5 ms·

Yes. There was a level of quality and thought put into the systems that I haven't experienced since. Just to provide some more contrast... Just about every oth

Yes. There was a level of quality and thought put into the systems that I haven't experienced since. Just to provide some more contrast... Just about every other system had to be rebooted daily or every few days. The problem with VMS was the hardware. Eventually the pain of being on slow, expensive machines allowed other companies to take more share. By the time the Alpha systems were ready, the Pentium (and soon Pentium Pro) was suprising every OS vendor.

nickpsecurity 11y ago
"Just to provide some more contrast... Just about every other system had to be rebooted daily or every few days." That's the biggest point I push on it: architecture and development processes that worked in terms of reliability. It didn't emerge after billions of investment in whatever wasn't working. Just teams working 9a-5p building stuff, testing it, reviewing it, polishing it. And it totally worked. "By the time the Alpha systems were ready, the Pentium (and soon Pentium Pro) was suprising every OS vendor." People of the time period told me it was a combo of hardware and licensing cost. They said OpenVMS still cost a fortune while Windows and UNIX's (esp BSD's) were "good enough." That is, DEC & Compaq seemed to ignore the lessons of Worse is Better essay about the market power of an imperfect, mostly-working solution. They might have gotten further lowering their price alone. Maybe still have to target commodity hardware, though.