Digital Prioris LX

Announced in June 1995, the Prioris LX 575 and 590 are entry-level PC Servers replacing the Prioris MTE with prices starting at US$3,000 for the 575 model. There appears to have been a 466D2 model as well, though I can find no information on it outside the service manual.

In 1997/98 the DEC website was also describing 150Mhz and 200Mhz Pentium models, though the service manual doesn't mention them - possibly it's the same basic hardware just with faster CPUs installed in the 575/590 CPU card. The tech specs at the time mention fast ethernet support as standard, the onboard 10baseT/10base2 ports and one less available PCI card, so I assume it was at least a very similar if not the same motherboard with a PCI Fast Ethernet card installed as standard.

The CPU, RAM and cache live on a card that slots in above the top PCI slot. I assume the 486 models are identical aside from having a different CPU card installed.

Integrated peripherals are:

Cirrus Logic GD5428 ISA SVGA with 512KB memory
CMD PCI0640B PCI IDE controller
Adaptec 7850 PCI fast/narrow SCSI II
Digital 21040 "Tulip" PCI 10Mbps Ethernet (10baseT/10base2)

The integrated VGA is fine for the text-based UI of Novell Netware, or for doing occasional administrative tasks under Windows NT, but if you were to use this as a workstation rather than a server you'd really want to put a proper graphics card in one of those PCI slots.

Additional Photos

In The Collection

Name	Model	RAM	CPU	HDD	CD-ROM	Cards	Condition/notes
	LX 575	40MB	Pentium 75MHz	—	Toshiba	3Com EtherLink III ISA Creative CT2940 sound card	PSU turns itself off after a short while (needs a recap?). RTC chip battery flat. Hard disk isn't being detected. Was working fine in around 2020 when it was used to run Windows NT 3.1 (the onboard NIC wasn't supported so the 3Com card was installed). Purchased second-hand in May 2006 for $11.50. Model 941WW, Built June 1995. BIOS Date 16/6/1995, Version 1.01.

ZXnet