[Info-vax] READ and WRITE vs. SEARCH/OUTPUT

[Richard B. Gilbert]

On 1/28/2012 5:25 PM, Arne Vajhøj wrote:
> On 1/24/2012 4:06 AM, Michael Kraemer wrote:
>> Richard B. Gilbert schrieb:
>>> VMS is not widely used these days. Princeton University had VAXen in:
>>> Plasma Physics Laboratory, Gas Dynamics Laboratory, Physics
>>> Department, and the Chemistry Department. It doesn't help if the
>>> students can't use it, or if they choose to use something else. The
>>> University as a whole was IBM oriented. The Computing Center had an
>>> IBM 360/91, one of eighteen or so that were made. It was what passed
>>> for a "super computer" in those days.
>>
>> This scenario wasn't/isn't unusual for academia (uni's and bigger labs).
>> For larger tasks one had big iron in the Computing Centre.
>> For data taking or process control one used PDP's or, later, VAXen.
>> So until the late 1980's there was little chance for a student
>> *not* to be exposed to one of those DEC products. From the end
>> of the 1980's onwards, however, Unix took over. DEC still had
>> a good chance to ride that wave too, e.g. by migrating their
>> large VMS base to Ultrix, while constantly improving the latter.
>> DEC chose to blow that opportunity.
>
> Or made OSF/1 a bigger success. Many people consider OSF/1 aka
> DU aka Tru64 to be a lot better than Ultrix.
>
> Note that they would still have been toast today, but Unix
> would have given them 10-15 more years until Linux and Windows
> would have taken over anyway.
>
> Arne
>

DEC's pricing was such that nearly all of its competitors could 
undersell them and nearly all of them did just that!

As far as I can tell, DEC either could not or would not sell at
the "Market Price".

Suicide!  R.I.P. Digital Equipment Corp.