DEC indulged an enormous number of also-rans. It is from the perspective of 2025 that we remember some of the good stuff and forget all the bizarre mis-fires.

DEC indulged an enormous number of also-rans. It is from the perspective of 2025 that we remember some of the good stuff and forget all the bizarre mis-fires. Off the top of my head: * Two duplicate "high-end" VAX architectures (VAX 8000 vs VAX 9000), because no one wanted to choose between CMOS and ECL * Three duplicate systems targeted at the high-end (Alpha, VAX 9000, VAX 8000) * Two duplicate RISC+UNIX systems, because DEC was extremely late to market (MIPS 3000/5000 series vs Alpha) * Two duplicate UNIX software packages, because DEC was really late to market (1970s ULTRIX ported to MIPS, OSF/1 on Alpha, and the never-fucking-released OSF/1 on MIPS because DEC just could not get their shit together) * Four duplicate low end systems (MIPS, PDP-11, NVAX, Alpha were all sold simultaneously at the same price point!) * A dozen utterly-failed microcomputer projects (Pro/3xx, Rainbow, etc) DEC was not a particularly well-managed company. Their approach, for decades, was "throw shit at the wall and see what sticks." This worked fine right up until it didn't work at all. It is also worth noting that Alpha, the "good" DEC initiative, was a failure. It lost a lot of money! market share never got out of the single digits.