[Info-vax] Dave Cutler, Prism, DEC, Microsoft, etc.

[Neil Rieck]

On Nov 7, 12:08 pm, Michael Kraemer <M.Krae... at gsi.de> wrote:
[...snip...]

> > I never for a moment thought DEC (pre Palmer) wanted
> > to get rid of Alpha.
>
> How could they, Alpha was announced the same year
> Palmer took over.
>

Not wanting to split hairs here, but I was in attendance at the Alpha
21064 announcement in Toronto, and it was at an industry trade show
Feb-1992. All the handouts were cheap photocopies and most people
wondered if this announcement was for real. I was a real a-hole in
those days (more so than now, anyway) and so jokingly asked if DEC had
any free chip samples. This caused the DEC rep to reach into his
briefcase to hand me a bag of potato chips with a taped-on label of
the space shuttle with the moniker "Alpha Chips". I still have the
unopened bag of chips on top of my book case.

Anyway, the 21064 appeared later that September and Palmer took over
in October. Speaking of a-holes, Palmer was employed by DEC since 1985
so he must have known something of Alpha. The way he decided to sell
off pieces of DEC (like RDB) makes me think he was just a hatchet man.
No company could have survived that many cuts in so short a time
without bleeding to death.

Neil Rieck
Kitchener / Waterloo / Cambridge,
Ontario, Canada.
http://www3.sympatico.ca/n.rieck/