[Info-vax] Happy new Year !

[Arne Vajhøj]

On 09-01-2010 11:08, Richard B. Gilbert wrote:
> Arne Vajhøj wrote:
>> On 06-01-2010 03:31, Michael Kraemer wrote:
>>> Richard B. Gilbert schrieb:
>>>> In some cases I might be able to buy software to do under VMS some of
>>>> the things I now do under windows. I would expect to have to pay ten
>>>> to two hundred times the price of similar software for my PC and get a
>>>> poorer product! The size of the market is too damned small for
>>>> economies of scale.
>>>
>>> That's the situation as it is now,
>>> but it wasn't ten or fifteen years ago,
>>> when the decision was made to let go VMS as a desktop system.
>>
>> VMS were long out of the desktop market 10 years ago.
>
> VMS was NEVER really a player in the desktop market. IBM and the clone
> makers had that sewn up in the late 1980's or early 90's!
>
> DEC's offering was insanely priced as were their prices for things like
> floppy disks; not the drives, the disks themselves! DEC wanted something
> like ten times the market price. Very few were willing to pay such a
> premium!

In the 80's PC's were pretty expensive as well.

I have seen IBM PC keyboards being sold for 500 USD.

(side note: they were pretty good though)

At that time VT220 and VT320 were used at universities,
offices etc..

It was a significant desktop presence.

But 20 years ago.

Arne