DEC Multia / UDB (Universal Desktop Box)  DEC Multia  The
Digital Equipment Multia was DEC's attempt to build a network-
friendly workstation that was more of a "network computer" as
originally conceived by Larry Ellison of Oracle - where the
computer was a CPU and memory and display, with little else, and
storage was mostly on the server side. The idea was to make them
cheap, yet powerful enough to do real work on.  DEC designed a
really small machine. It was meant to run a variety of OSes (NT
for Alpha, Linux, True-64 Unix and OpenVMS(sort of)), although
the Intel-based version may support more OS options. In an
effort to squeeze the most amount of computer into the smallest
possible space, DEC cut a lot of corners, and ended up using
more "laptop" technology than anything else. From the 2.5" HD
and ultra-thin floppy, 2 PCMCIA slots, and everything else built
into the motherboard, the Multia really resembled a double-thick
laptop (sans keyboard and display) inside and out.
Unfortunately, laptops aren't real