[Info-vax] Vaxes shutting off this week

[Michael Moroney]

billg999 at cs.uofs.edu (Bill Gunshannon) writes:

>In article <goeb8m$fr6$2 at pcls6.std.com>,
>	moroney at world.std.spaamtrap.com (Michael Moroney) writes:
>> 
>>>   Hmm.. I wonder what would have happened had VAX continued on the path 
>>>   and then did what all of the other processors had to do get more 
>>>   through-put, go multi-core with more front-end cache...
>> 
>>>   Hmm.. I wonder what would have happened had PDP-11 continued on the path 
>>>   and then did what all of the other processors had to do get more 
>>>   through-put, go multi-core with more front-end cache...
>> 
>> A big difference is that the PDP and the VAX ran their courses and were
>> discontinued at an appropiate time.  

>Some people might not agree with that notion.  PDP-11 development was
>continued long after Dec sold it off to Mentec.  And I mean processor
>development, not just OS and software support.  And many people here
>have suggested that while Alpha was a great idea there was a place for
>VAX to continue as well.  The world never went completely RISC and the
>VAX was probably better than any other non-RISC processor.

Somewhat supports my claim.  The PDP-11 was allowed to make money for
pretty much as long as it was able to, for somebody.  But being restricted
to 64K of memory at once is a big restriction, except for smaller control
modules. (how much memory is really needed for a computer-controlled 
traffic light even with lots of sensors to operate?  How about your
microwave?)  The VAX was a great non-RISC instruction set and was widely
taught between the PDP-11 era and when x86 PCs were so ubiquitous.

Alpha was outright killed.  Its good stuff has been incorporated into the
x86 and Itanics, the rest of it is now in a vault which nobody has the
combination for.

>>                                     Alpha was killed when it was pretty
>> much the fastest processor.  Who knows what may have happened if EV8 and
>> EV9 and beyond saw daylight?  However, Alpha was apparently a real "cash
>> furnace" which is why it got killed in the first place.

>Not sure what you mean by a "cash furnace" but if that means burning lots
>in cost while returning littel in profits I would not only disagree but
>also have to ask, what of it's supposed replacement?

I got that term from someone who worked in the Alpha development side of
things for Digital/Compaq.  He always used that phrase.  It seemed the
cost of continued development of Alpha, when divided by the relatively
small number of Alphas actually sold (mostly to Digital/Compaq itself) was
huge, and an ongoing cash loss for the company.

As to its supposed replacement, maybe that was the real reason for 
switching to a non-DEC/CPQ processor, so some other company would have
to pay for their own furnace.