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The DEC 3000 TURBOchannel workstations, the DEC 4000 Futurebus+ server, and the DEC 7000 and DEC 10000 LSB servers are Digital's first Alpha systems, predating PCI. ^{1) 2)}

The DEC 3000 series was the first Alpha workstation. ³⁾ The Models 300 are Pelican, the 400, 600, and 700 Sandpiper, and the 500, 800, and 900 Flamingo; the Models 700 and 900 have EV45 CPUs. ⁴⁾

The fastest model, the Model 900 of August 1994, has a 275 MHz 21064A with 2 MiB of cache, 32 MiB to 1 GiB of memory, two 10 MB/s Fast SCSI-2 controllers, and six 100 MB/s TURBOchannel slots, one of them taken by the graphics card. ⁵⁾

To the operating system the Pelican, Sandpiper, and Flamingo variants are much the same machine. The Models 400 and 500 differ only in the enclosure and the number of TURBOchannel slots, the 600, 800, and 900 share the same basic design, and all the Flamingo and Sandpiper variants use the kernel configuration identifier DEC3000_500. ⁶⁾

• Memory: the Model 400 takes up to 512 MiB ⁷⁾ and the Model 500 1 GiB with 32 MiB SIMMs (MS15-FA), with sizes mixed only between banks. ⁸⁾ On the Model 600 a bank of eight SIMMs is the top, or the bottom, row across all four memory daughter cards. ⁹⁾
• SCSI: models up to the 500 run their SCSI buses at a fixed 5 MB/s. The Model 600 and later can run each bus at 5 or 10 MB/s, set by the console variables FAST_SCSI_A (internal) and FAST_SCSI_B (external). Of the TURBOchannel SCSI option cards, the PMAZB is fixed at 5 MB/s and the PMAZC is selectable. ¹⁰⁾
• Graphics: the video connector on the TURBOchannel graphics cards is a 3W3 D-sub, the size of a DB15 with three coaxial sockets. ¹¹⁾
• Audio: the workstations have 8 kHz mono audio. ¹²⁾

The DEC 4000 is code-named Cobra and Fang. ¹³⁾ The DEC 4000 Model 600 series is built around the KN430 CPU module, which "houses the DECchip 21064 processor", with up to two of them in a symmetric multiprocessing configuration. The system bus carries "a 34-bit address or a 128-bit data with 32-bit parity in a single cycle", and the arbitration logic and system bus clock generators live on the CPU 1 module. ¹⁴⁾ A second KN430 must be at the same firmware level as the first, or the two may run different PALcode. ¹⁵⁾

• One to four ECC memory modules, with "memory interleaving across two or four modules of like sizes"
• The I/O module carries one or two Ethernet ports, each switchable between thickwire and ThinWire, a Futurebus+ Profile B interface, 512 KiB of FEPROM for the console and diagnostic firmware, a DS1287 time-of-year clock, and two serial lines, one of them the console
• The I/O daughter board adds four SCSI-2/DSSI buses for external fixed-media devices, each taking up to seven devices, and one SCSI-2 bus for internal removable and fixed media ¹⁶⁾

The DEC 7000 and 10000 (Ruby) have up to six CPUs. ¹⁷⁾ The DEC 7000 was also known as Laser, ¹⁸⁾ and the DEC 10000 as Blazer. ¹⁹⁾ The CPU is the KN7AA module. ²⁰⁾

• DECchip 21064 at a peak clock rate of 200 MHz, in single or multiprocessor configurations
• 4 MiB physically addressed, direct-mapped, write-back backup cache (B-cache)
• LSB system bus, connecting CPUs, memory, and the I/O port (IOP) module; all backplane slots except slot 8, which is reserved for the IOP, take CPU or memory modules, and the first CPU should be in slot 0
• Runs OpenVMS AXP and DEC OSF/1 AXP

A populated LSB bus holds "one to six processor nodes, one to seven memory nodes, and a single I/O port node". ²¹⁾ I/O hangs off the IOP as plug-in units (PIUs) filling cabinet quadrants: XMI, Futurebus+, VAXBI, and DSSI or SCSI disk PIUs. ²²⁾

The console is SRM, with per-processor prompts: set cpu 1 designates the CPU in slot 1 as the primary and the prompt changes from P00>>> to P01>>>. show configuration lists the LSB slots by module, and set host connects to a device's own diagnostic utilities. ²³⁾

A DEC 7000 could be upgraded in its cabinet to an AlphaServer 8400 by changing the centerplane. ²⁴⁾

The Model 600 needs console firmware V3.0 or later. ²⁵⁾ The firmware CD carries three DEC 3000 images, one for the Model 300 series, one for the 400, 600, and 700, and one for the 500, 800, and 900, matching the Pelican, Sandpiper, and Flamingo families. ²⁶⁾ On the Model 400 the firmware update jumper can only be reached by nearly dismantling the machine. ²⁷⁾

The Ethernet port is chosen at the console with set ethernet thick or set ethernet tenbt, on the DEC 4000 as well. ²⁸⁾

No Linux kernel has supported these systems.

• Linux's TURBOchannel drivers are platform-independent, but support for the DEC 3000 core chipset was never written. ²⁹⁾ Attempts at a port in 1999 and plans in 2009 did not result in support. ^{30) 31)}
• NetBSD supports the TURBOchannel systems. ³²⁾

• Machine check 0x660: on the Model 300 this is a parity error on a DMA read from memory by the onboard SCSI controller, usually from the memory SIMMs or the backup cache on the CPU daughter card. ³³⁾

The DEC 3000 ran OpenVMS and DEC OSF/1, and never ran Windows NT, for which it had neither ARC firmware nor a HAL. ³⁴⁾ The first Alpha system to ship with an ARC console was the DECpc AXP 150. ³⁵⁾ Tru64 UNIX support ended with V5.0A on the DEC 3000; see Tru64 UNIX.

The following sources conflict with each other or with the account given above. They are listed here for further investigation.

• DEC 3000 Model 900 CPU
  • "Rackmount DEC 3000 Model 900 AXP Servers and Workstations", Customer Update, biz.digital.articles, 1 Aug 1994, gives the CPU as "DECchip 21064" at 275 MHz.
  • "DEC 3000 Model 900 AXP Workstation Info Sheet", DECnews for Education, biz.digital.articles, 10 Aug 1994, gives "21064A/275 MHz".
• DEC 3000 codename
  • "XL-266 install", Jay Estabrook, axp-list, 25 Feb 2004, refers to the "3000, aka Flamingo".
  • Alpha AXP System Reference Manual, Version 6, p. D-2, gives Flamingo only for the Models 500, 800, and 900.
  • "Re: Alpha codenames?", Stephen Carpenter, comp.unix.osf.osf1, 4 May 1993, quoting Digital's UK UNIX support: "Flamingo = DEC 3000 Model 500 / Sandpiper = DEC 3000 Model 400 / Pelican = DEC 3000 Model 300"