The Perfect Computer - 36 bits?
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From: jmfbahciv on 17 Mar 2007 07:32 In article <45fbd301$0$1424$4c368faf(a)roadrunner.com>, Peter Flass <Peter_Flass(a)Yahoo.com> wrote: >jmfbahciv(a)aol.com wrote: >> >> The Alpha was getting started to become a "raional" >> system. VAX was junk. Then, as with TOPS-10, DEC essentially >> canned VMS. Custoemers who were very happy with VMS on Alpha >> saw the signs and did the intelligent thing and moved to another >> architecture. This was in the 90s. > >I liked the VAX architecture very much. It was really a >"programmer-oriented" instruction set, maybe one of the last. VMS just >wasn't a TOPS-10/-20 replacement system. I wasn't talking about hardware. I was talking about systems. There is a difference. /BAH
From: Quadibloc on 17 Mar 2007 08:34 Peter Flass wrote: > I liked the VAX architecture very much. It was really a > "programmer-oriented" instruction set, maybe one of the last. VMS just > wasn't a TOPS-10/-20 replacement system. It does seem to have been one of the last. Certainly the Itanium can't be called programmer-oriented. Neither the 386 architecture, nor any of the RISC systems can really be called that either. The 68020 architecture wasn't oriented to programmers to the extent the VAX was, but it was something that could reasonably be programmed directly - it was comparable to the "ordinary" computer architectures of the past. I consider this a big enough improvement to praise it as programmer-oriented because I don't think it worthwhile to go for the higher level of programmer orientation that mandates microprogramming. The Intel 432 was considered another programmer-oriented machine. However, since it forbids flat arrays larger than 64 K, I can't take it seriously. John Savard
From: Stephen Fuld on 17 Mar 2007 09:35 jmfbahciv(a)aol.com wrote: > In article <64zKh.153484$5j1.81907(a)bgtnsc04-news.ops.worldnet.att.net>, > Stephen Fuld <S.Fuld(a)PleaseRemove.att.net> wrote: >> jmfbahciv(a)aol.com wrote: >> >> snip >> >>> But the question here isn't about style but why (or how) >>> these managers assumed that customers could be dicated to >>> as if they were subordinates. >> Come on Barb. You know the answer to that. > > :-) > >> They assumed that because >> it was a good assumption because it was quite often true for over the >> previous three decades! When these managers were coming up, IBM was so >> dominant that they *could* dictate to customers and most of them would >> "obey". Note that I am not commenting on the value or goodness of the >> situation, nor of its applicability to the different environment of the >> DEC marketplace (where it clearly wasn't nearly as effective), just >> answering your question. :-) > > It made us a lot of money. IBM didn't mind because we were their > anti-monopoly cushion. Well, "lot" is a relative thing. A lot to DEC was pretty small to IBM. > >> I am making the assumption >>> that most managers knew that products were being made and >>> sold to other people. >> Yes, but in small enough numbers that they could be largely ignored. > > I sometimes wonder if you moved them all to a mill environment > if that kind of self-maintained ignorance would be erased. I think you stated earlier that when the IBM managers moved to DEC, they didn't change their attitude and that they changed DEC (and hurt it). I don't know what the "truth" was, but you seem to already know the answer to your "wonder". -- - Stephen Fuld (e-mail address disguised to prevent spam)
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler on 17 Mar 2007 11:31 jmfbahciv(a)aol.com writes: > All of this cancelling stuff...when did this happen? I don't want > a year; I want a contect of the state of the economy at the time. > (I don't know a better way to write the question). re: http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007f.html#25 The Perfect Computer - 36bits? early '76 ... the issue on cancelling vm370 and moving the resources to getting mvs/xa out the door ... wasn't particularly tied to the general economy ... it was that the corporation had been so focused on turning out FS (as a 360/370 replacement) ... that the 360/370 product pipeline was bare. wiki article mentioning first VAX (11/780) was introduced on 25OCT77. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenVMS the sidetrack into FS, also helped (360/370) clone processors to gain some ground. then when FS was finally cancelled, there was a realization that several years of "lost time" (in 360/370 product area) had to be made up. http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007f.html#26 The Perfect Computer - 36bits? lots of past posts mentioning FS http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#futuresys one of the final nails in the FS coffin was report by the Houston Science Center ... something about if you took ACP/TPF running on 370/195 and moved it to equivalent FS machine (made out of fastest hardware then available) ... the thruput would appprox. be that of running ACP/TPF on 370/145 (i.e. something like 20 to 30 times slower). a few other refereces to FS ... which i've previously posted, can be found here: http://www.ecole.org/Crisis_and_change_1995_1.htm from above: IBM tried to react by launching a major project called the 'Future System' (FS) in the early 1970's. The idea was to get so far ahead that the competition would never be able to keep up, and to have such a high level of integration that it would be impossible for competitors to follow a compatible niche strategy. However, the project failed because the objectives were too ambitious for the available technology. Many of the ideas that were developed were nevertheless adapted for later generations. Once IBM had acknowledged this failure, it launched its 'box strategy', which called for competitiveness with all the different types of compatible sub-systems. But this proved to be difficult because of IBM's cost structure and its R&D spending, and the strategy only resulted in a partial narrowing of the price gap between IBM and its rivals. .... snip ... i.e. focusing on high-level of integration as countermeasure to the clone controllers & device business ... as previously mentioned, I've been blaimed for helping start (project worked on as undergraduate in the 60s). http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#360pcm The decision to shutdown the burlington mall group and move everybody to POK had been made, but it appeared that the people weren't going to be told until just before they had to be moved ... leaving people with little or no time to make the decision and/or make alternative plans. Then there was a "leak" ... and a subsequent "witch hunt" attempting to identify the source of the leak ... this created a very chilling effect walking down the halls of the old SBC bldg (which had been emptied and the people moved after the settlement with CDC ... before the vm370 development group moved in). previous post mentioning the "witch hunt" http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006o.html#51 The Fate of VM - was: Re: Baby MVS??? part of filling the gap in 360/370 (hardware) product pipeline was the 303x processors. as i've mentioned before, the 303x "channel director" was repackaged 370/158 engine with the 370/158 integrated channel microcode (and w/o the 370/158 370 microcode) as independent processor. Then the 3031 was a repackaged 370/158 (with only the 370 microcode and no integraged channel microcode) coupled with a (external) "channel director". The 3032 was repackaged 370/168 coupled with one (or more) channel directors. The 3033 started out as 370/168 wiring diagram mapped to chips that were faster (than the ones used in the 168). The chips were about 20% faster which would have made the 3033 about 20% faster than 168. The chips also had a lot more circuits/chip ... which originally were to go unused. Somewhere in the cycle there was targeted effort to redesign critical pieces of logic to make better use the denser circuits (doing more "on-chip" in each chip). This eventually resulted in the 3033 shipping out at about 50% faster than 168-3 (instead of only 20% faster) some earlier posts mentioning 303x channel director http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007b.html#18 How many 36-bit Unix ports in the old days? http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007d.html#21 How many 36-bit Unix ports in the old days? http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007d.html#62 Cycles per ASM instruction http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007e.html#32 I/O in Emulated Mainframes
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler on 17 Mar 2007 11:57
krw <krw(a)att.bizzzz> writes: > Predictions of doom and gloom weren't hard to come by. Akers was > running the company into the ground by, among other things, borrowing > money to pay the dividends. It wasn't too hard to see where that was > going. > > Oh, and it's easy making such unfavorable statements when you're > golden. ;-) re: http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007f.html#24 The Perfect Computer - 36 bits? are you referring to me? maybe datamation had an article mentioning something to that effect .... however, i never saw any such stuff. it possibly more was a situation that after demonstrating some immunity to not having career, promotions and/or raises ... there wasn't a lot left that they could do (except out and out fire you). it was more akin to Boyd's quote ... in this post http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007.html#20 MS to world: Stop sending money, we have enough - was Re: Most ... can't run Vista except I appeared to have been afflicted long before I met Boyd. another related reference: http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007e.html#48 time spent/day on a computer |