A DECstation 5000/120

The DECstation was a brand of computers used by DEC, and refers to three distinct lines of computer systems—the first released in 1978 as a word processing system, and the latter (more widely known) two both released in 1989. These comprised a range of computer workstations based on the MIPS architecture and a range of PC compatibles. The MIPS-based workstations ran Ultrix, a DEC-proprietary version of UNIX. my DECStation 5000/120, a shocker of a picture :) File history Legend: (cur) = this is the current file, (del) = delete this old version, (rev) = revert to this old version. ... my DECStation 5000/120, a shocker of a picture :) File history Legend: (cur) = this is the current file, (del) = delete this old version, (rev) = revert to this old version. ... The DEC logo Digital Equipment Corporation was a pioneering American company in the computer industry. ... Word processing, in its now-usual meaning, is the use of a word processor to create documents using computers. ... SGI O2 Workstation A computer workstation, often colloquially referred to as workstation, is a high-end general-purpose microcomputer designed to be used by one person at a time and which offers higher performance than normally found in a personal computer, especially with respect to graphics, processing power and the... A MIPS R4400 microprocessor made by Toshiba. ... One of the first PCs from IBM - the IBM PC model 5150. ... Ultrix (officially all-caps ULTRIX) was the brand name of Digital Equipment Corporations (DEC) native Unix systems. ... Filiation of Unix and Unix-like systems Unix (officially trademarked as UNIX®) is a computer operating system originally developed in 1969 by a group of AT&T employees at Bell Labs including Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie and Douglas McIlroy. ...

DECstation 78

The first line of computer systems given the DECstation name were word processing systems based on the PDP-8. These systems, built into a VT52 terminal, were also known as the VT78. A PDP-8 on display at the Smithsonians National Museum of American History in Washington, D.C.. This example is from the first generation of PDP-8s, built with discrete transistors and later known as the Straight 8. ... The VT52 was a CRT-based computer terminal produced by Digital Equipment Corporation during the late 1970s. ... A computer terminal is an electronic or electromechanical hardware device that is used for entering data into, and displaying data from, a computer or a computing system. ... DECmate was the name of a series of PDP-8-compatible computers produced by the Digital Equipment Corporation in the early 1980s. ...

DECstation RISC workstations

Model ID of a DECstation 5000/120

The second line of DECstations began with the DECstation 3100, released in 1989, which were the first commercially available RISC-based machines built by DEC. The 3100 was followed by a cost reduced 2100. At the time DEC was mostly known for their CISC systems including the successful PDP and VAX lines. The DECstation 3100 was claimed to be the world's fastest UNIX workstation at the time. When it was introduced it was about three times as fast as the VAXstation 3100 which was introduced at about the same time. In contrast to the VAX (and the later DEC Alpha architecture), no version of the VMS operating system was ever released for DECstations. Server configurations of DECstation models, distributed without a framebuffer, were called "DECsystem" but should not be confused with some PDP-10 machines of the same name. Image File history File links No higher resolution available. ... Image File history File links No higher resolution available. ... Reduced Instruction Set Computer (RISC), is a microprocessor CPU design philosophy that favors a smaller and simpler set of instructions that all take about the same amount of time to execute. ... A Complex Instruction Set Computer (CISC) is an instruction set architecture (ISA) in which each instruction can indicate several low-level operations, such as a load from memory, an arithmetic operation, and a memory store, all in a single instruction. ... VAX is a 32-bit computing architecture that supports an orthogonal instruction set (machine language) and virtual addressing (i. ... DEC Alpha AXP 21064 Microprocessor die photo Package for DEC Alpha AXP 21064 Microprocessor Alpha AXP 21064 bare die mounted on a business card with some statistics The DEC Alpha, also known as the Alpha AXP, is a 64-bit RISC microprocessor originally developed and fabricated by Digital Equipment Corp... OpenVMS V7. ... // An operating system (OS) is the software that manages the sharing of the resources of a computer. ... The framebuffer is a part of RAM in a computer allocated to hold the graphics information for one frame or picture. ... DECsystem was a line of servers from DEC. They were based on MIPS processors and ran DECs unix Ultrix. ... The PDP-10 was a computer manufactured by Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) from the late 1960s on; the name stands for Programmed Data Processor model 10. It was the machine that made time-sharing common; it looms large in hacker folklore because of its adoption in the 1970s by many...

The MIPS-based DECstations were used as the first target system and development platform for the Mach microkernel, as well as early development of the Windows NT operating system. Shortly prior to the release of the DEC Alpha systems, a port of OSF/1 to the DECstation was completed, but it was not commercially released. More recently, various free operating systems such as NetBSD and Linux/MIPS have been ported to the MIPS-based DECstations, extending their useful life by providing a modern operating system. Mach is an operating system kernel developed at Carnegie Mellon University to support operating system research, primarily distributed and parallel computation. ... Graphical overview of a microkernel A microkernel is a minimal computer operating system kernel providing only basic operating system services (system calls), while other services (commonly provided by kernels) are provided by user-space programs called servers. ... Windows NT is a family of operating systems produced by Microsoft, the first version of which was released in July 1993. ... NetBSD is a freely redistributable, open source version of the Unix-like BSD computer operating system. ... This article is about operating systems that use the Linux kernel. ...

The first generation of commercially marketed DEC Alpha systems, the DEC 3000 AXP series, were very similar to contemporaneous MIPS-based DECstations, which were sold alongside the Alpha systems as the DECstation line was gradually phased out. Both used the TURBOchannel expansion bus for video and network cards, as well as being sold with the same mice, monitors, and keyboards. 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. ... A DEC 3000/M600. ...

Various DECstation models (which used a MIPS CPU) are emulated by the GXemul software project. Die of an Intel 80486DX2 microprocessor (actual size: 12×6. ... GXemul (formerly known as mips64emul) is a computer architecture emulator originally written to emulate computer systems using the MIPS instruction set, and is available as free software under a revised BSD-style license. ...

Models

• DECstation 2100 (codenamed PMIN)
  • 12.5 MHz R2000 CPU
  • up to 24 MB RAM (in 2 MB pairs)
• DECstation 3100 (codenamed PMAX)
  • 16.67 MHz R2000 CPU
  • up to 24 MB RAM (in 2 MB pairs)
• Personal DECstation 5000/20, 5000/25, 5000/33 and 5000/50 (codenamed MAXine)
  • 20, 25 or 33 MHz R3000 CPU (for the /20, /25, or /33 respectively)
  • 100 MHz R4000 CPU for the /50
  • 8 MB RAM built-in (expandable to up to 40 MB RAM (in 8 MB pairs))
• DECstation 5000/120, 5000/125, 5000/133 and 5000/150 (codenamed 3MIN)
  • 20, 25 or 33 MHz R3000 CPU (for the /120, /125, or /133 respectively)
  • 100 MHz R4000 CPU for the /150
  • up to 128 MB RAM (in 8 MB pairs)
• DECstation 5000/200 (codenamed 3MAX)
  • 25 MHz R3000 CPU
  • up to 480 MB RAM (in 32 MB pairs)
• DECstation 5000/240 and 5000/260 (codenamed 3MAX+)
  • 40 MHz R3000 CPU for the /240 and 120 MHz R4400 CPU for the /260
  • up to 480 MB RAM (in 32 MB pairs)

DECstation PCs

Confusingly, simultaneous with the launch of the DECstation workstation line, DEC also announced a range of DECstation-branded PC compatibles with Intel x86 processors. These were identified by three-digit model numbers; the DECstation 2xx, 3xx and 4xx series using Intel 286, 386 and 486 processors respectively. One of the first PCs from IBM - the IBM PC model 5150. ... Intel Corporation (NASDAQ: INTC, SEHK: 4335), founded in 1968 as Integrated Electronics Corporation, is an American multinational corporation that is best known for designing and manufacturing microprocessors and specialized integrated circuits. ... x86 or 80x86 is the generic name of a microprocessor architecture first developed and manufactured by Intel. ... The Intel 80286 is an x86-family 16-bit microprocessor that was introduced by Intel on February 1, 1982. ... The Intel 80386 is a microprocessor which was used as the central processing unit (CPU) of many personal computers from 1986 until 1994 and later. ... Intel i486 DX2- top view The Intel i486 (also called 486 or 80486) is a range of Intel CISC microprocessors which is part of the Intel x86 family of processors. ...

External links

• NetBSD for the DECstation
• Linux/MIPS DECstation page
• DECstation 2100 / DECstation 3100 Web Page
• DECstation model specifications