The Perfect Computer - 36 bits?
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From: jmfbahciv on 29 Mar 2007 09:29 In article <tl7n03h8uppujai6ck0ap794okqulb9i71(a)4ax.com>, Brian Inglis <Brian.Inglis(a)SystematicSW.Invalid> wrote: >fOn Wed, 28 Mar 07 11:16:23 GMT in alt.folklore.computers, >jmfbahciv(a)aol.com wrote: > >>In article <46099974$0$18859$4c368faf(a)roadrunner.com>, >> Peter Flass <Peter_Flass(a)Yahoo.com> wrote: >>>jmfbahciv(a)aol.com wrote: >>>> >>>> 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. >>>> >>> >>>Even IBM decided they didn't want to be in this business. >> >>I've spent quite a bit of my thinking time trying to figure out >>how to do the single task of software support with 200 million >>systems. I still don't have it. Micshit is trying by using the >>internet and edictive practices. That's not working either. >> >>Number one rule is to not ship security holes and have a backout >>plan when you do. >> >>I haven't thought of any way to do this. Micshit's answer is an >>"as is" which was anathema to the manufacturers of the past. > >Ahem, manufacturers didn't do software support: they did production and >maintenance. <ahem> But DEC did do software support for the products it did ship. This was part of our corporate folklore. It would ahve been unthinkable to sell millions of _systems_ with no followup. It simply was not in our blood to do this. If the customers wanted us to leave them alone, we did. However, the reverse was never true. >A few inhouse staff did the software support, complained to the >manufacturer occasionally, mostly got some response, rarely got changes >made, if it followed the strategic direction (on the mini products). >The same model would have worked for personal workstations, with the >customer being responsible for most support. That implies that all sources are shipped with the toy. You people are talking about a product line that made acquiring sources a miracle. >DEC FE supported their terminals Terminals did not run OSes. We knew how do hardware in that number but not systems. Do you understand the difference between a piece of gear and a _system_? <snip> /BAH
From: Nick Maclaren on 29 Mar 2007 09:39 In article <eugeh6$8qk_004(a)s879.apx1.sbo.ma.dialup.rcn.com>, jmfbahciv(a)aol.com writes: |> |> >As do many other systems. That can help, but didn't/doesn't help in the |> >cases I am thinking of. |> |> Would address break have helped in those cases? Assume you could |> define a mask and break on write. No. In many cases, NO form of breakpoint could work on any current operating system or hardware. These were mostly not on DEC hardware, but my point about microfiche was generic. In a couple, I was trying to track down problems that occurred in the first-level interrupt handler. In several, I was working as an application programmer on a multi-user system. In one case, I was doing both at once - but the microfiche WAS enough for that one! In other cases, the overhead would have been such as to crash the system; I had no option but to reduce the number of traps before enabling them. And, in still others, the location was generated dynamically in a way that was too variable for the limited debugger. Under VMS, there was a decent debugger; under Ultrix and (later) OSF/1, I never found one (but didn't look very hard, as I was a user not an administrator). Regards, Nick Maclaren.
From: jmfbahciv on 29 Mar 2007 09:32 In article <716n03dfp130mbs5bge8tbknp4v78sh1pa(a)4ax.com>, Brian Inglis <Brian.Inglis(a)SystematicSW.Invalid> wrote: >fOn 27 Mar 2007 08:43:47 GMT in alt.folklore.computers, >nmm1(a)cus.cam.ac.uk (Nick Maclaren) wrote: > >> >>In article <byrnsj-FDFD08.19484226032007(a)newsclstr02.news.prodigy.com>, >>John Byrns <byrnsj(a)sbcglobal.net> writes: >>|> >>|> I always thought DEC should have extended the PDP-11 to 32 bits and >>|> skipped the VAX. The PDP-11 was a very elegant design whose fatal flaw >>|> was its 16 bitness, while the VAX seemed overly complex to me. >> >>The PDP-11 never made much impact as a 'general' computer, especially >>in the commercial arena, whereas the PDP-10 and PDP-20 did. The VAX >>was intended to capture the latter market and, in the research arena, >>it did. > >They did a good commercial business with 11/70s running RSTS/E, IAS, >RSX-11D as departmental minis, but growing companies wanting to get away >from file processing, use databases, handle more users and functions, >without proliferating machine counts, had no growth path with Digital. Of course they did. Why do you think we sold PDP-10s? <snip> /BAH
From: jmfbahciv on 29 Mar 2007 09:34 In article <eug7lj$k64$1(a)gemini.csx.cam.ac.uk>, nmm1(a)cus.cam.ac.uk (Nick Maclaren) wrote: > >In article <716n03dfp130mbs5bge8tbknp4v78sh1pa(a)4ax.com>, >Brian Inglis <Brian.Inglis(a)SystematicSW.Invalid> writes: >|> >|> >The PDP-11 never made much impact as a 'general' computer, especially >|> >in the commercial arena, whereas the PDP-10 and PDP-20 did. The VAX >|> >was intended to capture the latter market and, in the research arena, >|> >it did. >|> >|> They did a good commercial business with 11/70s running RSTS/E, IAS, >|> RSX-11D as departmental minis, but growing companies wanting to get away >|> from file processing, use databases, handle more users and functions, >|> without proliferating machine counts, had no growth path with Digital. > >Yes, they did, but those sales had far less impact than their numbers >imply. I don't know precisely why - the above may be one reason, and >another may have been that a lot of them were sold into the very laid >back (a.k.a. happy hacker) end of the market, which was and is very >volatile. It could be the way DEC tracked the sales. PDP-10 product line never got any "credit" for all the minis it sold. /BAH
From: Nick Maclaren on 29 Mar 2007 09:54
In article <eugf8g$8qk_003(a)s879.apx1.sbo.ma.dialup.rcn.com>, jmfbahciv(a)aol.com writes: |> |> >|> They did a good commercial business with 11/70s running RSTS/E, IAS, |> >|> RSX-11D as departmental minis, but growing companies wanting to get away |> >|> from file processing, use databases, handle more users and functions, |> >|> without proliferating machine counts, had no growth path with Digital. |> > |> >Yes, they did, but those sales had far less impact than their numbers |> >imply. I don't know precisely why - the above may be one reason, and |> >another may have been that a lot of them were sold into the very laid |> >back (a.k.a. happy hacker) end of the market, which was and is very |> >volatile. |> |> It could be the way DEC tracked the sales. PDP-10 product line |> never got any "credit" for all the minis it sold. I was actually thinking from the customer end, but cannot say which was the chicken and which the egg. Regards, Nick Maclaren. |