[Info-vax] VMS port to x86

[Paul Sture]

On Mon, 26 Mar 2012 11:30:03 -0700, John Wallace wrote:

> I had a trip to a vendor in Leeds once, when my then employers were
> looking to replace an 11/70 with an 11/780 (UK readers may know the
> vendor I mean). The place we went sold "DEC compatible" kit, where
> anything that didn't need to come direct from DEC was replaced with
> cheaper alternatives (everything from industrial power supplies to
> photocopied manuals to disk controllers and drives). Their idea of an
> *external* MASSbus cable was what would now be called a rainbow ribbon
> (twisted) cable. You could drive a fork truck over the DEC cables (and
> more importantly drop a computer room floor tile on them) and they'd
> survive. Not so with the "compatible" ones.

Chuckle.  As one customer found out the hard way, when you have fork 
lifts rushing around you need to think of redundant comms gear around 
your factory floor.

IBM also had very robust cables, some would say over-engineered, but then 
IBM could get away with the prices.

Yes, your description of that UK vendor leaves me in no doubt who they 
were.  They even had a separate company devoted to selling the original 
DEC kit that had been separated from bought systems.

-- 
Paul Sture