AlphaStation is the name given to a series of

computer workstations A workstation is a special computer designed for technical or scientific applications. Intended primarily to be used by a single user, they are commonly connected to a local area network and run multi-user operating systems. The term ''workstat ...

, produced from 1994 onwards by

Digital Equipment Corporation Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC ), using the trademark Digital, was a major American company in the computer industry from the 1960s to the 1990s. The company was co-founded by Ken Olsen and Harlan Anderson in 1957. Olsen was president unt ...

, and later by

Compaq Compaq Computer Corporation (sometimes abbreviated to CQ prior to a 2007 rebranding) was an American information technology company founded in 1982 that developed, sold, and supported computers and related products and services. Compaq produced ...

and HP. As the name suggests, the AlphaStations were based on the

DEC Alpha Alpha (original name Alpha AXP) is a 64-bit reduced instruction set computer (RISC) instruction set architecture (ISA) developed by Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC). Alpha was designed to replace 32-bit VAX complex instruction set computers ...

64-bit In computer architecture, 64-bit Integer (computer science), integers, memory addresses, or other Data (computing), data units are those that are 64 bits wide. Also, 64-bit central processing unit, CPUs and arithmetic logic unit, ALUs are those ...

microprocessor A microprocessor is a computer processor where the data processing logic and control is included on a single integrated circuit, or a small number of integrated circuits. The microprocessor contains the arithmetic, logic, and control circu ...

. Supported

operating system An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware, software resources, and provides common services for computer programs. Time-sharing operating systems schedule tasks for efficient use of the system and may also in ...

s for AlphaStations comprise

Tru64 UNIX Tru64 UNIX is a discontinued 64-bit UNIX operating system for the Alpha instruction set architecture (ISA), currently owned by Hewlett-Packard (HP). Previously, Tru64 UNIX was a product of Compaq, and before that, Digital Equipment Corporation ( ...

(formerly Digital UNIX),

OpenVMS OpenVMS, often referred to as just VMS, is a multi-user, multiprocessing and virtual memory-based operating system. It is designed to support time-sharing, batch processing, transaction processing and workstation applications. Customers using Ope ...

and

Windows NT Windows NT is a proprietary graphical operating system An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware, software resources, and provides common services for computer programs. Time-sharing operating systems sc ...

(with

AlphaBIOS Advanced RISC Computing (ARC) is a specification promulgated by a defunct consortium of computer manufacturers (the Advanced Computing Environment project), setting forth a standard MIPS RISC-based computer hardware and firmware environment ...

ARC ARC may refer to: Business * Aircraft Radio Corporation, a major avionics manufacturer from the 1920s to the '50s * Airlines Reporting Corporation, an airline-owned company that provides ticket distribution, reporting, and settlement services * ...

firmware). Most of these workstations can also run various versions of

Linux Linux ( or ) is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged as a Linux distribution, which ...

and

BSD The Berkeley Software Distribution or Berkeley Standard Distribution (BSD) is a discontinued operating system based on Research Unix, developed and distributed by the Computer Systems Research Group (CSRG) at the University of California, Berk ...

operating systems. Other Alpha workstations produced by DEC include the DEC 2000 AXP (DECpc AXP 150), the

DEC 3000 AXP DEC 3000 AXP was the name given to a series of computer workstations and servers, produced from 1992 to around 1995 by Digital Equipment Corporation. The DEC 3000 AXP series formed part of the first generation of computer systems based on the 64- ...

, the

Digital Personal Workstation The Digital Personal Workstation, code named "sports car", is a family of entry-level to mid-range workstation computers developed and manufactured by Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC). These workstations are based on the DEC Alpha and Intel Pe ...

''a''-Series and ''au''-Series (codename Miata), the

Multia Multia is a municipality of Finland. It is located in the Central Finland region. The municipality has a population of () and covers an area of of which is water. The population density is . The municipality is unilingually Finnish. The munic ...

VX40/41/42 and the Alpha XL/Alpha XLT line (a member of the Alcor Family, which had swappable

daughterboard In computing, an expansion card (also called an expansion board, adapter card, peripheral card or accessory card) is a printed circuit board that can be inserted into an electrical connector, or expansion slot (also referred to as a bus slo ...

with

Pentium Pentium is a brand used for a series of x86 architecture-compatible microprocessors produced by Intel. The original Pentium processor from which the brand took its name was first released on March 22, 1993. After that, the Pentium II and Pe ...

processor, to transform to a DEC Celebris XL line).

Models

From the XP900 onwards, all AlphaStation models were simply workstation configurations of the corresponding AlphaServer model. Digital AlphaStation 200 (1)

Avanti Family

Alcor Family

Noritake and Rawhide Family

Tsunami Family

Titan and Marvel Family

A variant of the AlphaStation 1200 was also sold as the Digital Ultimate Workstation 533au².
Some systems had one of the microprocessors deactivated, which may be reactivated with a license upgrade.

References

External links

HP AlphaStation range

About NetBSD/alpha

Debian Alpha system types