Digital Personal Workstation
| Company type | Product line |
|---|---|
| Industry | Computer workstations |
| Founder | Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) |
| Products | Workstation computers (Alpha and Intel Pentium Pro/Pentium II based) |
| Parent | Digital Equipment Corporation |
The Digital Personal Workstation, internally referred to as "sports car," represents a series of workstation computers designed by Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC), targeting entry-level to mid-tier performance segments. These systems incorporate processors from DEC's Alpha line as well as Intel's Pentium Pro and Pentium II CPUs. They are compatible with operating systems such as Digital UNIX, OpenVMS, and Windows NT. The Pentium Pro-based i-Series was launched on September 23, 1996.
i-Series
Equipped with Intel Pentium Pro or Pentium II processors, the i-Series operates on Windows NT.
Available configurations include:
- 180i – Pentium Pro at 180 MHz
- 200i – Pentium Pro at 200 MHz
- 200i² – Dual-processor Pentium Pro at 200 MHz
- 266i – Pentium II at 266 MHz
- 300i – Pentium II at 300 MHz
- 350i – Pentium II at 350 MHz
- 400i – Pentium II at 400 MHz
- 266i+ – Pentium II at 266 MHz
- 300i+ – Pentium II at 300 MHz
- 333i+ – Pentium II at 333 MHz
These workstations support single or dual CPU configurations. The Intel chipset varies by model: Pentium Pro units utilize the 440FX chipset, the Pentium II "i" models are based on the 440BX, while the "i+" variants employ the 440LX chipset. The "²" suffix identifies dual-processor setups.
Motherboards in the i-Series provide four DIMM slots compatible with either unbuffered or registered ECC SDRAM running at 100 MHz. Unbuffered modules range from 32 MB to 512 MB, whereas registered memory supports capacities between 64 MB and 1 GB. Mixing unbuffered and registered DIMMs is not permissible. Available DIMM sizes include 32, 64, and 128 MB for unbuffered, and 64, 128, and 256 MB for registered memory.
a-Series
Known by the codename "Miata", the a-Series utilizes the Alpha 21164A processor. Units ending with an "a" suffix boot using Windows NT via AlphaBIOS firmware, while those with an "au" suffix run Digital UNIX or OpenVMS under SRM firmware; both firmware types can be selected interchangeably. At COMDEX in 1997, the Digital Personal Workstation 500a was recognized as a finalist for Byte magazine’s Best of Show in the workstation category.
Models offered include:
- 433a/433au – Alpha 21164A at 433 MHz
- 500a/500au – Alpha 21164A at 500 MHz
- 600a/600au – Alpha 21164A at 600 MHz
The CPU socket design allows processor upgrades and is complemented by Digital’s 21174 ("Pyxis") chipset. Optional L3 cache modules provide either 2 or 4 MB of additional cache memory.
There are two motherboard versions: MX5 and MiataGL. The MiataGL revision addresses a PCI DMA issue, incorporates a different ATA controller, includes an integrated QLogic 1040 SCSI host adapter, and adds USB functionality.
Memory architecture features a 144-bit bus (128 bits for data plus 16 bits for ECC) across six DIMM slots arranged in three pairs. It supports unbuffered PC100 ECC SDRAM modules ranging from 32 MB up to a maximum of 1.5 GB. DIMMs must be installed in matched pairs to fully utilize the bus width, with individual module sizes up to 256 MB.