[Info-vax] OT: book from George Dyson.

[George Cook]

In article <jm99m8$sva$1 at Iltempo.Update.UU.SE>, Johnny Billquist <bqt at softjar.se> writes:
> On 2012-04-13 15:10, Bob Koehler wrote:
>> In article<6fdj59-82h.ln1 at news.sture.ch>, Paul Sture<paul at sture.ch>  writes:
>>> On Wed, 11 Apr 2012 11:14:58 -0700, John Wallace wrote:
>>>
>>> Bringing us back to the VAX world, someone contacted me offline with the
>>> following:
>>>
>>> --- quote ---
>>>  From the VAX-11/780 console:
>>>
>>>>>> SET CLOCK FAST
>>>
>>> SLOW and NORMAL were also supported.
>>>
>>
>>     Anyone who actually bothered to type "HELP" at the console was aware
>>     of this.  And one way or the other, aware that some things just
>>     didn't work right when FAST.
> 
> The commands also exists on the VAX 86x0 machines. In a late update to 
> microcode and console software, it was extended to actually allow you to 
> give the actual frequency you wanted as an argument to SET CLOCK, and 
> SLOW, NORMAL and FAST are just three pre-defined frequencies that have 
> aliases.

I ran our 8650 for a number of years at a higher speed (I forget how
many there were), and yes, it was specified as a frequency.  Never
caused a single problem.

I know DEC never sold it (at least publicly), but one document in one
VMS doc set mentioned an 8690 (or was it 8670?).  I always wondered
how it would have compared to the 8650, and if it was just a minor
microcode/hardware upgrade?


George Cook
WVNET