Time for more DEC PCs! For these I've done away with the DEC CRTs - the older one is either too new or too old for all of these machines, while the newer one has issues so I've packed it back away. Instead I'm using an obviously wrong 17" Panasonic CRT from the late 90s.
DECstation 325sx
20MHz Intel 386SX, 4MB RAM (the max the machine will take), onboard Western Digital WD90C00-LK 512KB VGA, 40MB Conner Type 17 IDE hard disk, Digital DE200 NIC. Running a retail copy of Windows 3.0 and the OEM copy of MS-DOS 4.01.01.
More info and photos...
This was DECs attempt to get back into the PC market. The entire DECstation line was built by Olivetti in Europe and Tandy for the rest of the world, and this one is clearly built by Tandy. I can't find any information on when this particular model was introduced, just that it was sometime after the DECstation line of PCs were introduced on 11 January 1989. This particular one is probably from late 1990 or early 1991 based on the BIOS versions. This thing also doesn't have a ROM-based BIOS setup program - you've got to boot DOS and run it from there which makes things pretty inconvenient when the 3.6V Lithium Thionyl Chloride battery is flat.
DECpc 325sx LP
25MHz AMD 386SX (soldered), 16MB RAM (4x 4MB 30pin SIMMs), onboard Oak OTI-067 VGA, Quantum Prodrive LPS 52AT, Digital DE200 NIC. Running the OEM copy of MS-DOS 5.0 and Windows 3.1 (which has been modified by DEC).
More info and photos...
This is a rather obscure machine with very little information out there visible to Google that wasn't written by me. As far as I can tell there were two versions of the 325sx LP - one with Oak graphics sold in the Asia-Pacific region from April 1992, and one with Cirrus Logic graphics introduced with the rest of the DECpc Line and sold world-wide from August 1992.The April 1992 machines appear to have been DEC testing the market to see how well their new PC strategy would work. Original prices in April 1992 were AU$2,660 or S$2,599 with a 14" monitor, DOS 5.0 and Windows 3.0.
I've got two of these machines, one working and one with probably irreparable battery damage. While these use a Rayovac 840 alkaline battery rather than your typical Varta, the Rayovac battery was velcroed directly to the motherboard making the result of a leaking battery no better than had it been a Varta.
These machines also have an unusual power button arrangement. They use the same push-in/push-out switch most AT-compatibles use, but the switch is mounted inside the PSU and operated via a steel rod connected to the button on the front of the case. The rod is kept aligned with the power switch using a rubber tube which, after 30 years, has completely disintegrated. I ended up just rolling up some paper and wrapping it with tape as a replacement.
![]()
DECpc 340dx LP
40MHz AMD 386DX, 8MB RAM, 128K secondary cache, Quantum ProDrive ELS 100MB (original drive is unreliable), Onboard S3 924 VLB 512K, Digital DE200 NIC. This one was built in September 1992 and is shown running the OEM copy of DOS 5 and Windows 3.1 as the 325sxLP
More info and photos...
The DECpc LP line launched properly in late August 1992 (ignoring those 20/25Mhz 386s from April '92), with a 33Mhz 386 at the low end and a 66MHz 486DX2 at the top. All models except the 33Mhz 386 have the CPU on a daughter card for easy upgrades, with the 486 CPU cards also having a vacancy socket allowing a CPU upgrade by just installing the new one - no need to pry the old one out of the non-ZIF socket (assuming its socketed - the 486SX model seems to be soldered). The battery and PSU switch situation are the same as those previous 386 DECpc LP machines with the same fixes.
I have a second example of this machine, a 433dxLP, but its never worked as long as I've had it - it just gives a few beeps in a weirdly low tone.
Digital Prioris LX 575
75MHz Pentium, 40MB RAM, a hard disk of some kind, integrated Cirrus Logic GD5428 ISA SVGA, integrated Adaptec 7850 PCI Fast/narrow SCSI II, integrated PCI Digital 21040 10Mbps Ethernet. Pictured running... nothing. This machine isn't entirely happy right now - the battery in the RTC chip has failed which causes more problems than normal due to the EISA bus. The PSU also needs some attention as it turns itself off after a while. A few years ago I was using this machine for messing around with Windows NT 3.1 so its also got a 3Com Etherlink III installed (I couldn't find drivers for the onboard Ethernet that would work in NT 3.1)
More info and photos...
The Prioris LX 575 was announced in June 1995 starting at US$3,000 replacing the Prioris MTE. This is of course a low-end server with 3x EISA slots, 2x PCI slots and 1x shared PCI/EISA slot. The CPU and RAM lives on a card that slots in above the top PCI slot. Apparently there was a 486DX-2 CPU card for these too.
The integrated graphics is suitable for the text-based UI of Novell NetWare or doing occasional admin work on Windows NT Server, but if you were to actually use this machine as a workstation you'd want to put a real PCI graphics card in it.
Digital AlphaStation 200 4/166
Unlike the rest of the machines here, this isn't a PC and it doesn't have an x86-compatible CPU. Instead its got DECs own Alpha 21064 "EV4" 64bit processor at 166MHz. Its also got 144MB RAM, an IBM DCAS-34330 4GB SCSI hard disk, Toshiba SCSI CD-ROM, onboard Digital 21040 Ethernet, Integrated AnalogDevices AD1848KP SoundPort Audio, and a PCI Digital ZLXp-E1 TGA graphics card (DECchip 21030-AA).
More info and photos...
The AlphaStation 200 4/166 was introduced in November 1994 with prices starting at US$6995 (US$14,381 in 2023) for a machine with Windows NT 3.50, a 340MB hard disk, CD-ROM drive and 16MB of RAM. It was also available running Digital UNIX and Digital OpenVMS Alpha.
This is a better example of what Digital was known for - things that are very much not PCs. While its pictured running Windows NT Workstation 4.0, it does not have an x86-compatible CPU. Instead its running the 32bit Alpha port of Windows and out of the box is not capable of running any regular PC software. Digital released a utility, FX!32, which packages an x86 emulator with a binary translator allowing PC software to run with a performance hit that decreases overtime as FX!32 translates the x86 machine code to Alpha reducing the amount that runs under emulation.
Digital PC 3100 AKA Venturis FX-2
200MHz Pentium MMX, 32MB RAM, 2GB Western Digital Caviar 2200, integrated S3 Trio64V2/GX graphics, Digital DE450 PCI NIC
More info and photos...
Introduced in May 1997 replacing the earlier Venturix FX line, these machines shipped with either a Pentium MMX or AMD K6 processor. In October 1997 DEC switched all all of their desktop and server PCs to more generic names with the Venturis FX-2 becoming the Digital PC 3100.
This particular machine was missing its PSU when I got it, and the CMOS battery hadn't been moved very carefully (clip bent), and the CPU fan was seized. Its now running with a new Startech Socket 7/370 cooler and the PSU out of a dead Venturis FX-2. The hard disk, which was just floating around in the case (normally mounted to the PSU) still contained the OEM install of Windows 95 OSR2.
The keyboard is looking a little less yellow compared to its previous appearance alongside the Digital PC 3500 - its spent a bit of time out in the strong New Zealand summer sun and it turns out that does work for deyellowing plastic!
I think thats about it for the DEC PCs. The two remaining PCs I have is a big Prioris HX or something, and a HiNote VP that I'm waiting on a PSU for to see if it works.
