[Info-vax] Out with Hurd, in with OpenVMS

[Neil Rieck]

On Aug 16, 8:29 am, m.krae... at gsi.de (Michael Kraemer) wrote:
> In article <97902402-bbe4-451c-b542-0e978865a... at x25g2000yqj.googlegroups.com>,
>
> Neil Rieck <n.ri... at sympatico.ca> writes:
>
> > The only difference between IBM and DEC is that Palmer carved up the
> > company, sold off pieces, then sold the remainder to Compaq.
>
> That was of course not the only difference.
>
> > Parts of the book dwell upon the competition between PRISM (the
> > project to move to 64-bit RISC) vs. Aquarius (the water cooled
> > VAX-9000). Many of DEC's VPs advised Olsen that numerous customers
> > wanted Aquarius which turned out to be false.
>
> So who did lie?
> The VP's to Olsen?

Yes. Apparently their sales-channel thought they could make quick
commissions by just doing more of the same. Unlike people like Gordon
Bell, these VPs were not computer people. Bell wrote that the computer
industry goes through a major change every 10 years (or so) so the end
of VAX was in site and DEC needed to do PRISM.

> The customers to the VP's by telling
> them they would buy VAX9000 (and didn't when it came out)?
> Or was it more like the VP's only asked
> special customers and ignored the rest?
>
> > Of special interest is
> > Appendix-E titled "What Happened? A Post Script" written by Gordon
> > Bell.
>
> > In the book "Showstopper! The Breakneck Race to Create Windows NT and
> > the Next Generation at Microsoft (1994) by G. Pascal Zachary" we learn
> > some things about what happened after a fraction of the PRISM team
> > begins working at Microsoft. Of special interest is the reaction by
> > Intel to some of Culter's hardware demos and recommendations. From
> > what I can tell, the DECies may have had almost as big an influence on
> > Intel as they did at Microsoft.
>
> Such as? Whenever I look at M$ products, nothing reminds me of VMS.

According to pages 61-69, the OS which would eventually be called
Windows-NT was built on custom hardware built by Cutler's group at
Microsoft. It was based upon a mobo built around the i860 (an Intel
RISC chip) which Cutler deemed to be fundamentally flawed. It was
thought that this was done on purpose because some key people at Intel
didn't want to see their flag-ship x86 line destroyed.

(see the book "In Search of Stupidity" which warns about the dangers
of having two product lines of a company compete with each other;
Intel was unable to do this if it is true that they were limiting the
power of non-x86 chips; Gates was able to allow the Windows-NT product
line (DECies) compete against the Windows-9x line (MICROSOFTies) with
each other).

But don't take my word for it. Anyone interested in this debate should
really read:
1) "DEC is Dead, Long Live DEC"
2) "Showstopper! The Breakneck Race to Create Windows NT and the Next
Generation at Microsoft (which was recently re-published in 2009(

Neil