DEC made excellent hardware. I'm still using a dual processor AlphaServer DS25 full time, in colo, for production hosting and building NetBSD pkgsrc packages:
You and me both. Work got one as a POC and they kinda forgot about it and it landed under my desk...I was then able to wrangle a Pentium upgrade kit for it. It was a beast and incredibly well built.
They also had an excellent field technical staff. After Compaq purchased them it was always a roll of the dice as to whether you were going to get an excellent former DEC technician or an awful Compaq technician. Unfortunately the former DEC technicians quickly disappeared.
https://twitter.com/AnachronistJohn/status/13559959903988817...
It has the updated 21264C-6 (EV68CB) processors, which are still very speedy, all things considered.