[Info-vax] Part number encoding

[William Webb]

On Sat, Dec 26, 2009 at 11:29 PM, Richard B. Gilbert
<rgilbert88 at comcast.net> wrote:
> Michael Kraemer wrote:
>>
>> H Vlems schrieb:
>>>
>>> On Dec 25, 11:03 am, Michael Kraemer <M.Krae... at gsi.de> wrote:
>>>
>>>> H Vlems schrieb:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>> I'm guessing here but may be if the first two characters are digits
>>>>> the product code refers to hardware, otherwise it's either software of
>>>>> documentation.
>>>>> The last two characters are either a patch level or a (hardware)
>>>>> variant of the product. Software was issued on various media, called H-
>>>>> kits.
>>>>> The reason was that all media kits had product codes that ended in -
>>>>> Hn.  When n was 9 you got 9 track PE magtape.
>>>>> Hans
>>>>
>>>> Sure?
>>>> All CDs I know of start with "AG" and end with "BE", "RE", "XE" or "BS",
>>>> be it for VMS, DUNIX or Ultrix.
>>>
>>>
>>> Of course I'm not sure. The term H-kit was invented well before a cd
>>> was even thought of!
>>
>> well, they could have kept the old nomenclature.
>> -HC for a CD kit for example.
>>
>>> And by the time they were, it was to distribute music.....
>>
>> When did the CD appear, 1981/83?
>> And when was the first time that software was shipped on CD?
>>
>
> I think MAYBE 1985.  One big problem was that existing machines did not have
> CDROM drives and, in many cases, could not be economically retrofitted with
> CDROM.
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I know for a fact that VMS/VAX 5.5-2H4 shipped as a dual-media kit: CD
and TK50.  Or was it TK85?

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