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

[Michael Kraemer]

Phillip Helbig---undress to reply schrieb:
> In article <i4lj8j$icg$02$1 at news.t-online.com>, Michael Kraemer
> <M.Kraemer at gsi.de> writes: 
> 
> 
>>I don't think the price gap between Alpha hardware
>>and contemporary RISC hardware (POWER,PA,Sparc,Mips)
>>was a factor of ten. With the advent of Alpha,
>>which happened about the same time Palmer became
>>boss, DEC started to charge more reasonable prices.
> 
> 
> Most definitely not.  DEC, HP, IBM, SGI and SUN were all similarly
> priced, hardwire-wise.  IIRC even software costs were approximately the
> same.  Compiler licenses etc might have been more with DEC, but then the 
> compilers were better.

Is there any metric to confirm this?
DEC's compilers on new platforms had their
own bunch of V1.0 bugs, just like those
of the other vendors.
Ultrix/Mips C and Fortran were infamous for
their bugs. Fortran on VMS/alpha could give
you a lot of "fun" when it was new.
OSF/1's C syntax parser still stumbled on almost trivial
sources, as late as 1995 or 96, i.e. ca 4 years
after its introduction.

I think the myth of DEC's superior software quality
is just that, an urban legend.

> I think what hurt DEC the most was the move to unix, which was mainly 
> down to DEC not marketing VMS strongly enough,

No, it was mainly due to Unix' strength.
Trying to stop that would have been like
trying to stop digital cameras by marketing
analog cameras "stronger".
I.e. as effective as p*ssing into the wind.

> in particularly not 
> taking steps to stop the move away from VMS in academia. 

Mission impossible. Academia was Unix' strongest supporter.

> Of course, 
> academia itself doesn't make a profit, but most people don't stay in 
> academia and later decide what to buy.
>