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The Noritake family comprises the AlphaServer 1000A (Noritake), built with either EV4 (4/xxx) or EV5 (5/xxx, Noritake-Primo) CPUs; the AlphaServer 800 (Corelle), sold only as 5/xxx models; and the AlphaStation 600A (Alcor-Primo), also 5/xxx only. All have an EISA bus. ¹⁾ The Digital Server 3300 and 3305 are AlphaServer 800 models (see Naming). ²⁾

The AlphaServer 1000A is a revision of the AlphaServer 1000 with most of the EISA slots traded for PCI slots behind a PCI-to-PCI bridge. It was sold as pedestal, rackmount, and cabinet systems. ³⁾

• One CPU on an upgradable daughtercard: 266 MHz 21064A (Model 4/266), or 333 or 400 MHz 21164A (Models 5/333 and 5/400)
• 2 MiB of direct-mapped, ECC protected level 2 cache and 8 KiB of serial ROM on each CPU card
• 128-bit ECC protected memory bus
• Model 4/266: 20 SIMM sockets in banks of five (four data plus ECC); Models 5/333 and 5/400: 16 SIMM sockets in banks of four including ECC
• 4, 8, 16, 32, and 64 MiB SIMMs, 32 MiB to 1 GiB total
• Seven 33 MHz PCI slots, of which slots 11, 12, and 13 are on the primary bus and slots 1 to 4 behind the 21050 PCI-to-PCI bridge; some options are restricted to the primary bus ⁴⁾
• Two 8.33 MHz EISA/ISA slots, both bus master capable
• Onboard fast wide SCSI-2 controller, PCI-to-EISA bridge, 1 MiB of flash ROM, 8 KiB of NVRAM, TOY clock, two serial ports, bidirectional parallel port, floppy controller, keyboard and mouse interface, PC-style speaker
• Onboard SVGA controller on the Model 4/266 only
• Dual SCSI backplane, up to 30.1 GB of internal storage in the pedestal, optional RAID controllers and redundant power supplies ⁵⁾

Except where noted, the following comes from the technical summary. ⁶⁾

• One 21164A at 333, 400, or 500 MHz on a CPU and cache daughtercard, ⁷⁾ with 2 MiB of third-level cache and 8 KiB of serial ROM; the 333, 400, and 500 MHz CPU modules are all EV5.6 ^{8) 9)}
• 256-bit wide ECC protected memory subsystem and a 64-bit PCI bus
• Memory banks on the motherboard, expandable from 32 MiB to 1 GiB
• Three 32-bit PCI slots, one shared 64-bit PCI/EISA slot, and two dedicated EISA slots ¹⁰⁾; the PCI bus runs at 33 MHz and the EISA bus at 8.33 MHz, and the EISA bus also carries the Xbus with the real-time clock, NVRAM, and operator control panel interface
• Onboard SVGA controller with 1 MiB of video RAM, an S3 Trio64 ¹¹⁾
• Onboard fast wide single-ended SCSI controller, a QLogic part ¹²⁾, with an UltraSCSI-ready storage backplane
• Remote management console (RMC) for monitoring the system remotely, plus internal temperature, fan, and status sensors with variable speed fans
• Bidirectional parallel port, two serial ports, keyboard and mouse interface
• Up to four 3.5-inch full-height SCSI devices with hot swap, up to three 5.25-inch half-height devices, and a 3.5-inch floppy drive
• Sold as a pedestal or as a rackmount box taking up to four internal drives

• CPU on a module: the 600A 5/500 reports a 500 MHz 21164A ¹³⁾
• 16 SIMM sockets in four banks of four; memory options of 16, 32, 64, 128, and 256 MiB, for 16 MiB to 1 GiB, with one bank required and all modules in a bank of the same capacity
• Primary and secondary PCI slots plus EISA slots, an onboard SCSI controller, and an onboard graphics controller that the EISA Configuration Utility can disable
• Both SRM and AlphaBIOS, with an os_type environment variable selecting which the NVRAM boots, and a pci_parity variable whose default depends on the SCSI controller revision ¹⁴⁾

Digital sold an upgrade from the AlphaStation 600: the kit replaces the main logic board and the CPU module, and the Alcor memory towers are returned to Digital. ¹⁵⁾

Use the final SRM version for the model: V5.7-80 on the AlphaServer 1000A 5/xxx, V5.8-16 on the AlphaServer 800, and V5.6-114 on the AlphaStation 600A (see final SRM versions and Updating firmware).

Current kernels support the Noritake family members with EV56 (21164A) CPUs (CONFIG_ALPHA_NORITAKE, or a generic kernel), which boot from SRM with aboot. The 1000A 5/300 has a 300 MHz 21164 (EV5), ¹⁶⁾ while the 1000A 5/333 and 5/400, ¹⁷⁾ the AlphaServer 800 5/333, 5/400, and 5/500, ^{18) 19)} and the AlphaStation 600A 5/500 ²⁰⁾ have 21164A (EV56) CPUs. Linux 6.9 was the last version to support the 1000A 4/266 and 5/300; Linux 6.10 removed support for processors older than the EV56 (21164A), along with the EV4 machine vector noritake_mv. ²¹⁾

• There is no MILO for any member of the family. ^{22) 23)}
• A kernel built for the Mikasa platform does not run on a Noritake or the reverse, because the two deliver interrupts differently and the 1000A's built-in PCI-to-PCI bridge needs special handling. ²⁴⁾ A generic kernel supports both.
• Unlike most Alpha systems, the Noritake family has PCI slots behind a PCI-to-PCI bridge that can hold a VGA card. ²⁵⁾
• The onboard SCSI controller is a QLogic ISP1020A on the AlphaServer 1000A ²⁶⁾ and a QLogic ISP1020 on the AlphaServer 800, ²⁷⁾ and uses the qla1280 driver, which loads the firmware file qlogic/1040.bin for these chips (see Known issues). ²⁸⁾
• The AlphaServer 800's onboard S3 Trio64 ²⁹⁾ is supported by the s3fb framebuffer driver. ³⁰⁾
• For a serial console, see Using SRM.
• Debian Ports installed on an AlphaServer 1000A with 512 MiB of memory in 2015. ³¹⁾ In 2023 an AlphaServer 800 5/400 ran Debian Ports kernels; systemd failed with an instruction fault under the SMP kernel but not under the uniprocessor kernel. ³²⁾

• SCSI firmware: Debian's installer images do not include the non-free qlogic/1040.bin firmware that qla1280 needs for the onboard QLogic controller. No report from a Noritake system has been found; a 2026 report from an AlphaServer 1200 (Rawhide) with a QLogic controller had to add the file to the installer's initrd. ^{33) 34)}

Digital announced the AlphaServer 1000A 5/300, with a 300 MHz 21164, on 6 August 1996. ³⁵⁾

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

• AlphaServer 800 CPU speeds and maximum memory
  • AlphaServer 800 Technical Summary, 1997, pp. 1, 3: two CPU cards, 333 and 400 MHz, and "incremental memory expansion from 32 MB to 1 GB"
  • DIGITAL AlphaServer 800 system, 1997: 21164 at 333, 400, and 500 MHz, each with 2 GiB of memory
  • AlphaServer 800 User's Guide, November 1997, pp. 1-3, 1-4: a 21164 at 300 to 500 MHz and memory "from 32 Mbytes to 2 Gbytes"