5 ms·

DEC Number #2 in computing during the 80's, bought by Compaq, bought by HP and now almost unknown. How the mighty fall.

by boznz 2y ago

nobody9999 2y ago
>DEC Number #2 in computing during the 80's, bought by Compaq, bought by HP and now almost unknown. How the mighty fall. Ken Olsen had a flair for being a bit over the top -- which makes the following quite amusing given how things worked out: One of the questions that comes up all the time is: How enthusiastic is our support for UNIX? Unix was written on our machines and for our machines many years ago. Today, much of UNIX being done is done on our machines. Ten percent of our VAXs are going for UNIX use. UNIX is a simple language, easy to understand, easy to get started with. It's great for students, great for somewhat casual users, and it's great for interchanging programs between different machines. And so, because of its popularity in these markets, we support it. We have good UNIX on VAX and good UNIX on PDP-11s. It is our belief, however, that serious professional users will run out of things they can do with UNIX. They'll want a real system and will end up doing VMS when they get to be serious about programming. With UNIX, if you're looking for something, you can easily and quickly check that small manual and find out that it's not there. With VMS, no matter what you look for -- it's literally a five-foot shelf of documentation -- if you look long enough it's there. That's the difference -- the beauty of UNIX is it's simple; and the beauty of VMS is that it's all there. -- Ken Olsen, President of DEC, 1984 Source: https://motd.ambians.com/quotes.php/name/freebsd_fortunes/toc_id/1-0-2/s/77 https://motd.ambians.com/quotes.php/name/freebsd_fortunes/to...
- vasco 2y ago
  Does anyone know what the name of this old VMS documentation is? I'd like to have a search for it so I could see if I can find a copy. Specially if it's 5 feet of old technical docs, I collect this type of thing.
  - nobody9999 2y ago
    >VAX/VMS documentation
  - jasomill 2y ago
    Generally speaking, "ProductName Version documentation set", where ProductName is one of "VAX/VMS", "VMS", or "OpenVMS", broken up into a variety of sets, subsets, and volumes. Taking VMS V5.5 as an example, for the complete set, you want the "Extended Set (with Base Set)", order number QA-001AA-GZ.5.5[1]. If I'm counting correctly, this set consists of 143 titles, which is probably closer to 25 feet than 5. Even if you go back as far as V1.5, the complete set still included around 50 titles[2] — I can't find a list for V1.0 — and unlike the V5.5 set, this one wasn't available on CD-ROM. [1] http://bitsavers.informatik.uni-stuttgart.de/pdf/dec/vax/vms/5.5/AA-LA95D-TE_Overview_of_VMS_Documentation_V5.5_Nov1991.pdf#page=31 http://bitsavers.informatik.uni-stuttgart.de/pdf/dec/vax/vms... [2] http://bitsavers.informatik.uni-stuttgart.de/pdf/dec/vax/vms/1.5/VMS_1.5_Manuals.txt http://bitsavers.informatik.uni-stuttgart.de/pdf/dec/vax/vms...
    - vasco 2y ago
      Thank you so much!
Suzuran 2y ago
When you get so big that you think you can start telling your customers what they want instead of listening to them, this is what happens. Novell did the same thing with small/medium business LANs. In DEC's case, they thought they could become IBM by hiring people that IBM either fired or didn't hire. This in turn led to telling the customer what they wanted since that's how they thought IBM's sales process worked. We all know where that ended up. The story is old as the hills and the result is always the same. Boeing is going through it right now; They absorbed the McDonnell Douglas corporate culture and forced out everyone who didn't agree, and now the same chickens that sank McDonnell Douglas are coming home to roost at Boeing.

DEC Number #2 in computing during the 80's, bought by Compaq, bought by HP and now almost unknown. How the mighty fall.

by boznz 2y ago

DEC Number #2 in computing during the 80's, bought by Compaq, bought by HP and now almost unknown. How the mighty fall.

>DEC Number #2 in computing during the 80's, bought by Compaq, bought by HP and now almost unknown. How the mighty fall. Ken Olsen had a flair for being a bit over the top -- which makes the following quite amusing given how things worked out: One of the questions that comes up all the time is: How enthusiastic is our support for UNIX? Unix was written on our machines and for our machines many years ago. Today, much of UNIX being done is done on our machines. Ten percent of our VAXs are going for UNIX use. UNIX is a simple language, easy to understand, easy to get started with. It's great for students, great for somewhat casual users, and it's great for interchanging programs between different machines. And so, because of its popularity in these markets, we support it. We have good UNIX on VAX and good UNIX on PDP-11s. It is our belief, however, that serious professional users will run out of things they can do with UNIX. They'll want a real system and will end up doing VMS when they get to be serious about programming. With UNIX, if you're looking for something, you can easily and quickly check that small manual and find out that it's not there. With VMS, no matter what you look for -- it's literally a five-foot shelf of documentation -- if you look long enough it's there. That's the difference -- the beauty of UNIX is it's simple; and the beauty of VMS is that it's all there. -- Ken Olsen, President of DEC, 1984 Source: https://motd.ambians.com/quotes.php/name/freebsd_fortunes/toc_id/1-0-2/s/77 https://motd.ambians.com/quotes.php/name/freebsd_fortunes/to...

vasco 2y ago
Does anyone know what the name of this old VMS documentation is? I'd like to have a search for it so I could see if I can find a copy. Specially if it's 5 feet of old technical docs, I collect this type of thing.
- nobody9999 2y ago
  >VAX/VMS documentation
- jasomill 2y ago
  Generally speaking, "ProductName Version documentation set", where ProductName is one of "VAX/VMS", "VMS", or "OpenVMS", broken up into a variety of sets, subsets, and volumes. Taking VMS V5.5 as an example, for the complete set, you want the "Extended Set (with Base Set)", order number QA-001AA-GZ.5.5[1]. If I'm counting correctly, this set consists of 143 titles, which is probably closer to 25 feet than 5. Even if you go back as far as V1.5, the complete set still included around 50 titles[2] — I can't find a list for V1.0 — and unlike the V5.5 set, this one wasn't available on CD-ROM. [1] http://bitsavers.informatik.uni-stuttgart.de/pdf/dec/vax/vms/5.5/AA-LA95D-TE_Overview_of_VMS_Documentation_V5.5_Nov1991.pdf#page=31 http://bitsavers.informatik.uni-stuttgart.de/pdf/dec/vax/vms... [2] http://bitsavers.informatik.uni-stuttgart.de/pdf/dec/vax/vms/1.5/VMS_1.5_Manuals.txt http://bitsavers.informatik.uni-stuttgart.de/pdf/dec/vax/vms...
  - vasco 2y ago
    Thank you so much!

Suzuran 2y ago

When you get so big that you think you can start telling your customers what they want instead of listening to them, this is what happens. Novell did the same thing with small/medium business LANs. In DEC's case, they thought they could become IBM by hiring people that IBM either fired or didn't hire. This in turn led to telling the customer what they wanted since that's how they thought IBM's sales process worked. We all know where that ended up. The story is old as the hills and the result is always the same. Boeing is going through it right now; They absorbed the McDonnell Douglas corporate culture and forced out everyone who didn't agree, and now the same chickens that sank McDonnell Douglas are coming home to roost at Boeing.