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

[Bill Gunshannon]

In article <heir22$a5n$01$1 at news.t-online.com>,
	Michael Kraemer <M.Kraemer at gsi.de> writes:
> Neil Rieck schrieb:
> 
>>>
>>>From the parochial viewpoint of the VMS installed base - what they needed
>>>was faster VAXes.  Not Alpha.
>>>
>> 
>> I'm not sure I agree with these points. In the book "DEC is Dead, Long
>> Live DEC" it was stated that clock-for-clock comparisons between CISC
>> and RISC showed that RISC out performed CISC two-to-one without any
>> special tuning. 
> 
> This is not generally true.
> In 1990 e.g. 68040-based workstations (from HP) were
> roughly on par with Mips-based DECstations and somewhat faster
> than Sparc's. The 68040 executed almost one instruction per cycle,
> just like the contemporary RISCs, and the 68060 follow-up was
> even superscalar. The RISCs, however, were easier to crank up
> clock speed and that was it.
> 
> 
>> Let's also remember that DEC/Compaq sold more Alphas than
>> VAX.
> 
> We had that one before. How many more Alphas than VAX?
> I presume much less than a factor of 2.
> 
>> Apparently Intel has sold more Itaniums than VAX + Alpha combined
> 
> And how many of them run VMS?
> 
>> so the world didn't exactly fall to pieces with the end of VAX.
> 
> Effectively VAX ended with the introduction of Alpha, 1992.

Which brings up an interesting point I may need to do some research
on.  I wonder when Mentec released the last upgraded PDP-11 hardware?
Why do I have a feeling that even the PDP-11 outlasted the VAX.

bill



-- 
Bill Gunshannon          |  de-moc-ra-cy (di mok' ra see) n.  Three wolves
billg999 at cs.scranton.edu |  and a sheep voting on what's for dinner.
University of Scranton   |
Scranton, Pennsylvania   |         #include <std.disclaimer.h>