[Info-vax] Chinese Alpha?

[Paul Sture]

On Thu, 03 May 2012 12:50:38 -0400, David Froble wrote:

> The problem isn't so simple.  Digital had a huge investment in people.
> Just about every major city had an office for hardware support, and
> software support.  At one time such was needed.  But over time the
> entire thing became obsolete, at least in comparison with what the
> competition was offering.  The cost of people also continued to rise.
> 
> No longer do computer manufacturers (for the most part) have local
> offices, and HW people who come out to fix problems with occiliscopes
> and soldering irons.
> 
> I don't have any details to back up my guesses, but I've got to think
> that the cost of the computers helped to support the local support that
> DEC provided.

We had monthly Preventative Maintenance on our first PDP 11/34, performed 
by the DEC office in our neighbouring city.  We were very pleased when DEC
decided to change that to once every 3 months, as not only was it a 
disruption to our work, but the system often failed a few hours after a 
PM, sometimes as soon as the engineer had driven off.

-- 
Paul Sture