Quick Specs
Architecture: Intel 586
CPU: One Intel Pentium @ 90/100/120/133MHz
Video: Matrox MGA Millennium 2MB IS-STORM R2 onboard
Max Ram: 128MB
Chassis: short tower / low-profile desktop
Bus: tower: 1* PCI, 3* ISA, 1* PCI/ISA (shared),
desktop: 1* PCI, 1* ISA, 1* PCI/ISA (shared)
Operating System: Windows 95, NT 3.51/4.0
Digital Celebris GL 5xxx / 5xxxST
The Celebris GL 5xxx introduced on the 24th of August 1995 for the release of Windows 9 with either a 90, 100, 120 or 133Mhz Pentium processor.
These machines have pretty much everything needed integrated into the motherboard:
- Matrox Storm/MGA Millennium PCI graphics with 2MB WRAM (expandable to 8MB)
- DEC 21040 10Mbps ethernet with 10baseT and AUI connectors
- ESS1688 audio (SoundBlaster Pro v3.0 compatible) with internal speaker
- Adaptec 7850 SCSI controller (on the PCI/ISA riser, short-tower model only?)
The arrangement of the short tower case is a little unusual, with the PSU and all drives living in the bottom half. This makes adding and removing expansion cards easy, but drives are awkward with all the power and data cables crammed into a fairly tight space. The motherboard continues most of the way down the case behind the hard disk bracket and top 5.25" bay making the RTC chip and RAM a litlte awkward to access without removing the drive cages.
Mounting of 5.25" drives in the short-tower model require a rail similar to the one below mounted to the left of the drive:
In the Collection
I have only one of these in short-tower form, purchased in December 2005 for $10 from someone in the local Linux Users Group.
Originally it had a 100Mhz CPU but a previous owner upgraded it to 133MHz. The original 5.25" blank was also missing so it currently
has some generic one (poorly) fitted - the proper blanks should be grey and of similar appearance to those in the AlphaServer 800.
It has 256KB of cache, 64MB RAM, a CF card adapter, and an after market RTC chip with replacable battery. It still has its original SCSI hard disk fitted but
its a but unhappy so its no longer connected.
For the first 8 years I had it, I mostly ran Windows NT on it - at first NT 3.50, and later 3.51. During that time I initially used it for reading usenet, and later
for imaging floppy disks with the help of a parallel port LS-120 drive. Then it sat in storage for six years before being put back to service for DOS games alongside playing
around with NT 3.x and OS/2 2.0-Warp 4, which is when it got its CF card and RTC chip upgrades. The integrated Matrox graphics chip has compatibility issues with some games
though, resulting in the DX4 being built.
Documentation & Drivers
Other Links
