DECstation 5000/133 ("3MIN" )

 
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General Technical Information

HOSTNAME UNICORN
SYSTEM CPU MIPS R3000 @33 MHz
CACHE (2nd, 1st D/I) 0 KB, 128 KB / 64 KB
RAM  32 MB (Max. 128 MB)
SYSTEM BUS WIDTH 32 bit
SCSI BUS 1 x SCSI-2 (5 MB/s)
OPTION BUS TurboChannel @12.5 MHz
GRAPHICS PMAGB-BA 8-plane 1280x1024 @72Hz
HARD DISK DRIVE 2 GB SCSI-2 7200 RPM Quantum
TAPE DRIVE TZ30 (TK50 compatible)
NETWORK 2 x 10 Mbps AUI (onboard and PMAD-A option card) and 100 Mbps DAS FDDI (DEFTA-FA option card)
OS DEC OSF/1 V2.0
YEAR 1991
SPEED 27 VAX MIPS
POWER CONSUMPTION (MAX.) 302 W
COMMENTS OSF/1 is quite fast on this machine, it's OK. It can of course run ULTRIX, too. Support for the 3MIN was added in ULTRIX 4.2A.
ESTIMATED PRICE '91 $35,000
ORIGINAL PRODUCT DESCRIPTION (Scanned from DEC's SOC Nov. 1992)

History and other comments

This machine's motherboard and CPU was, believe it or not, once serving NASDAQ in New York, U.S.A. The enclosure and some of the memory is from a DECstation 5000/125 that had a bad broken power supply unit. That computer was running ULTRIX V4.3 as database server for many years, from 1991 to 1998, I believe (after examining some log files).

This system is running a somwhat inofficial operating system; DEC OSF/1 for DEC MIPS systems. I believe it was never really properly released or sold, since DEC wanted to promote DEC 3000 and all the other DEC Alpha systems which would run the brand new operating system DEC OSF/1 for DEC Alpha (later known as Digital UNIX, Compaq TRU64 UNIX and now HP TRU64 UNIX). It's really nice to see that it actually runs on a vintage MIPS system like this DECstation.

If someone has some interesting (inside) information concerning the OSF/1 on MIPS project, feel free to drop me a few lines.

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Last updated:  22-8-2006