Alphaserver DS10L

[Rory]

I went to the swap fest this weekend and found this gem for $100. It is very clean inside and out. I had been looking for them online for years, but always been ridiculously expensive. It is an opportunity to play with a machine with OpenVMS. My other Alpha personal workstation refuses to install it, though I still have not gotten a compatible video card. This Alphaserver does not have a video card, and due to the SCSI card occupying the only PCI card slot, it will be controlled by a terminal emulator. That was an oversight since I had also bought an old ATI card with ATI bios to be compatible with OpenVMS for it, but I had not realized that the SCSI card was required. I had assumed that it was on the motherboard. Maybe the video card I bought will allow me to install OpenVMS on the Alpha personal workstation on it finally. Any good uses for a 23 year old server? I may get a 300gb hard drive and use it for a local backup server/SAMBA server. Basically back up the cloud storage of my photography I have.

 

[nadaveiron]

If you really want video on a DS10L your best bet is to find a DEPVZ-AA, which is a combo card of video + SCSI + 100 mbps Ethernet in one PCI slot. They're not that rare.

 

[jafir]

I’m pretty sure that the DS10L has ide on board, and that openvms supports it on that server, if running a late enough version, so you could replace the scsi card with a vga card and replace the scsi drive with IDE

https://support.hpe.com/hpesc/public/docDisplay?docId=c00060352&docLocale=en_US

 

[Rory]

I only have scsi and sata drives around. I will probably go for the combo scsi vga card as opposed to buying old ide drives.

 

[jafir]

You might be able to use a startech sata to ide converter. I’ve not tested that, but if it works it would let you use a somewhat modern SSD. Might be even faster than period correct scsi.

I know they work in other “vintage” computer, like when running windows.

 

[reinhardtjh]

As others have said, there is IDE on the motherboard in a DS10L (and DS10). It's slow though. DEC/Compaq had issues adapting to the IDE chip set. It's mostly there to run the CD-ROM drive but can be used for a hard drive as well. If you can find the Video-SCSI combo card that would be great. They were expensive ($300+) a few years ago so I don't know what they are now. You may have to hunt for a while to find one. I haven't looking in a long time.

Okay, I just looked. Several on Ebay now. One pretty cheap: https://www.ebay.com/itm/334705704837
another relatively cheap https://www.ebay.com/itm/333137866072

General search:

3X-DEPVZ-AA for sale | eBay

Get the best deals for 3X-DEPVZ-AA at eBay.com. We have a great online selection at the lowest prices with Fast & Free shipping on many items!

www.ebay.com

Some HP Info: https://www.hpe.com/psnow/doc/c04283746.html

As an aside, you can run a Motif x-window on it without a video card and connect from an external Linux, Mac or Windows system that way and still get a GUI interface.

 

[cchhrriiss11]

The local e-waste place near my has a stack of these (DS10 and lots of DS10L's)... tempted to grab one.

-Chris

 

[reinhardtjh]

The local e-waste place near my has a stack of these (DS10 and lots of DS10L's)... tempted to grab one.

-Chris

Do it! Grab the DS10 at least. If it's in decent shape it's a perfect small system to play with OpenVMS on. Plus it's got 4 PCI slots so you can put a SCSI controller and a Video card and still have 2 slots left.

 

[reinhardtjh]

I went to the swap fest this weekend and found this gem for $100. It is very clean inside and out. I had been looking for them online for years, but always been ridiculously expensive. It is an opportunity to play with a machine with OpenVMS. My other Alpha personal workstation refuses to install it, though I still have not gotten a compatible video card. This Alphaserver does not have a video card, and due to the SCSI card occupying the only PCI card slot, it will be controlled by a terminal emulator. That was an oversight since I had also bought an old ATI card with ATI bios to be compatible with OpenVMS for it, but I had not realized that the SCSI card was required. I had assumed that it was on the motherboard. Maybe the video card I bought will allow me to install OpenVMS on the Alpha personal workstation on it finally. Any good uses for a 23 year old server? I may get a 300gb hard drive and use it for a local backup server/SAMBA server. Basically back up the cloud storage of my photography I have.

So I just noticed from the pictures that they installed a second hard drive instead of a CD-ROM. This may case a little difficulty in installing OpenVMS. The files from VSI and the Community License Program are CD images which you typically burn to a disk.

The DS10 has USB ports on the back but they don't work - well not well enough to put a thumb drive with the image in it and expect it to boot.

If you have another computer with a SCSI connection you might be able to take one of the drives in the DS10 and write the image file to it temporarily. The other option would be to plug an IDE CD-ROM into the motherboard and use that as a temporary boot. Or a SCSI CD-ROM but there are only certain models that OpenVMS will recognise.

 

[nadaveiron]

ZuluSCSI is your friend... Copy the ISO image, hook it up, and it should just work.

 

[tradde]

I'd be tempted to grab one too if it was nearby to me.

 

[reinhardtjh]

ZuluSCSI is your friend... Copy the ISO image, hook it up, and it should just work.

Doh! I should have thought of that. I have a SCSI2SD in each of my DS10's used for removable backups. I"ve got two ZuluSCSI V1.1's in my MicroVAX 3100. One as the main storage and the other removable for backups. They work great!

 

[Rory]

I ordered the 3X-DEPVZ-AA combination VGA/SCSI/Ethernet card from eBay. Worst case is that if the Alphaserver is dead, I can still use the card by putting it into my Digital Personal Workstation 500au and installing OpenVMS on that. If the root password written on the hard drive in the Alphaserver doesn’t work, I will install OpenVMS on it from a CD-ROM drive hooked up to the IDE connector.

 

[Wildfire]

The local e-waste place near my has a stack of these (DS10 and lots of DS10L's)... tempted to grab one.

-Chris

Chris,
grab all you can get if you have the space !
These are still used and also are good systems to trade / swap.
And sometimes one also needs spares, not often but the powersupplies and mainboards die...

 

[Rory]

If you really want video on a DS10L your best bet is to find a DEPVZ-AA, which is a combo card of video + SCSI + 100 mbps Ethernet in one PCI slot. They're not that rare.

I got one of them on eBay, and it physically does not fit. The card is too long and interferes with the case. There is a huge blank spot on the rear with no circuitry though, and it will fit if I cut it in the blank part. Trouble is that it is a multilayered circuit board and I do not know if anything is in the inner layers under the blank part. Does anyone know if it is safe to cut it, or return it and go the IDE route? Or put it in my alpha workstation since the video card would work with OpenVMS?

Edit:eBay listing with pictures I didn’t take a picture of my own yet, but the blank part is very visible on the eBay listing.

 

[reinhardtjh]

Very odd. That's one of the cars Compaq listed for SCSI adapters. It should have fit. Though I never did try anything that long in my DS10L's when I had them.

DS10L QuickSpec. Scroll down to "SCSI Adapters" https://www.filibeto.org/unix/tru64/lib/hardware/alphaserver/ds10l/10551_na.pdf

I don't know if you can cut off any of the end. You'd have to inspect it very carefully to make sure there are no traces in that area. Hold it up to a strong light to see through the board.

Taking the handle off the end doesn't help?

 

[Rory]

I was able to get it in without cutting anything, but the expansion daughter board let out magic smoke. It was one of the SMT capacitors. Made quite a flash. It shut down the power supply and nothing happened until I removed the expansion board. I tested the 3X-DEPVZ-AA in the PWS500au and it worked fine so it had to be the alphaserver. Once I set up a workbench I will fix the daughter board and then try the original SCSI with a terminal and see if it works.