Uncle Miod's machineroom
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Digital was a major player in the early computer industry, with its successful PDP family, on which the first Unix systems were created.
In 1977, Digital introduced the VAX 11/780, a 32-bit successor to the PDP-11 system. The VAX, with the new VMS operating system, was the first successful 32-bit computer family.
It took quite a while for Digital's management to realize that not all potential customers were interested in VMS, but wanted the performance and reliability of the VAX.
Digital introduced its own BSD Unix derivative, Ultrix, in 1984.
In the '80s, competitors were working hard on RISC architectures to build fast and affordable Unix workstations. Digital started its own RISC processor project, called PRISM. However, poor management choices caused the project to be abruptly cancelled in 1988. Yet Digital had to deliver new products to compensate for the declining VAX market share, and this gave birth to the MIPS-based DECstations.
Realizing the DECstations would only be a short-term solution, a new RISC processor project was started, which lead to the announcement of the Alpha processor in 1992.
Alpha was a 64-bit RISC architecture, with a major design goal of being able to live for 25 years (keep in mind that, when Alpha was introduced, VAX had been living for 15 years and was still - painfully  - keeping up with the competition). Alpha could have indeed lived for 25 years, had Compaq not bought Digital in 1998.
I own, and have owned, many Digital systems. I do not want to get PDP systems, because I am not interested in non-32 bit vintage systems. This only allows for VAX, PMAX (MIPS DECstation) and Alpha systems (Alpha being technically non-32 bit, but also non-vintage by my standards).
Although PMAX systems, in many aspects, can be considered as the missing link between VAX and Alpha systems, they feel impure, being not made of 100% in-house designs.
This is why, after realizing that I had not been using my PMAX systems for 8 years, they deserved a better place to ``live'' than my machineroom, and I have donated all of them to Silicium museum. I still regret not keeping ``my'' Personal DECstation, though.

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Inventory

Here is the current Digital inventory.
In memoriam: gone from the machineroom, but not forgotten.