4 ms·

The RISC projects began flying even back when the VAX 8000 was rolling out --in other words, the later VAXes were not seen as final solutions, but pretty much t

by vaxman 3y ago

The RISC projects began flying even back when the VAX 8000 was rolling out --in other words, the later VAXes were not seen as final solutions, but pretty much to keep revenue flowing from incredible demand while they were methodically engineering what would eventually be Alpha. The big internal debate at that time was whether to maintain software compatibility between VAX (which had finally shrunk onto the 78032 chips) and PRISM using hardware or software. Ultimately, the decision was made to break compatibility and build ISA binary translators into the operating system (renamed "Open"VMS). What didKill DEC was the blue blood Board, which had FOMO due to the rise of Microsoft (which, at that time, was still running on the anemic 286/386/486 chips, but still killing it due to NetWare and NETBIOS) which was being led by "one of their own" (sort'a --the estranged son of Rockafeller's lawyer) after having gotten started with just $100K (a kiss goodbye gift after he had dropped out of college?) The little misstep with DEC's first generation of PCs, which were Ken's personal babies, caused him to lose the support of the "desperate" Board and, well, you saw what they did...and One Thing Lead to Another...until: https://tinyurl.com/thatf4ce https://tinyurl.com/thatf4ce

lproven 3y ago
I don't really follow. I wasn't talking about the VAX 8000, but the 9000. Not the same machine, or processor. > What didKill DEC was the blue blood Board, Your weird capitalisation here is confusing me. What is "the blue blood Board"? > the anemic 286/386/486 chips Hang on, what? That's a timspan from the 1980s to the 1990s, from sluggish 16-bits to competitive 32-bit 2nd gen chips that started to obliterate the competition. It's ludicrous to lump all those together. > but still killing it due to NetWare and NETBIOS Not sure what "killing it" means in this context. Not sure why you'd glue Netware and NetBIOS together. Not sure what you're saying at all, in fact. > which was being led by "one of their own" (sort'a --the estranged son of Rockafeller's lawyer) So many weird unclarified allusions! Who? What? Where? Do you want to try again without being cryptic and hinting at things that are not really meaningful to anyone else?
- vaxman 3y ago
  RE: 9000 --All of the non-Alpha VAXes from the 8000 onwards were to support cash flow during the planned transition to what would become Alpha. I should say that is a generalization as I'm totally certain some non-Alpha systems were still needed for solutions that utilized custom hardware or support. RE: "weird capitalization" - "Board" was capitalized because I was referencing a specific board of directors. "Blue blood" was not capitalized because I was characterizing the members of said board. The relevance of making that characterization was to emphasize that those board members were under INTENSE pressure from their peers/ancestors/descendants to achieve at least the level of success that they were all observing coming from Redmond, especially the younger members of their dynasties. I think they were fine with a Pinto-driving living legend like Ken and his armada of actual geniuses (not Geniuses) until Redmond got going. Then FOMO didn't even begin to describe what they were experiencing as "some geeky guy" made hundreds of billions of dollars and became the wealthiest man on Earth, right under their noses. (They've ensured that can never happen again, but I get my account here Closed if I tell how they did it.) RE: 286/386/486 was the end of the original Intel X86 line (without Alpha-infused technology). They were in various stages of being knocked off by Chinese companies like VIA. Microsoft was porting NT away from that ISA (onto MIPS). Pentium came out of left field and scaled like crazy. I'm not sure if/when it's fair to stop attributing Alpha technology to the success of X86. RE: "killing it" --NT on even a Pentium III was no match for a VAXcluster. A network of NT boxes interconnected by "field technicians" into a LAN was. (A "field technician" of that era would have trouble interconnecting VAXes --but they had more than ample capability to setup NetWare and NETBIOS networks in the most unusual ways and places.) In this way, it can be said that WindowsNT (and the budget it gained from legacy NetWare installations) literally connected the VAX to death, not unlike what VAX had been doing to IBM mainframes (and their clones) for sometime. > weird un-clarified Well, you are a good person because when you sense a lack of context, you don't instantly hit downvote (unlike most on Hacker News).
  - lproven 3y ago
    Thanks! I am glad someone appreciates this. :-) I suggest amplifying this with examples, citations and links, and sticking it in a blog post somewhere that people can comment on. OSnews springs to mind. It seems to me that you know a lot of the history here that I don't, and I'm a journo working in this field and a former VAX sysadmin. This stuff is on the point of being lost to history now. It NEEDS to be recorded. And you seem to be a good person to do it. Don't leave it as a few hints in HN comments. Even this response explains a little, but it's a tease: it has no citations, no links, no pointers, and no explanations of anything except my specific questions. You really need to amplify this with 10x more background for a general audience. But PLEASE do so. It needs to be recorded.

by vaxman 3y ago

lproven 3y ago

I don't really follow. I wasn't talking about the VAX 8000, but the 9000. Not the same machine, or processor. > What didKill DEC was the blue blood Board, Your weird capitalisation here is confusing me. What is "the blue blood Board"? > the anemic 286/386/486 chips Hang on, what? That's a timspan from the 1980s to the 1990s, from sluggish 16-bits to competitive 32-bit 2nd gen chips that started to obliterate the competition. It's ludicrous to lump all those together. > but still killing it due to NetWare and NETBIOS Not sure what "killing it" means in this context. Not sure why you'd glue Netware and NetBIOS together. Not sure what you're saying at all, in fact. > which was being led by "one of their own" (sort'a --the estranged son of Rockafeller's lawyer) So many weird unclarified allusions! Who? What? Where? Do you want to try again without being cryptic and hinting at things that are not really meaningful to anyone else?

vaxman 3y ago
RE: 9000 --All of the non-Alpha VAXes from the 8000 onwards were to support cash flow during the planned transition to what would become Alpha. I should say that is a generalization as I'm totally certain some non-Alpha systems were still needed for solutions that utilized custom hardware or support. RE: "weird capitalization" - "Board" was capitalized because I was referencing a specific board of directors. "Blue blood" was not capitalized because I was characterizing the members of said board. The relevance of making that characterization was to emphasize that those board members were under INTENSE pressure from their peers/ancestors/descendants to achieve at least the level of success that they were all observing coming from Redmond, especially the younger members of their dynasties. I think they were fine with a Pinto-driving living legend like Ken and his armada of actual geniuses (not Geniuses) until Redmond got going. Then FOMO didn't even begin to describe what they were experiencing as "some geeky guy" made hundreds of billions of dollars and became the wealthiest man on Earth, right under their noses. (They've ensured that can never happen again, but I get my account here Closed if I tell how they did it.) RE: 286/386/486 was the end of the original Intel X86 line (without Alpha-infused technology). They were in various stages of being knocked off by Chinese companies like VIA. Microsoft was porting NT away from that ISA (onto MIPS). Pentium came out of left field and scaled like crazy. I'm not sure if/when it's fair to stop attributing Alpha technology to the success of X86. RE: "killing it" --NT on even a Pentium III was no match for a VAXcluster. A network of NT boxes interconnected by "field technicians" into a LAN was. (A "field technician" of that era would have trouble interconnecting VAXes --but they had more than ample capability to setup NetWare and NETBIOS networks in the most unusual ways and places.) In this way, it can be said that WindowsNT (and the budget it gained from legacy NetWare installations) literally connected the VAX to death, not unlike what VAX had been doing to IBM mainframes (and their clones) for sometime. > weird un-clarified Well, you are a good person because when you sense a lack of context, you don't instantly hit downvote (unlike most on Hacker News).
- lproven 3y ago
  Thanks! I am glad someone appreciates this. :-) I suggest amplifying this with examples, citations and links, and sticking it in a blog post somewhere that people can comment on. OSnews springs to mind. It seems to me that you know a lot of the history here that I don't, and I'm a journo working in this field and a former VAX sysadmin. This stuff is on the point of being lost to history now. It NEEDS to be recorded. And you seem to be a good person to do it. Don't leave it as a few hints in HN comments. Even this response explains a little, but it's a tease: it has no citations, no links, no pointers, and no explanations of anything except my specific questions. You really need to amplify this with 10x more background for a general audience. But PLEASE do so. It needs to be recorded.