The Multia, later re-branded the Universal Desktop Box, was a line of desktop computers introduced by Digital Equipment Corporation

Digital Equipment Corporation

Digital Equipment Corporation was a major American company in the computer industry and a leading vendor of computer systems, software and peripherals from the 1960s to the 1990s...

 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

Central processing unit

The central processing unit is the portion of a computer system that carries out the instructions of a computer program, to perform the basic arithmetical, logical, and input/output operations of the system. The CPU plays a role somewhat analogous to the brain in the computer. The term has been in...

, and most hardware other than the backplane

Backplane

A backplane is a group of connectors connected in parallel with each other, so that each pin of each connector is linked to the same relative pin of all the other connectors forming a computer bus. It is used as a backbone to connect several printed circuit boards together to make up a complete...

 and CPU were interchangeable. Both the Alpha and Intel versions were intended to run Windows NT

Windows NT

Windows NT is a family of operating systems produced by Microsoft, the first version of which was released in July 1993. It was a powerful high-level-language-based, processor-independent, multiprocessing, multiuser operating system with features comparable to Unix. It was intended to complement...

.

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.