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

[John Wallace]

On Aug 23, 3:27 pm, "Richard B. Gilbert" <rgilber... at comcast.net>
wrote:
> Bob Koehler wrote:
> > In article <i4monp$je... at online.de>, hel... at astro.multiCLOTHESvax.de (Phillip Helbig---undress to reply) writes:
> >> I think what hurt DEC the most was the move to unix, which was mainly
> >> down to DEC not marketing VMS strongly enough, in particularly not
> >> taking steps to stop the move away from VMS in academia.  Of course,
> >> academia itself doesn't make a profit, but most people don't stay in
> >> academia and later decide what to buy.
>
> >    The move to UNIX came at great pain when UNIX was running on RISC,
> >    making VMS on VAX not price/performance competitive.  The move
> >    from VAX to Alpha came after all those customers underwent all that
> >    pain, and did not give them reason to go back to VMS.
>
> ISTR that the new RISC machines were regarded as both faster and
> cheaper.  That's a tough combination to beat!
>
> >    I knew a lot of people who crunched numbers, and notes when the
> >    VAX 9000 came out at about $1,000,000 it was performance competitive
> >    with $40,000 RISC workstations.
>
>

Faster and cheaper doing what?? If what you wanted to do was crunch FP
numbers, Alpha was quite good at that, and reasonably cost
competitive. If what you wanted to do was run a business class
database, Alpha was quite good at that, and reasonably cost
competitive. If what you wanted to do was run certain niche NT
applications fast, Alpha was quite good at that (if the app vendors
could be motivated to join in), and quite cost competitive.

If what you wanted to do was run commodity x86 Windows apps cheaply
without them being recompiled, there was only ever one real option,
even when MS said otherwise in public.

In the world of commodity IT, only One True Tool is needed in the
toolbag, and the faithful believe that the One True Tool is capable of
handling all jobs; no other tools are necessary, and indeed no other
tools are permitted, and if the One True Tool can't do it, it cannot
be possible or necessary.

Anyone name any other technology field (or even craft field or
whatever) that's so narrowminded? Even Ford sell more than one model
of car...