This section provides some more information on the Noname motherboard. There are some hints and tips that you might be interested in if you're considering putting together a system on your own.
First off, here is what the Noname board looks like: picture of Noname board .
Before going out and purchasing such a machine, please be aware that the Noname really is a low-end machine and as such is relatively low performance. The Noname can make for a nice machine (especially together with a TGA graphics card), but be sure to run the applications you care about before making a purchase decision. Rather then putting together a system based on this board, it is currently much cheaper to get a Universal Desktop Box ( UDB ). That box is basically a Noname with lots of very nice builtin hardware.
This section also includes standard benchmark performance results, which might help give you an idea of how a Noname system performs.
The DEC list prices for Noname boards are listed below. Note: it is much cheaper to get a UDB system instead of building a system on your own; currently, the suggested retail price for a 166MHz UDB system is $1155.
You will need the OSF/1 PALcode to run Linux. Digital has made the firmware available for ftp so you can download the SRM console from Digital's ftp site .
There are two serious drawbacks with the SRM console: it eats away 2-3MB of RAM and it cannot boot from IDE drives. Fortunately, the free MILO replacement firmware doesn't suffer from these problems. Plus with MILO you get all the sources!
If you plan on running DEC Unix (formerly known as OSF/1), you have to get a board with a PS/2 style connector. On the other hand, it seems a lot easier/cheaper to find cases and keyboards for AT-style connectors. (Nekotech seems to be shipping Noname motherboards with the PS/2 connectors on a slot-bracket which allows you to have the best of both worlds: a regular (cheap) AT-case without having to tie up a serial port for the mouse.)
The only difference between the PS/2 and AT-style keyboard interface is the keyboard connector. The electrical interface is identical. In fact, you can buy AT to PS/2 converters in any computer shop for a few bucks. The advantage of PS/2-style board is that there is a second connector that can be used for a PS/2 mouse (i.e., no need to tie up a serial port with a serial mouse). But then again: economy of scale currently works in the direction that serial mice are dirt cheap and omni-present, which can't be said about PS/2 mice.
Be careful about what kind of SIMMs you get. In particular, "logical parity" SIMMs do not work. What you should get is 70ns memory with 36bits/SIMM. These are also known as ECC SIMMs. Please refer to the OEM Design Guide for details.
Also notice that some of the firmware simply refuses to boot with anything less than 16MB of RAM installed. Older versions of the SRM console used to do that and the ARC console apparently has the same bad habit. MILO and any reasonably recent release of the SRM console should boot fine in 8MB, however.
They should and, as far as we can tell, they really do work.
Besides the drivers for the on-board interfaces, several other ISA
cards are known to work already (e.g., depca and ne2000 Ethernet
cards, sound cards, internal modems, etc.). Notice that the SRM
console includes a configuration command called "isacfg" that allows
to setup the PCI/ISA bridge. That command has an undocumented option
enadev that allows to enable the ISA card.
Notice that the numbers below are for DEC Unix. Linux/Alpha is likely to be less tuned at this point, but it gives you an idea of where the hardware stands.
-------------------------------------------------
DRAFT 0.02 Performance Flash AXPpci33, 233MHz
Digital UNIX 3.2 1MB BCache
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SPEC CINT92
SPECint92 100.2
SPECbase_int92 91.2
SPEC CFP92
SPECfp92 112.7
SPECbase_fp92 107.8
LINKPACK
64-bit Double-Precision
100x100 MFLOPS 17.32
1000x1000 MFLOPS 93.95
Dhrystone
V1.1 instructions/sec 263.012
v2.1 instructions/sec 250.000
Whetstone
Single-precision KWIPS 249.292
Double-precision KWIPS 211.255
DN and R Labs CPU2
MVUPS 274.47
SLALOM
Patches 5,686
MFLOPS 40.07
Livermore Loops
Geo. mean MFLOPS 21.95
CERN
CERNS units 28.99
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A lot of useful and detailed information is available at Digital's ftp server .
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