This reminds me of one of my first jobs. A corporate C coding position about 1989 or so. The 386 had just came out and we had a couple of NCR 386 boxes tha

This reminds me of one of my first jobs. A corporate C coding position about 1989 or so. The 386 had just came out and we had a couple of NCR 386 boxes that cost about $5000 each. I was called into a pretty high up meeting and recommended a new project be done on these as it was more than enough and they would ultimately need to put the hardware in various plants. The VP who made the decision decided to go with a DEC VAX solution at about $250,000 per machine. I couldn't believe it. It was the start of my exit of fortune 500 work. I found out later the DEC rep had taken him on multiple trips to Vegas and the Bahamas. Just they way it was done back then. That company is no longer anywhere near the fortune 500.