At 10:18 AM 4/23/98 -0700, Jason Thorpe wrote:
>On Thu, 23 Apr 1998 11:51:32 -0400 
> "Kevin P. Neal" <kpneal@pobox.com> wrote:
>
> > BTW, is $250 for a 270 MHz AlphaPC64 (the board named after the convertable
> > VW?) decent? That's what DCG is selling them for w/ processor.
>
>The AlphaPC 64 is a 21064 system; it's significantly slower than an
>AlphaPC 164.  But, for $250, you can't go wrong... that's very cheap
>for an Alpha!  (And, it won't melt down like the Multia!)
>
>Can you send me more info on this?  I'm looking on DCG's www pages, and
>can't seem to find this item...

Right, they don't seem to put all of their stuff on their web pages -- just
the flashy stuff. Annoying. 

I called and got the sales guy "Steve". I told him I was looking for an EB64
or EB64+ board. He said that that was an old board and that he did have
these AlphaPC64 boards. 

I asked if it ran NetBSD and he said it did (add grain of salt here).
Anybody beg to differ?

Steve called the board a "Cabriolet", which my roommates tell me was a VM
convertable also. Perhaps I mispronounced it. 

The board comes with the processor and cache (but I don't remember how
much). It doesn't come with the rest of the stuff needed to build a running
system: memory, case, pw supply, etc. You get to add that. So it's cheap,
but not as cheap as a first glance might let you think. 

Now, is $250 for a Cabriolet motherboard+cpu+cache a decent price? 

Is there a much better board available for not much more money? My feeling
is "no". 
--
XCOMM Kevin P. Neal, Junior, Comp. Sci.     -   House of Retrocomputing
XCOMM  mailto:kpneal@pobox.com              -   http://www.pobox.com/~kpn/
XCOMM  kpneal@eos.ncsu.edu              Spoken by Keir Finlow-Bates:
XCOMM "Good grief, I've just noticed I've typed in a rant. Sorry chaps!"