Greetings.

Someone recently posted that the 21066 and 21064 chips from DEC were 
going away (the basis of the LCA, Low Cost Alpha design). DEC just did away 
with the UDB, Universal Desktop Box, which is the same as their Multia 
product but NOT preloaded with Windows NT. If you want a product similar 
to the UDB, the EasyWEB server as well as the Multia are the same thing, 
but with software bundled. Check http://www.digital.com/info/udb for more 
info.

The following forward is from Jon "Maddog" Hall of DEC.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Fri, 28 Jun 96 15:19:59 -0400
From: Jon 'maddog' Hall, USG Senior Leader <hall@zk3.dec.com>
To: Jon Katz <jkatz@in.net>
Cc: hall@zk3.dec.com
Subject: Re: Linux on AlphaStation 255 

UDB sales (from Digital) have come to an end.  You can see this from the
web page http://www.digital.com:80/.i/info/udb/

The UDB was the special 166 MHz version of the Multia, which was not selling
well, since it did not compete with the Intel chips in price/performance.  The
UDB was based on the LCA ("Low Cost Alpha", so named because it did not need
various additional support chips).

As far as I know we continue to sell motherboards with various chips,
but the LCA reportedly had performance-limiting design issues,
which made competing with the Intel line impossible.

Digital has other "EV4"-based (i.e. two instruction/cycle issue) chips to
make up the "low end", and as we bring out newer, faster chips (bettering
our manufacturing process), the older designs are reduced in price
due to market demand and better yield off the line.

Digital is committed to having Alpha chips that compare well on a
price/performance basis with Intel chips, and from there to produce single
board computers and low-end systems that compete well with Intel on a
price/performance basis.

But with the LCA chip, the design issues were overwhelming.

md
-- 
===============================================================================
Jon "maddog" Hall			
Executive Director, Linux International Senior Leader
Mailstop ZK03-2/U15			UNIX Software Group
Digital Equipment Corporation		Internet: maddog@zk3.dec.com
110 Spit Brook Rd.			Voice: 603.881.1341
Nashua, N.H. 03062-2698			Fax: 603.881.6059