The Perfect Computer - 36 bits?
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From: david20 on 28 Mar 2007 12:47 In article <RoWdnSbeC5-WwJfbnZ2dnUVZ8saonZ2d(a)bt.com>, Andrew Swallow <am.swallow(a)btopenworld.com> writes: >jmfbahciv(a)aol.com wrote: >> In article <k8idnfPPHuSawZTbRVnyjAA(a)bt.com>, >> Andrew Swallow <am.swallow(a)btopenworld.com> wrote: >>> krw wrote: >>>> In article <DZSdnaHeS49TzpTbnZ2dnUVZ8tXinZ2d(a)bt.com>, >>>> am.swallow(a)btopenworld.com says... >>>>> krw wrote: >>>>>> In article <fqWdnV-JLsRJ_ZXbRVnyiAA(a)bt.com>, >>>>>> am.swallow(a)btopenworld.com says... >>>>>>> Morten Reistad wrote: >>>>>>> [snip] >>>>>>> >>>>>>>> DEC _did_ come back with the alpha, just as soon as they had managed >>>>>>>> to deVAXify their brains. Except, by then the trust in the company had >>>>>>>> evaporated. >>>>>>> The only sensible use for the Alpha was to run microcode as a VAX. >>>>>>> When chip manufacturing technology allowed CISC CPUs on a single chip >>>>>>> the cost advantages of RISC were over. >>>>>> I think you'll find there are a few people who will disagree with >>>>>> you. >>>>>> >>>>> Probably but were they customers of DEC? >>>> Every Alpha ran VAX microcode? Dunno, never seen a real live Alpha. >>>> >>> The Alpha was the replacement for the VAX, so a lot of the software >>> running on the Alpha was VAX/VMS software. The software was either >>> recompiled or run using a software emulators. >> >> I have a plaque given to JMF for his Alpha work. It is customary >> for applications to be recompiled when going from one architecture >> to another. This is a fact today. >> >>> So a 500 MHz Alpha >>> ran like a 50 MHz VAX with expensive ram. >> >> YOu are grasping at straws. The emulator was a method to help >> customer go from one architecture to the other. >> I'm coming to the conclusion that you are not interested in learning >> a damned thing. > >No. I am telling you how DEC committed suicide. > >The customers did not ask to change architectures. In effect they did. VAX/VMS systems cost a lot more but provided worse performance than the competive RISC based UNIX systems. Hence many customers were moving to those competitors. Although DEC could have lowered it's prices it was difficult to see how to increase VAX performance in the long term to compete. DEC also wanted to move from 32bit to 64bit. Hence it made sense to move from VAX to the RISC based 64bit ALPHA. Note. DEC didn't just drop the VAX. Indeed the NVAX+ systems which came out at the same time as the Alphas really pushed VAX performance but it was still worse than Alpha. The only real problem with the migration from VAX to ALPHA were 1) The decision to have radically different VMS code-bases which made porting new Alpha features back to VAX extremely difficult. 2) The dropping of lots of layered software products which were simply not ported across to Alpha. 3) The lack of an adequate migration path for their Unix users. In a fair number of instances VAX users could fund their move to Alpha out of maintenance savings on their old VAX systems. However if they didn't want to move to Alpha DEC provided new VAX systems for a a long period after Alpha was established. Contrast this to HP's(/Compaq's) move of the DEC customers to Itanium 1) Alpha development killed off before any systems running on Itanium 2) Itaniums perceived as slower than Alphas 3) Tru64 killed off. Features of Tru64 promised to be incorporated in HP-UX. Features NOT incorporated in HP-UX. 4) Alpha end of sale date announced without consideration being given to how many important software products had yet to be ported to Itanium. eg ORACLE for VMS was still not ported a month before the end of sale date. (End of sale date then extended a while after the previous end of sale date had passed. End of sale is now end of April this year). About the only good thing that they learned from DEC was that Alpha and Itanium have the same VMS codebase. David Webb Security team leader CCSS Middlesex University >Every cent spent changing architecture was a cent was that gave the >customer a good reason for not buying an IBM computer or a PC clone. >These conversion costs were 10 to 100 times the cost of say a Data >General computer. Any competitor had to charge at least $1 million >less for his machine than DEC's price for a VAX/VMS. Difficult when >DEC was charging $120,000 for its product. > >This cost of conversion gave DEC its monopoly. > >When DEC forced its customers to buy a rival to the VAX they could >chose the Alpha or a real rival. The real rivals were cheaper and >had polite support organisations. > >Andrew Swallow
From: David Powell on 28 Mar 2007 13:48 In article <Stydndude4YPyJTbRVnygAA(a)bt.com>, Andrew Swallow <am.swallow(a)btopenworld.com> in alt.folklore.computers wrote: >jmfbahciv(a)aol.com wrote: [big snip here] >>> We are talking LSI-11 vs 8086. Even if DEC did not sell to the consumer >>> market the $1000 business computer on every desk market is enormous. >> >> And I'm telling you, again, that DEC did not have the infrastructure >> to handle that support. DEC's main business was not retail-ish. > >Neither did IBM, so IBM created a new distribution infrastructure. > Do you remember Hamilton Rentals, or Rapid Recall? They were the two distributors appointed by DEC (United Kingdom) in the early 1980s to sell the small LSI-11 etc stuff. >DEC sold to the technical part of companies - so the salesmen, >warehouses and trucks needed in the first year existed. > Trucks with tail-lifts to move VAXes, LSI-11 stuff came in small cardboard boxes delivered by the postman on his pushbike. :) Regards, David P.
From: Andrew Swallow on 28 Mar 2007 14:15 David Powell wrote: > In article <Stydndude4YPyJTbRVnygAA(a)bt.com>, > Andrew Swallow <am.swallow(a)btopenworld.com> in [snip] > > Do you remember Hamilton Rentals, or Rapid Recall? They were the two > distributors appointed by DEC (United Kingdom) in the early 1980s to > sell the small LSI-11 etc stuff. > >> DEC sold to the technical part of companies - so the salesmen, >> warehouses and trucks needed in the first year existed. >> > > Trucks with tail-lifts to move VAXes, LSI-11 stuff came in small > cardboard boxes delivered by the postman on his pushbike. :) When delivering one at a time the post may do but 20 off LSI-20 at a time the trucks are better. Andrew Swallow
From: Nick Maclaren on 28 Mar 2007 15:11 In article <9gal035ncoglbdnvkd8m7odgl59o2opg9b(a)4ax.com>, David Powell <ddotpowell(a)icuknet.co.uk> writes: |> |> Do you remember Hamilton Rentals, or Rapid Recall? They were the two |> distributors appointed by DEC (United Kingdom) in the early 1980s to |> sell the small LSI-11 etc stuff. Not personally, but many of my colleagues used them. Regards, Nick Maclaren.
From: Morten Reistad on 28 Mar 2007 15:12
In article <eudjec$8qk_001(a)s970.apx1.sbo.ma.dialup.rcn.com>, <jmfbahciv(a)aol.com> wrote: >In article <u75cue.3mm2.ln(a)via.reistad.name>, > Morten Reistad <first(a)last.name> wrote: >>In article <euauli$8qk_001(a)s961.apx1.sbo.ma.dialup.rcn.com>, >> <jmfbahciv(a)aol.com> wrote: >>>In article <crh9ue.mc82.ln(a)via.reistad.name>, >>> Morten Reistad <first(a)last.name> wrote: >>>>In article <56qh33F29t3i0U1(a)mid.individual.net>, >>>>Del Cecchi <cecchinospam(a)us.ibm.com> wrote: >>>>>Andrew Swallow wrote: >>>>>> jmfbahciv(a)aol.com wrote: >> >>The trust was by then long gone. They had imploded once before. > >It had nothing to do with trust. The signals were sent. It was >in the plans. The fact that the software still exists is, I believe, >entirely due to the workers under the covers. Their efforts will >probably never be recognized nor admired. Yes, DEC alunmi has contributed a lot to computing, both in hardware, software and networking. It has mostly been despite DEC management, not because of it. >>>>Snake oil, may 17th and all that. >>>> >>>>We keep harping on this. I have wondered why. I think this is a discussion >>>>of today's dangers by proxy. >>> >>>Yes. It also has to do with excellence. Doing a job well does not >>>guarantee longevity; there will always be somebody or something >>>that will destroy it. >> >>It means you cannot rely on external forces from your organisation to >>keep excellence. You must have control. > >It means that you have to have some way to get rid of those who >are in control and destroying the company. We never figured out >how. I was looking from the other side. If your software is critically important for your business you must be prepared to reimplement all the necessities for that software from other vendors. >>>>The important lesson from the events is that you should never, ever >>>>have a single source for the equipment that runs your business critical >>>>systems. Even if it is DEC, IBM, HP or a similar blue-chip giant. >>> >>>Please, please, please include software in this. You also have >>>to consider the software. The computer biz is depending on essentially >>>two pots for software; one of them can be expected to screw you up >>>and the other still needs some evolution. >> >>Software is a part of it, but software goes nowhere without a >>system to run it on. This is also why later software have been so >>extensively based on portable compilers. >> >>Bliss software was dead May 18th 1983. > >BLISS was always dead. It was a horrible mess; I always thought >this was due to having a university implementing it without >the constraints of constant feedback from varied customer usages. That was a bait specifically for you. ;-> >>>>Because even DEC folded on us. Not as spectacularly as International >>>>Harvester a century before, but enough to shake us all. >>>> >>>>DEC was a company with a reputation far ahead of today's HP or Microsoft. >>>>Somewhat like a reconsituted IBM of today, or Intel, or Apple. These >>>companies >>>>are/were blue-chip giants that constitute a core of IT technology. >>>> >>>>But the lesson is that if DEC can implode, so can they. >>> >>>People keep assuming that it was a goal to stay in business. It >>>was not from all the evidence I saw. >> >>If the moves DEC management did were done without a goal of a >>going concern the managers would have been guilty of several crimes. >> >>The presumption of a going concern is part of all bookkeeping and >>exchange listing. You must be very careful about stating what parts >>of the company you plan to liquidate or wind down. > >It was getting stated. All those parts that were sold off were part >preparing for the Compaq deal; at least that was my assumption. >Note that I was not working during that time and was watching >from the outside in. All the clues were in the Wall Street Journal >from their first sale of bonds to the sales of the sites that >were profitable. Selling the company is not contrary to a going concern, the buyer would want it to continue. So dressing up for a sale is not contrary to business practice. Planning to terminate major parts of a company _are_ contrary to accounting practice, and must be clearly flagged in the reports. >>>>The lesser ones all imploded. Wang, Prime, Norsk Data, ICL, Honeywell, >>>>NCR, Siemens, DG and more all imploded in that decade. In our guts, >>>>we kind of expected somesuch to happen. It was DEC that shook us. >>>> >>>>Today we wouldn't be much shaken if HP/Compaq, Dell, Lenovo, TCI, Via, Sun, >>>>or even AMD implodes. It will be momentarily painful for us as customers, >>>>but we will migrate elsewhere. Workers and PHB's can follow the business >>>>that moves without too much trouble. >>>> >>>>It is when outfits like Apple, IBM, Intel or Microsoft folds that we >>>>are shaken, all of us. >>>> >>>>The lesson from DEC is that it can happen. >>>> >>>>Always have a Plan B. >>> >>>And plans C, D, E, F, ...., Z, omega. >>> >>>You're missing software aspect in this post :-). >> >>Software is just a necessary part of the systems. > >No. I'm not writing clearly again :-(. Software is invisible. >You cannot detect when something is wrong until _after_ the >event. In a lot of cases (I've seen them) there isn't any >going back to just before the mess began. For instance, >losing sources. In these scenarios the software is part of a larger system. Knowledge of the incantations to make a piece of hardware obey, as well as the production line of that hardware, is just as important as the software. And all are worthless if the production environment disappears. >>>The reason, I think, that this thread drift has happened is >>>because of an assumption that, if the PDP-10 was "no good", >>>one shouldn't make a new CPU architecture that includes >>>it's good ideas. What people refuse to believe is that >>>a company would shutdown a product line that made money >>>and was wanted^Wdemanded by its customers. It happened. >> >>We see it happen again with MS Vista. Those customers don't >>have a Plan B, and will be just as burnt as we were. >> >>But I have told them for a decade that it will happen. > >I still haven't heard much about this one. The gamers aren't >bitching. Lastest pc press blurbs. Vista only runs around 80 of 150 identified critical XP applications. -- mrr |