DEC Multia

The Multia, later re-branded the Universal Desktop Box, was a line of desktop computers introduced by Digital Equipment Corporation on 7 November 1994. The line is notable in that units were offered with either an Alpha AXP or Intel Pentium processor as the CPU, and most hardware other than the backplane and CPU were interchangeable. Both the Alpha and Intel versions were intended to run Windows NT.

The Multia had a compact case that left little room for expansion cards and restricted air flow, which can cause premature hardware failure due to overheating if not properly cared for. Enthusiasts remedy this by placing the Multia vertically instead of horizontally, allowing the heated air to escape via vents at the top, although this still requires preventing the Multia from overheating due to other factors, e.g. environmental.

The Alpha Multias included either an Alpha 21066 or Alpha 21066A microprocessor running at 166 MHz or 233 MHz respectively, and came with 16 or 24 MB of RAM as standard (expandable to 128 MB officially, but in practice 256 MB). Because the 21066 was a budget version of the Alpha 21064 processor, it had a narrower (64-bit versus 128-bit) and slower bus and thus performance was roughly equivalent to a Pentium running at 100 MHz for integer operations, but superior in floating-point; furthermore, the standard RAM capacity was a severe restriction on the performance of these workstations. The Alpha-based Multias came with the TGA (DEC 21030) graphics adapter.

Standard peripherals on both Alpha and Intel models included a SCSI host adapter, DEC 21040 Ethernet controller, two PCMCIA slots, two RS-232 ports, a bi-directional parallel port, a 2.5 in or 3.5 in SCSI or ATA hard disk (340 MB to 1.6 GB), PS/2 keyboard and mouse ports, and a PCI slot (on models with 2.5-inch hard disks).

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