AlphaStation is the name given to a series of computer workstations, 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 un ...

, 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 compute ...

64-bit In computer architecture, 64-bit integers, memory addresses, or other data units are those that are 64 bits wide. Also, 64-bit CPUs and ALUs are those that are based on processor registers, address buses, or data buses of that size. A compu ...

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 circ ...

. 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 i ...

s for AlphaStations comprise Tru64 UNIX (formerly Digital UNIX), OpenVMS and

Windows NT Windows NT is a proprietary graphical operating system produced by Microsoft, the first version of which was released on July 27, 1993. It is a processor-independent, multiprocessing and multi-user operating system. The first version of Win ...

(with AlphaBIOS ARC 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, w ...

and BSD 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 municipalities of Finland, municipality of Finland. It is located in the Central Finland regions of Finland, region. The municipality has a population of () and covers an area of of which is water. The population density is . The ...

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 s ...

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 P ...

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