Digital Equipment Corporation
                                               Maynard, Massachusetts 01754-2571

Editorial contact:

Marianne Mills
(508) 568-5102

Lisa Lipson
(508) 568-4352

                  ALPHA IS LAUNCHED INTO THE VOLUME WINDOWS NT
                 PC MARKET WITH LOW COST 21164PC MICROPROCESSOR

       Under-$300 High-Performance Chip to Enable Alpha PCs Under $2,600

MAYNARD, Mass.  --  March  17,  1997  --  Digital  Equipment  Corporation  today
announced the low-cost, high-performance Alpha 21164PC microprocessor,  designed
to enable Alpha PCs for less  than  $2,600  in  the  volume  Windows NT  desktop
market.

The Alpha 21164PC, co-designed with Mitsubishi  Electric  Corporation,  will  be
marketed and sold by Digital Semiconductor, Mitsubishi and Samsung  Electronics.
The processor will run at  400MHz,  466MHz  and  533MHz  and  deliver  estimated
performance  ranging  up  to  14.3  SPECint95  and  17.0  SPECfp95,  twice   the
performance of a comparable Pentium Pro  processor.  The  Alpha  21164PC-400MHz,
-466MHz, and  -533MHz  will  be  sold  by  Digital  for  $295,  $395  and  $495,
respectively, in quantities of 1,000.

"This low cost, high-performance chip is a dramatic milestone for  Alpha,"  said
Ed Caldwell, vice president, Digital Semiconductor. "We are  delivering  on  our
key strategic advantages: leadership performance, Windows compatibility and now,
competitive  PC  market  pricing.  For  PC   OEMs,   Alpha   provides   critical
differentiation in the  market  --  OEMs  can  build  outstanding  graphics  and
multimedia systems at PC prices. For end users, they can enjoy the  benefits  of
high-performance computing at PC prices."


Windows NT Volume Opportunity

With the growing market acceptance of the Windows NT  operating  system,  strong
Microsoft  commitment  to  Alpha,  more  than  1,800  native  Alpha   Windows NT
applications, and 32-bit Windows compatibility through Digital FX!32 translation
technology, Alpha is well positioned to be a leading contender in the Windows NT
market. Industry analysts view Windows NT as a volume market, topping 40 million
units by the turn of the century.

"We are extremely pleased to bring the Alpha 21164PC to market  with  our  Alpha
partners, Mitsubishi and Samsung. We believe the growing Windows NT market  will
provide volume opportunities for each company." said Ed Caldwell. "This  is  the
first Alpha product that will be marketed and sold by all three companies."

"Alpha is now the only alternative processor for  running  Windows NT,  and  the
21164PC offers Alpha-class computing at PC prices," said Martin  Reynolds,  vice
president  of  technology  assessment  application  performance  at   Dataquest.
"Coupled with its workable FX!32 strategy for running  x86  applications  and  a
growing number of native Alpha applications, Alpha is a  viable  choice  for  NT
computing on the desktop."

"The new Alpha 21164PC chip gives Digital a great  opportunity  to  broaden  its
system offerings to include the best of both RISC and CISC worlds for Windows NT
applications at competitive prices," said Jesse Lipcon, vice president,  Systems
Business Unit. "Our customers will be able  to  choose  among  Intel  and  Alpha
clients  and  servers  from  Digital  based  entirely   on   their   application
requirements, and be assured of getting the industry's  best  price/performance.
You can expect Digital to announce  Alpha  21164PC-based  systems  in  the  near
future."


Application Performance

To extend Alpha's tremendous lead in multimedia applications, the Alpha  21164PC
includes new motion video  instruction  (MVI)  extensions.  These  instructions,
added to the base Alpha architecture, accelerate the performance of  video  data
compression algorithms that implement MPEG-1 and  MPEG-2  video  and  prevailing
video conferencing standards. MVI will be offered in all future  generations  of
Alpha products.

Alpha's unsurpassed processing power delivers broadcast  quality  and  real-time
multimedia to applications  at  lightning  speed.  These  applications  include:
creating and rendering 3D images, creating and  processing  Web  content,  video
conferencing and video authoring, as well as electronic and mechanical computer-
-aided  design.  Alpha-based  applications  will  provide  a  higher  level   of
performance in terms of speed and quality. For example, 3D images that can  take
two-and-a-half minutes to render on a Pentium Pro system can be executed in less
than 50 seconds on Alpha.


Customers Announce Support

Alpha customers announcing their intention to use the Alpha  21164PC  in  future
products include: Vobis Microcomputer and Enorex Microsystems, Inc.

"The Alpha 21164PC chip presents a great opportunity for us  to  complement  our
Highscreen PC line with an Alpha PC for Windows NT that  will  offer  very  good
price/performance," Dr. Gert H|gler, president and CEO  of  Vobis  Microcomputer
AG. "Systems based on the Alpha 21164PC chip that are both price-competitive and
excellent performers in visual computing are sure to attract  much  interest  in
European markets."

"Enorex is aggressively bringing Alpha systems into the PC marketplace, and  the
results are very positive," said  Peter  Dolan,  Sales  and  Marketing  Manager,
Enorex Microsystems, Inc. "The new  Alpha  21164PC  chip  greatly  enlarges  our
opportunity to put Alpha's superior performance onto PC desktops."


Availability

Manufactured in a 0.35-micron process, the Alpha 21164PC contains  an  8KB  data
cache and a 16KB instruction cache. It supports from 512KB to 4MB  of  off-chip,
level 2 cache through a high-speed interface. The 21164PC chip is  sampling  now
and will be available in volume in the summer of 1997.


New AlphaPC Motherboard

The  AlphaPC  164SX  motherboard,  also  announced  today,  is  a   cost-focused
motherboard designed to enable production of richly featured,  sub-$2,600  Alpha
PCs. This ATX-form-factor motherboard supports the Alpha 21164PC  processor  and
the 21174 core logic chip. The  board,  which  will  be  available  early  third
quarter, features a 128-bit memory bus, 1MB of SRAM cache, six  I/O  slots  (two
32-bit PCI, two 64-bit PCI, two ISA), and DIMM memory slots which support up  to
512 megabytes of memory.

Digital Semiconductor, a Digital Equipment Corporation business headquartered in
Hudson,  Massachusetts,  designs,  manufactures  and  markets   industry-leading
semiconductor  products  including  Alpha  microprocessors  and  PCI  chips  for
networking, bridging, and multimedia, plus low-power  StrongARM  microprocessors
under license from Advanced RISC Machines Ltd.

Mitsubishi  Electric  Corporation  and  Samsung  Electronics  Company  Ltd.  are
alternate sources for Alpha microprocessors.

Web site: http://www.digital.com/semiconductor

Digital Equipment Corporation is a world leader in open client/server  solutions
from personal computing to integrated worldwide information  systems.  Digital's
scalable Alpha and Intel platforms, storage, networking, software and  services,
together  with  industry-focused  solutions   from   business   partners,   help
organizations compete and win in today's global marketplace.

                                      ####

Note to Editors:  Digital, Digital  Semiconductor,  and  the  Digital  logo  are
                  trademarks of Digital Equipment Corporation.

                  Windows NT is a trademark of Microsoft Corporation.

		  Intel and Pentium are registered trademarks and Pentium Pro is
                  a trademark of Intel Corporation.

                  StrongARM is a trademark of Advanced RISC Machines Ltd.

CORP/97/586
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