
  • true partiy ram, about $90 for 64mb or so, which is what i paid about a year ago when i got mine from onsale. you will want at least 64mb of ram to really do anything with this box, it needs it.

    as for hard drives, you must use scsi or a 2.5 inch laptop ide drive. a regular 3.5 ide will not work since the ide connector on the multia is made for laptops, it has 44 pins, not 40. the 4 extra pins supply power. there is no regular ide type power supply thingy to plug a regular drive into as well. and you do need to update the firmware to get it to notice the ide drive.

    and as other people have said, get a floppy drive, you will need it. they are pretty nice, cute little boxes.
  • If the guys would up my rating you may have been more likely to read my UDB information page that I posted...

    Linux (and apparently fBSD) will not install w/o the default configuration of 24mb of ram. It will just fail on your MILO boot. I use 32mb of ram, and I know that works for sure. I know someone that had purchased a Multia new way back and it has the default 24mb and his installs as well.
  • Try 'uname -a'... if that doesn't work, try uname and play around with the params.

    --bdj

  • I wouldn't buy from someone who didn't run the product they sell, makes me question the quality of the product.

    Indeed. In fact, they don't seem to have even looked at their own site from a Unix box. That's why it's full of font tags setting the face to Arial. On my Netscape, that renders as Courier, because unsurprisingly, Arial (being a Micros~1 font) isn't available. What they should be doing is specifying alternative fonts like Helvetica and a generic font family (in this case, "sans-serif").

  • I've been trying to call them now for several minutes, and no one answers the phone. I guess they are slashdotted. This is only second-hand information, but a friend of mine who tried to order them earlier this morning reported that their sales crew didn't know what he was talking about when he wanted to order the multias.

    I'm not much to spend money on geek toys, but I've got a 2gig 2.5" IDE drive sitting around doing nothing, so I figure it's not that much money that I'd have to spend. If only I could successfully call them on the phone...
  • This may be a first, I think their phones have been Slashdotted. Busy signals, no answers, a voicemail system that will take no more calls...
    I feel for the receptionist right now..


  • Are those minature toasters next to your dell?
    I know their speakers but they look alot like little toasters.
    =^)

    -w/k

  • For what it's worth, here is a picture [alloy.net] of my UDB multia. I stuffed this puppy with a 4gig Seagate SCSI drive (ignore the 2gig Quantum shown), 96mb of parity RAM (maxed), and a self-wired external SCSI connector.

    The system does run pretty hot (makes a very nice hand warmer in the winter). It's about the equivalent speed of a Pentium 90/100. It's currently running Red Hat 5.2 and is being used as an NFS server for mounting home dirs on the LAN, but I'm going to convert it to a dedicated web/database intranet server. Ocassionally I run rc5 and seti on it, although it's a dog of course. :)

    Has anyone gotten the PCMCIA slots to work? It would be useful if I could put in a 10/100Mbit PCMCIA ethernet card. If you have, what's your experience with performance/problems?

  • yeah, queso

    Oh wait that's for finding out what someone ELSE is running :)
  • it definately has srm and arc, well it used to have an arc at least....if i were able to find like a bios update for the srm and the arc do you think that that would do it?
  • after business hours :-(

    I just got an answering machine
  • If you really want a Multia do a search on EBay. You can find some full systems for fairly cheap--it'll save you a lot of headache in the long run [rather than finding all the missing parts].

  • Multia . . ick (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I was thinking about getting a Multia just for Alpha bragging rights, but I checked out the NetBSD page and it mentions a few times on how the Multias aren't really reliable, run really hot, and in general aren't a good deal. Adding the correct memory would probably be much more expensive than it's worth too.

  • Multia answers (Score:5)

    by Rick_T ( 3816 ) on Sunday August 01, 1999 @05:46PM (#1771569) Homepage
    I'm typing this from a Multia, so I suppose I know enough about them to get them running. You'll need:

    * True parity SIMMs (in pairs). In other words, not EDO. These SIMMs come at a premium price today, though you can usually pick up some on Ebay cheaply.

    * Floppy drive - this is (I think) a standard laptop floppy. You'll likely want to have one available for the install.

    * Hard drive. My Multia uses an internal 3.5" SCSI drive. They can use 2.5" SCSI drives or 2.5" IDE drives as well, though I've heard you have to update the firmware to get the IDE working.

    * Keyboard/mouse - Normal PS/2 stuff.

    * Video - 256 colors, pretty much any res/refresh rate you want Normal VGA connector.

    * Network - AUI, 10bT, 10b2. Pick one. :)

    * Serial - semi-standard. You should be able to hook a modem up with a normal 25-pin cable. There's a funky cable available that can split up the port into two ports.

    * Parallel - standard.

    What you can put inside depends on what riser card you get. One allows for an internal 3.5" drive. The other allows only a 2.5" drive, but also provides on PCI slot.
  • I have a nice little UDB sitting next to me. You can see a picture of it here [dydns.org] and I also have some information on my experience w/installing RH 5.2 on it here [dyndns.org]
    They are a great machine and cheap. Get one just to say "I have an Alpha" :)
  • I paid $300 for a Multia about 2 years ago. Here are my observations:

    1) Not a great desktop machine. The last time I checked, there wasn't a version of Netscape (or any other quality browser) that runs on Linux Alpha.

    2) Runs slow, and pretty hot.


    Would I do it again? YES! (In fact, I will if I can get through tomorrow with all the other Slash'ers no doubt calling in.) The machine does run Linux quite nicely, and it has made a WONDERFUL gateway for my DSL modem. It's been 100% reliable. (I think they would also make a pretty nice little X client ... If I can get one tomorrow, it's going next to my bed.)

    They're in a great little form factor, and you should see the jaws on the techies drop when I tell them that I'm running my home's firewall on an Alpha box.

    HOW SWEET IT IS!

    D
  • that pic link is umm here [dyndns.org]

  • Going the cheap route... (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I bought one of these for ~$70.00 a while ago with no floppy. It _is_ possible to install Linux on this machine without using a floppy disk or even pre-loading anything onto the HD you are going to use! I installed RH5.2 on it completely over the network. It isn't all that difficult, but if you want instructions send me an e-mail...

    Dan Moore
    pergamon@68k.org
  • You could always do something constructive with procmail though.. either bounce it straight back or stick an EXITCODE in or something :)
    ~Tim
    --
  • I mentioned this last time Multia's showed up on Slashdot, and figured it was worth mentioning again. I have a couple of them. At $30 bare, they're not necessarily a good deal. They take true-parity RAM. Its not that easy to find, most parity RAM today is not true-parity. Trust me, they won't work without it. I've tried.

    Obviously you can't do much without the floppy drive. Figure $30 to get one from a place like Starship Computers. Most Multia's I've seen recently being sold do not have an external SCSI port, so you'll have to figure out a way to jam a harddrive in the case. Don't put anything too expensive, Multia's are space heaters, it won't last very long. You might be able to put a IDE notebook drive, but you'll need to find a cable that works with the smaller IDE connector.

    Have I mentioned that they're SLOW? A 166 mhz Multia is a LOT slower than a 166 Pentium. *MUCH* slower. Can't say that too many times. *MUCH* *MUCH* slower. Most of the 166's were not socketed, so you can't even upgrade them to the older 233 processor (which again some places like Starship Computers sometimes are selling on onsale.com)

    They're interesting to have to be able to play with an Alpha, and you'll have the honor of telling people you've got the slowest Alpha on the block! FIgure on spending another $300 or so to get anything useful out of it, and useful is a relative term. I run secondary DNS and DHCP on one. I ran a print server for a while using Ghostscript, but it took the poor guy five minutes to rasterize a page.
  • I have the box from my alpha sitting around, and it is HUGE! The physical dimensions are pretty big (4x bigger than the multia) and that little bugger is in a all steel case (with a plastic mount) that seriously contributes to the weight.
  • I figured I should mention, that MOST of the surplus Multia's I've seen in the last six months or so DO NOT have the external SCSI port. Most of the ones DEC made didn't have them.

  • The sound hardware in the Multia is *noisy*. And its just barely fast enough for MP3 playback.

    Don't waste the money on one of these for that. You can buy a new Pentium barebones system that'll work better, and run cooler and more reliably for less money. Even if you get no drive, you should figure on spending $100 more on RAM and a floppy drive for one of these.
  • Just like not all multia's have the extrenal SCSI port, not all Multia's have the full meg of flash RAM, and as such only have SRM or ARC, not both. You're pretty much hosed in that case. Some DEC systems can boot Linux from SRM, but I never got it working on my Multia's. Both AlphaStations I've got DO boot from SRM though.

    You might want to check if you actually even have ARC, and if not, you may be able to flash the linux kernel into the flashram if its small enough. I've heard of it happening, but YMMV and you could probably turn it into a doorstop if it doesn't work.
  • Yeah miniture toasters ;-) I like toast.
  • Try
    uname -a

    e.g.
    $ uname -a
    Linux bc00778.guardian.co.uk 2.2.5-15 #1 Mon Apr 19 23:00:46 EDT 1999 i686 unknown

    or

    $ uname -a
    SunOS kenobi 5.6 Generic_105181-13 sun4u sparc SUNW,Ultra-4
    --
  • I don't usually respond to off-topic posts but I wanted to throw my comments in on this one. I got my X10 stuff within two weeks. Sorry to hear that I'm the exception rather than the rule...

    I also started getting more SPAM emails from them than I ever imagined possible. I think they send out nearly two messages a day. HEY X10, NOT A GREAT WAY TO MAKE FRIENDS! Of course I'll opt-out when I'm on the net and actually remember, but in the mean time, it sucks.

    -Derek
  • It could be true that they are doing external hosting, however when chosing an external host it is very easy to specify your platform. I mean its not hard to find a PHP enabled provider (coughMINDSPRINGcough) that doesn't rape you that bad. I still don't comprehend why some people will rely on a box that needs to be rebooted weekly for mission critical stuff.
  • www.thelinuxstore.com runs on NT.. I just thought this was interesting.

    Check for yourself: http://www.netcraft.com/w hats/?host=www.thelinuxstore.com [netcraft.com]


    ----------------------------------------------
    bash# lynx http://www.slashdot.org >>/dev/geek
    Matt on IRC, Nick: Tuttle
  • Hey All,

    Just wanted to let everyone know...Due to a weekend posting on slashdot about our Multia Giveaway, our phone system has be ./'ed ! Please bear with us as we attempt to catch up on the backlog of calls and emails. We are setting up a web based order page for the Multia's at www.thelinuxstore.com [thelinuxstore.com].

    Due to the overwhelming response, we may need to limit orders to 1 Multia per order.

    Thanks for all your interest and support. Don't forget to stop by our booth at linux world expo and see our new PIA unveiled !!

    Steve Hindle
    Director of Linux Product Development/CTO
    The Linux Store
    www.thelinuxstore.com
    Stephen Hindle
    Director of Linux Product Development/CTO
  • Maybe so. I finally got through and was quickly asked "how many and with what upgrades". I politely inquired about the upgrades and then said that I did not need any. The rep then said that all they had left were one's with upgrades. They wanted $96 for 32 mb of ram and $85 for the 2.5" laptop drive adapter.
    Bummer, I really wanted one to fool arround with.
  • Get real. Bad programming is bad programming. I've had "politically correct" perl scripts running on Apache servers do the same damn thing. Just because they are running Unix doesn't mean they don't have glitches like the rest of the freaking world.
  • They could use PHP. But look at it from a business viewpoint:

    Stay with Coldfusion: $0
    Switch to PHP: $x thousand dollars

    It only makes sense if they really think that the amount of sales they're losing is more than $x, and honestly I really doubt it. Only a real zealot is going to care what they're running on.
  • i have one of these at home. yes, it does run a bit hot, but thats fine. have had no problems with redhat other than the documented bug with the installation. aside form that, every time i log on to my pentium i have it bring up a remote X session to it, just need to change the wm thats running on it now. have yet to figure out how much video ram the thing has though.
  • Actually, at the bottom of those x10 spams are a quick link that you click on sending you to their "unsubscribe" page. Don't even have to confirm it.

    I live only 300 miles from Seattle, ordered my firecracker last Friday. Have yet to see it. Normally stuff from Seattle gets here in 3 or 4 days, not more than a week.

    -nicole
  • So I am not the only one. . .that is good to hear. Good luck!

  • A better deal.. (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    If you can find them, the AlphaStation 200's are a much better deal and are of higher quality.
    The AS200's come in 100, 166, 233, and 266Mhz variations. All are 21064 or 21064A-based.
    One upside is that the AlphaStations are officially supported by OpenVMS, while the Multias are not (originally meant as NT boxes only).

  • Multia _NOT_ ick.. (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I work at an ISP where we use multias running NT (blah -- what a waste..but anyway) for both name servers, two internal proxy servers, a VPN server, i think one other random thing..
    In any case, these machines are ROCK SOLID. One of our name servers had been up for more than a year recently when we had to unplug it to physically move it..I can't recall one of them ever going down unless we (A) took it down on purpose (B) bumped the external SCSI cables (they don't like that) or (C) tried to do more than one thing at a time under NT.
    They do run hot, but in an HVAC environment this is not problem -- we have 5 or 6 standing up side-by-side on a single 19" shelf and they stay cool enough to run fine. I've seen them run fine in normal room-temperature environments too -- just be careful not to burn your feet if you put it under the desk. ;)

    I will note, however, that I was unsuccessful getting RedHat 5.x or NetBSD to work on my personal Multia..RedHat had random core dumps and BSD crashed every few days..might have been I got bum hardware, though. I did have some luck installing a recent rev of DEC Unix (new enough to say Compaq in places, but not Tru64)..but then never left it up long enough to say for certain it was stable.

    Speed-wise, it wasn't anything impressive. I'd say unless you can get your hands on some 'Tru64' (ugh, if ever needed marketing be shot..) to run on it, they're probably not worth the hassle.
  • Call X10 directly and nag them! It took a month for them to send me mine. The Sales Associate will be very nice to you, I think the problem is with the ordering system to Shipping system but that's just a guess.
  • Have I mentioned that they're SLOW? A 166 mhz Multia is a LOT slower than a 166 Pentium. *MUCH* slower. Can't say that too many times. *MUCH* *MUCH* slower

    Nope. Infact, the chip in the 166mhz multia is a bit better at floating-point than a 166mhz Pentium. On the other hand, I agree it is much slower in practice, using GCC and Linux. This is largely due to the lack of good Alpha-specific optimizations in GCC.

    This is one of the main reasons I went back to doing my unix computing on an i586-linux box. The other being the inconvience of the Multia's small case, requirement for parity ram, etc.

  • so it won't recognize a ide hd without a firmware update, but will it recognize a cdrom? mostly to make the linux install easier (I hate FTP installs!) And to make it clear, I'm not talking about physical connectors and stuff, that can all be done pretty easily since I have seen 44pin laptop ide to standard 40pin ide+power, if I ignore the power I can just power it externally, but will anything recognize the cdrom in a usable state?

    matguy
    Net. Admin.
  • I was told that he could pull some parts out and stick 'em in another machine if I really wanted a barebones one.
  • I have sent two emails to the email address listed on their webpage and received no response back. I guess that's the nice way of saying you won't be receiving one.
  • Cheapest on ebay is $71 for a non-working Multia. Then $105 for a no HD model with 32MB of ram. Multia on Ebay [ebay.com]
  • Try
    http://www.x10.com/removeme.cgi?emai l@host.com [x10.com]
    (replace email@host.com with the email address the spam is coming to, duh)

    to get removed from the x10 spam. :o)
  • I'd rather get a NLX case/MB and use standard PC hardware. I don't like the idea of scrounging for obscure (and likely expensive) hardware to get a free box working. Of course, anything free is cool, so I may have to get one anyway...

    BTW- I've read that older Mac hard drives work well in the Multias...

    --Lenny
  • (For those of you playing along at home, the Multia is the box under the TV, not the laptop. Sorry, kids!) ;^)
    --
  • This one is still pretty cheap, and it's got everything you need except an HD. http://cgi.ebay.co m/aw-cgi/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=137722173 [ebay.com]

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