5 ms·
VAX-11/780 maybe a closer comparison, from the same era: 5 MHz cycle time (1 MIPS) 2 MB - 64 MB RAM 8 KB cache Price $120 K I much rather
by jhallenworld 6y ago
VAX-11/780 maybe a closer comparison, from the same era:
5 MHz cycle time (1 MIPS)
2 MB - 64 MB RAM
8 KB cache
Price $120 K
I much rather use VMS or Ultrix than any IBM OS :-)
http://bitsavers.org/pdf/dec/vax/780/EK-11780-UG-001_780hwUG.pdf http://bitsavers.org/pdf/dec/vax/780/EK-11780-UG-001_780hwUG...
http://www.vaxhaven.com/images/0/00/EK-11780-PG-001.pdf http://www.vaxhaven.com/images/0/00/EK-11780-PG-001.pdf
- rjsw 6y agoI don't think many VAX-11/780s were shipped with 64MB RAM, the ones I used had 2 or 4.
- rbanffy 6y agoWhile I do find VMS much more understandable than MVS (it's a completely different branch of the Tree of Computing, as similar to modern PCs as the extremophiles that live next to volcanic chimneys in the bottom of the ocean are to us), I have to say the VAX competed with the much lower end machines in the 370 family. Also, you don't measure a mainframe's capacity in MIPS - The CPU is a small part of the of overall system and a lot of hardware goes to the multiple IO subsystems that offload the main CPUs so that they can keep running your applications while the rest of the system focus on pushing bits in and out of the system. It was considered a "minicomputer", in contrast to a proper computer such as the System/370.
- jhallenworld 6y agoDECSYSTEM-20 is closer to a proper mainframe. It was at least 6x faster than VAX-11/780 on a benchmark I tried in ~1987. Also TOPS-20 was the bomb! http://gordonbell.azurewebsites.net/cgb%20files/evolution%20of%20decsystem%2010%20acm%207801%20c.pdf http://gordonbell.azurewebsites.net/cgb%20files/evolution%20... Sadly it was an anachronistic 36-bit machine with no future..
- rbanffy 6y ago36 bits makes perfect sense if you are thinking in octal.