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

[Michael Kraemer]

Neil Rieck schrieb:

> On a related topic, DEC management thought PRISM would be late which
> was one of the reasons why DEC decided to switch to MIPS. On P 211,
> the people interviewed claim that PRISM components not killed were
> delivered on time while the new MIPS chips were delivered late 

ex-Prism people badmouthing the Mips decision - no surprise here.
And what does it mean, "... components delivered on time "?
It is my understanding that the VAX workstation business was
under pressure from the (RISC) competitors, so just "components"
would have been not good enough. Mips R2000/R3000 OTOH
were real silicon which could be used in the DECstation series
just in time, 1989. These helped DEC to catch customers
leaving VAX for Unix.

> -AND-
> the MIPS-supplied compilers (which DEC initially was told were
> finished products) were total junk requiring a total rewrite by DEC.

Indeed, the compilers initially shipped with the Ultrix systems
(can't remember whether Mips or DEC) leave something to be desired.
But so did first compilers on Alpha, and ISTR stupid bugs in OSF1
compilers as late as 1996.