[Info-vax] When was the peak of Layered Products

[Richard B. Gilbert]

jls wrote:
> On Thu, 5 Mar 2009 15:04:31 -0800 (PST), johnwallace4 at yahoo.co.uk
> wrote:
> 
>> On Mar 5, 8:23 pm, urbancamo <m... at wickensonline.co.uk> wrote:
>>> I found this list of retired products from 2002:
>>>
>>> http://www.software.ufl.edu/cslg/portfolio/VMS-RETIRED-APR02.TXT
>>>
>>> Can anyone tell me what DECLEARN and DECDESIGN were?
>>>
>>> Interesting stuff so far - it would be nice to compile a list of 'the
>>> best of DEC software'...
>>>
>>> Regards, Mark.
>> Don't know about DEClearn, but DECdesign was a software design tool,
>> for use on workstations. I don't know its origins, but I do know that
>> workstations in general were very very slow to arrive internally in
>> many DEC field offices (if you couldn't do it with ALL-IN-1, it didn't
>> need doing, according to the end user IT people), which made DECdesign
>> and other workstation-based products almost invisible outside the
>> specialist workstation groups.
>>
>> ... [snip]
> 
> A couple of my absolute favorites were DECwrite, DECchart, and
> DECplan.
> 
> DECplan, in particular, was WAY ahead of its time.  I'm not sure we
> see anything like its capabilities even yet today in most PM products.

DEC had some very nice software, but who could afford it?  A business 
doesn't buy "DECwhiz" because it's nice or clever or ahead of its time.
It's expected to, at least, pay for itself!  ISTR that, ca. 1984, ANY 
compiler for a VAX 11/750 cost $5000 after educational discount!  It 
would have been nice to have C, PL/1, and a bunch of other software but 
it was totally out of reach.  DEC relented on pricing a year or two 
later and it became possible to get some of the software tools!