

I'm collecting Unix computers. Mostly old ones, cause new ones are quite unaffordable at home...
Old but still admirable for their top-notch design and very useful.
Generally, a Unix machine can have 4 lives (number cruncher, workstation, server, X-terminal).
Note that my many x86 computers (aka PC's; most of them running GNU/Linux) are not listed.
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- SUN Microsytems Ultra-Enterprise 2 server
2006
- Two 300MHz Ultra-Sparc-II 64 bits RISC cpu's
- 2MB UltraCache per cpu
- 16 memory sockets (max. 2 GB)
- 1024MB ECC RAM
- 576-bit path to memory
- 1.6GB/s throughput
- 4 64 bit SBus expansion slots
- 4.2GB 7200RPM Fast/Wide SCSI-2 HD
- 18.2GB 10000RPM Fast/Wide SCSI-2 Hard Disk
- 3.5" floppy drive 1.44MB
- 12 speed CD ROM drive
- 12/24GB DDS3 SCSI Tape Drive
- Onboard Ethernet connection 100Mbps
- TurboGX Frame Buffer 1152*900 1MB
- 17" Color monitor 1152*900
- Sun Ultra 2 Elite 3D
No cpu's, no memory
- Sun Ultra 1 Creator
- Sun Sparcstation 5, 70 MHz microSPARC II CPU, 112MB RAM, Video Capure Card
- Sun Sparcstation 5, 70 MHz microSPARC II CPU, 48MB RAM
- Sun Sparcstation 5
- Sun Sparcstation 5
- Sun Sparcstation 2, 40 MHz CY7C601 CPU, 32MB RAM
- Sun Sparcstation 2
- Sun Sparcstation 2
- Sun Sparcstation 2
- Sun Sparcstation 1
- Sun Sparcstation IPC, 40 MHz CPU
- Sun Classic
- Sun Workstation Station Technologies Limited clone, 16 memory sockets filled, LSI 64844NC-40 Sparc Cache+
- Sun Workstation Station Technologies Limited clone
- Sun 3/60, 20MHz Motorola 68020 CPU & 68881 FPU, 16MB RAM
X-terminal
- Sun 3/60, 20MHz Motorola 68020 CPU & 68881 FPU, 0MB RAM
- Sun Mass Storage, deskside chassis for 12 full height 5.25" disks or 24 3.5" disks
Silicon Graphics Onyx Extreme
01/2005
- Deskside
- Dual 150MHz MIPS R4400SC CPUs (1MB cache, 64 bits)
- Max 4 CPUs
- Max 2GB memory
Silicon Graphics O2
12/2006
Silicon Graphics Iris Indigo XS/24
- 33MHz MIPS R3000A CPU
- 64MB RAM
- SCSI Harddisk
- IRIX
- Served longtime as an workstation for my visitors (when broadband internet was rare)
- Afterwards reconfigured into a Workstation/X-terminal combination
I've described this wonderful SGI Indigo machine in detail at a separate page.
- Digital Alpha AXPpci 33, 166MHz Alpha LCA4 21066 CPU (64 bits), 32MB RAM
- AT Case, painted black ;-)
- AXPpci 33 Mainboard
- "Baby AT" form factor 8.5" x 13"
- ZIF socket for Alpha 21066/68 cpu
- 4 SIMM slots 72 pins, supports up to 256 MB memory, 36-bits true parity only, ECC protected
- 11 DIP sockets, supporting ECC-protected secondary cache SRAMs (0, 256KB, or 1MB)
- 2 PCI slots - 4 ISA slots - 1 ISA/PCI shared slot
- AT Keyboard interface, Serial mouse interface
- 2 FIFO Serial (max 56 Kbaud) and 1 Parallel Port
- FAST SCSI-2 controller NCR 53c810
- IDE interface, Floppy interface
- Connector for 8 LEDs
- TOY and NVRAM (8KB)
- 1 MB flash memory in sockets
- ARC (Advanced Risc Computing) firmware
Alpha LCA4 21066 cpu
- 166MHz
- fully-pipelined, dual-issue, 64-bit RISC architecture
- pipelined floating point unit, supports IEEE and Digital formats.
- 64 bits wide memory data path + 8 bits for error correction code (ECC)
- 8 Kbyte instruction and data caches.
- 32 MB True parity RAM (4 8MB SIMMs)
- S3 86C325 3D ViRGE Graphics Accelerator 4MB PCI
- Quantum Fireball 1080A, 1039MB w/83kB Cache
- Quantum Fireball CR4.3A, 4110MB w/418kB Cache
- 3.5" floppy drive 1.44MB
- Redhat Linux
When I obtained this machine in 2000, the Alpha processors were the fastest processors available. The Alpha LCA4 21066 cpu was introduced in 1993. The AXPpci 33 mainboard was a rather cheap mainboard combining the Alpha with PC technology. Combined with too little (cache) memory it was rather slow, but it was great to have a 64-bit machine at home (3 years before Apple had an ad campaign claiming the first 64-bit desktop, and 5 years before Microsoft released a 64-bit operating system. This machine was used for years as my home Web, NAT, Firewall, and Scripting server.
- HP Apollo 715/50, PA-7100 50MHz CPU, 32MB RAM, HP-UX
- Sony News Net Work Station NWS-1250 portable, 25MHz MC68030 & MC6882
- Sony News Net Work Station NWS-1510, Motorola 68030
Machines at work and studies |
During my studies and work, I had the opportunity to play with some nice machines.
Often big iron: departmental servers, number crunchers, all-purpose servers for up till 25.000 people, ...
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Updates: see the Hydra page
- One HP XC Cluster Platform 4000, composed of 32 nodes:
- 30 compute nodes HP Proliant DL585, each composed of:
- 4 CPUs AMD Opteron dual-core @ 2.4 GHz
- 32 GB RAM
- 1 x 73 GB hard drive (system disk)
- one control and one service node HP Proliant DL385, each composed of:
- 2 CPUs AMD Opteron @ 2.6 GHz
- 4 GB RAM
- 2 x 73 GB hard drive (system disk)
- One file server based on HP StorageWorks Scalable File Share (HP SFS)
- 2 administration servers (MDS):
- 2 CPUs Intel Xeon @ 3.2 GHz
- 4 GB RAM
- 1 x 73 GB hard drive (system disk)
- 2 Object Storage Servers (OSS):
- 2 CPUs Intel Xeon @ 3.2 GHz
- 2 GB RAM
- 1 x 73 GB hard drive (system disk)
- 6 x SFS20 enclosure providing a net disk space of 6 Terabyte (6000 Gigabyte)
- The whole system has an aggregate peak performance of approximatively 1 Teraflops and uses a total of 148 fans for cooling down the system.
- The operating system is HP XC System Software 3.0, which is a Linux distribution compatible with Red Hat
Enterprise Advanced Server.
- Sun Fire V1280 Server
- 8 Ultra SPARC III Cu Processors running at 1.2GHz
- 32 GB RAM
- 2 internal disks of 73 Gb
- 800 GB of new 15000 rpm diskdrives from the Storage Area Network (SAN) for
incoming mailboxes, personal mailfolders and webpages
- Upgraded to ca 4TB diskspace (status 12/2006)
- Integrated Gigabit Ethernet
- Operating System: Solaris 9
- This is the mail server for VUB/ULB (ca 30.000 users), with shell access.
- SUN Microsytems Ultra-Enterprise 250
- 300MHz 64bit UltraSparc-II processor, max 2 processors.
- 512MB ECC RAM (max 2 GB)
- 50 GB diskspace, max Six internal hot-plug Ultra SCSI-3 disks
- 10/100mbit/s network connection
- Sun Solaris
- SUN Microsytems Ultra-Enterprise 4500
- 6 UltraSparc-II processors (400 Mhz)
- Expandable to 14 cpu's
- 6 GB RAM (max 28 GB)
- 4 Terabytes of net diskspace, configured in RAID5 (fault redundant)
- DLT-8000 tape robot with 4 drives and several hundreds of high capacity tapes
- Gigabit network connection
- Veritas file system, backup and archival features

- Cluster of 3 COMPAQ-DIGITAL AlphaServer GS Series : 2 GS140 and 1 GS160
- Per GS140:
- 6 EV6/525 MHz CPU's with 4MB L2 cache

--> 6 EV6.7 (700 MHz) CPU's with 8MB L2 cache
- 4GB RAM
--> 6GB RAM 21/01/00
- The GS160:
12/2001
- 16 EV6.8CB (1001 MHz) CPU's with 8 MB cache
- 16 GB RAM
- An Aggregate peak performance for the whole cluster of 48.80 Gflops
- 668 GB raw disk with 4 Ultra SCSI channels configured in RAID5
- Digital UNIX V4.0E (Rev. 1091)
--> TRU64-UNIX V4.0F 1229 21/01/00 
--> Tru64 unix 5.1a 17/12/01
- SUN Microsytems Ultra-Enterprise 3000
- 2 250 MHz Ultra-Sparc-II cpu's (expandable to 6)
- 512 MB RAM (max. 6 GB)
- 20 GB HD
- Ethernet connection 100Mbps
- Solaris 2.5.1 --> Solaris 2.6 since summer 98

I was system administrator of this departmental calculation server ;-)
- SUN Microsytems Ultra-Enterprise 2 server
- 300MHz Ultra-Sparc-II 64 bits RISC cpu
- 2nd 300MHz Ultra-Sparc-II 64 bits RISC cpu
2/4/00
- Expandable to 2 cpu's
- 2MB UltraCache per cpu
- 16 memory sockets (max. 2 GB)
- 128MB ECC RAM --> 1024MB ECC RAM since 2/4/00

- 576-bit path to memory
- 1.6GB/s throughput
- 4 64 bit SBus expansion slots
- 4.2GB 7200RPM Fast/Wide SCSI-2 HD
- 18.2GB 10000RPM Fast/Wide SCSI-2 Hard Disk
2/4/00
- 3.5" floppy drive 1.44MB
- 12 speed CD ROM drive
- 12/24GB DDS3 SCSI Tape Drive
1/4/00
- Onboard Ethernet connection 100Mbps
- TurboGX Frame Buffer 1152*900 1MB
- 17" Color monitor 1152*900
- Solaris 2.5.1
- HP laserjet 6MP Postscript 600*600dpi 3MB
- SUN Microsytems Ultra-Enterprise 4000
- 4 UltraSparc CPU's at 250 MHz --> 6 UltraSparc CPU's at 250 MHz since summer 98
--> 10 cpu's?
- Expandable to 14 cpu's
- 48 GB of diskspace --> 80 GB --> 400 GB

- 1 GB RAM --> 1.5 GB since summer 98 --> 3 GB

- Solaris 2.5.1 --> Solaris 2.6 since summer 98 --> Solaris 2.7
SUN Microsytems 4/360
- CY7C601 processor @ 25MHz
- TI8847 co-processor
- Sun-4 MMU, 16 hardware contexts
- 16 MIPS, 2.6 MFLOPS, 11.3 SPECmark89
- Chassis type: deskside
- Bus: VME, 12 slots
- Memory: Max 56M+ physical with synchronous parity, 1G/process virtual, 128K cache, 40ns cycle
- 4/260 upgraded with a 4/3xx CPU. Onboard SCSI,
serial ports. Uses SIMMs. Cache similar to 4/2xx
but write-through. Code-named "Stingray". Room
for SCSI disk in top of chassis. 56M limit only
for early versions of ROM. 1M or 4M x 9 30-pin
SIMMs, 100ns.
SGI Challenge L server
UNIX SVR4 operating system (Irix 5.3)
4 200MHz + 4 250MHz cpu's, each with 4 MB secondary cache memory
1 GB RAM memory
86 GB of RAID5 disk space
320 MBps I/O bandwidth
FDDI network connection
Automated HSM system with at least 2.5 TB for data migration
The EPIX machines were
a cluster of 4 Contral Data machines (two interactive CD4360-300 servers,
a CD4360-300 file server and a CD4680-101 NIC server).
It's very hard to find information about those machines, I only found this general information:
SPEC int92 SPEC fp92 CPU MHz Cache Ext. + I/D
CDC 4360-300 24.9 26.7 R3000A 33 64/64
CDC 4680 Infoserver 40.6 45.1 R6000A 66 512+64/16
The welcome banner was:
Welcome to the EP/IX Software System.
**************************************************
* CONTROL DATA PROPRIETARY PRODUCT *
* Copyright Control Data Systems, Inc. *
* 1990, 1991, 1992, 1993 *
* Accessed software also protected by copyright. *
**************************************************
(C) Copyright 1986-1992, MIPS Computer Systems
All Rights Reserved
nice, EP/IX Version 2.1.1AB
- SUN Microsystems
- SunOS 4.1.3
- MATLAB
- SUN Microsytems 670MP2
- 2 * 40MHz
- SunOS 4.1.3
- 64, later 128MB RAM
- 10GB HD's
- CD ROM
- Tape Backup
- Lots of networked printers
- Agfa Laser Printer
- HP Laserjet 4M Printer (double sided)
- QMS Colour Laser Printer
- ...
The following comes from the SUN hardware FAQ:
SPARCsystem 6xxMP/xx
Processor(s): ROSS CY7C601 @ 40MHz or SuperSPARC @ 45 or
50MHz, CY7C602 FPU or on TI chip, CY7C605 MMU or
on TI chip (Reference); 4096 or 65536 hardware
contexts; ROSS: 114 MIPS. Up to four CPUs.
Chassis type: rackmount
Bus: VME, SBus, and Mbus
Memory: ROSS: Off-chip 64K write-back, direct-mapped,
virtually indexed, virtually and physically
tagged, 32-byte lines
Architecture: sun4m
Notes: First Mbus-based machine. Cypress/ROSS Mbus
modules later upgraded to TI SuperSPARC modules
(/xx models). Code name "Galaxy". ROSS cache can
be run write-through but OS puts it in
write-back; physically tagged for MP cache
coherency. 630MP/600MP: 128M
physical. 670MP/690MP: 640M physical.
The fastest computer on earth has a cpu on my desk!