Digital AlphaStation 200
The AlphaStation 200 comes in a low-profile desktop case using an Alpha EV4 CPU at either 100MHz, 166MHz or 233MHz. It has one external 3.5" drive bay, one 5.25" drive bay, and two internal 3.5" bays for fixed disk drives.
Its launch in November 1994 introduced the new AlphaStation product line
replacing earlier DEC 2000 (aka DECpc AXP 150) and DEC 3000 product lines.
Except for the DEC 2000/DECpc AXP 150 (which used EISA), all previous
Alpha workstations (as well as the VAXstation 4000 and MIPS DECstations)
used the TURBOchannel bus making the AlphaStation 200 the first to
support PCI, and the second to support ISA. Unlike the DECpc AXP 150
it does not support EISA. The AlphaStation 200 also uses standard
PC-style 72pin true parity (Nx36) 70ns memory SIMMs. It launched
with a choice of 166MHz or 233MHz CPUs, with a 100MHz option added
in March 1995.
Network Interface
The riser board contains the DECchip 21040 ethernet interface. A cable is run from the end of the riser board out to another board mounted next to the sound card. This board provides the 10baseT (UTP) and 10base2 (BNC) interfaces.
Sound Card
The AlphaStation 200 series comes with a small version of the Microsoft Sound Card plugged into a single ISA slot directly on the motherboard separate from the riser board containing the normal PCI/ISA/EISA slots. The ISA slot used by the sound card is not a normal one as can be seen in the images of the device below. The option number for the device is PBXJA-AA.
Case Lock
The top cover is held on with a key lock. This can make getting into the machine a bit difficult if the key is missing. However, the lock can be dealt with by inserting a flat-headed screwdriver under the edge of the cover at the points shown below and twisting to the left. This pulls the cover towards you and to the left sliping the cover past the lock.
![[Lock circumvention diagram]](images/circumvent-lock.jpg)
Try this at your own risk - it worked fine for me but it might not work for you. I have done this to one of my AlphaStation 200s with no damage to the case. Once I had the cover off I removed the lock so that it would not be a problem again. My other AlphaServer seems to have already had its lock adjusted as can be seen in the images below - the lock is in the locked position but is pointing the wrong way. The images below show some views of the lock:
More suggestions can be found at
in these usenet posts.
Firmware
Some suggest that the AlphaStation 200 is half-flash (can only have
either ARC or SRM firmware loaded - not both) while others suggest
it is full flash (has both ARC and SRM firmware loaded). One such
discussion can be found here
(comp.os.vms on google groups). It turns out that the AlphaStation 200
comes in both versions possibly depending on age. A number of
usenet discussions state that the ones sold from onsale.com in the
late 90s are half-flash. Full flash systems should have two 28F020
Flash ROMs on the system board. Half flash machines will only have
one.
The latest firmware is SRM v7.0 and ARC v4.59 - these machines did
not get AlphaBIOS. The latest SRM firmware can be found on
Alpha Systems Firmware Update v5.4 (AG-RCFBC-BS, April 1999),
and was included on subsequent update CDs until its removal in v6.2.
The latest SRM firmware is also available from the FTP archive:
readme & release notes,
files.
ARC v4.59 never seemed to make it to the Alpha Systems Firmware
Update CDs, with the final one supporting the AlphaStation 200 (v6.1)
still including ARC v4.58. If you want ARC v4.59 (fixes a potential
crash on warm reboot), it is available here.
The following sections of the ALPHA Firmware Update Seminar may
also be of interest:
AlphaStation 200/250 Full Flash Systems,
AlphaStation 200/255 Half Flash Systems
Failsafe loader
Should a firmware upgrade fail for some reason, the systems firmware can be started from floppy disk. The firmware update site describes how to create such a firmware floppy disk. To make the system start the firmware from a floppy disk, set J2 on the motherboard to the 1-2 position. The 2-3 position (default) makes the system start the firmware from the Flash ROM.
Reset button action
J3 on the motherboard (see diagram above) controls the action of the reset button. If the 1-2 position is selected (default), the front panel push button causes a reset. If position 2-3 is selected, this button becomes a halt button.
Serial and Graphical Consoles
Like many RISC machines, these can be operated via their serial port.
This is controlled by the console SRM environment variable.
Set it to serial to make the machine always use a serial
console attached to its primary serial port. Set it to graphics
to use a framebuffer console. If the machine is configured to boot
using its framebuffer console, but it detects there is no keyboard
present it will default to using the serial console anyway. Chances
are your machine may use a ZLXp for its framebuffer/video card.
If so, the ZLXp information page and
the ZLXp Configuration Notes page may be of interest.
Windows NT Support
All AlphaStation 200 machines support running Windows NT, though
half-flash machines may need to have the ARC firmware installed
first. It is one of the few Alpha models capable of running Windows
NT 3.50, with the HAL already on the CD-ROM. Machines equipped with
a DEC ZLXp graphics card will need a driver,
which can be found here.
For Windows NT 3.51 or newer, everything needed is on the CD including
the ZLXp graphics driver. When installing Windows NT 4.0 it's probably
better to use
the latest HAL
rather than the one on the CD-ROM.
For Service Packs, see Windows NT Updates.
Due to Compaq
killing Windows NT support,
they never supported NT4 SP6
on these machines. Despite this lack of support, it does work fine;
all this really meant in 1999 was that you couldn't ask Compaq for
help if you ran into trouble with it.
Digital UNIX/Tru64 UNIX Support
The original announcement indicated that DEC OSF/1 v3.0 was
supported, and the AlphaStation 200 was still supported as of
Tru64 5.1B-6. So provided all other requirements (as documented in
each versions SPD) are met,
an AlphaStation 200 should be able to run any version of
Digital UNIX or Tru64 UNIX in addition to DEC OSF/1 V3.0.
If needed, Updates for
Digital UNIX and Tru64 UNIX are available.
Systems
I currently have two of these machines. At one
point (~2010) I ran them as an OpenVMS cluster, but as of 2025 the
first one no longer powers on (bad PSU?) while the other
triple-boots Windows NT 3.50, 3.51 and 4.0 for testing Alpha
builds of Kermit 95.
- saturn - an AlphaStation 200 4/166
- jupiter - another AlphaStation 200 4/166
Images
Very old images of my two systems can be found here and here.
![[Saturn]](/gallery2/main.php?g2_view=core.DownloadItem&g2_itemId=1709&g2_serialNumber=2)
![[jupiter]](/gallery2/main.php?g2_view=core.DownloadItem&g2_itemId=1626&g2_serialNumber=2)
Documentation
See also
