[Info-vax] Unix on A DEC Vax?

[Bill Gunshannon]

In article <kdjtg1$jtk$1 at lnx107.hrz.tu-darmstadt.de>,
	m.kraemer at gsi.de (Michael Kraemer) writes:
> In article <am57kqF4ri3U5 at mid.individual.net>, billg999 at cs.uofs.edu (Bill
> Gunshannon) writes:
>> 
>> Hmmmm...  My first DEC Workstation was a DECStation (MIPS based) and
>> it ran only Ultrix, no VMS that I was ever aware of. 
> 
> VMS was never ported to those Mipsen.
> Maybe DEC should have done it, 
> rather than pursuing this expensive adventure
> called "Alpha"?

Never saw a MIPS that could hold a candle to an Alpha.  Alpha
failed for political reasons, not technical reasons.

> 
>> Next came the
>> VAXStation3100. 
> 
> Wrong order. The VS3100 preceeded the DECstations.

I was talking about my experience.

> 
>> I got a pile of them.  Run Ultrix just fine.
>> Perform
>> marginally with VMS.  I have heard the "Desktop to datacenter" mantra
>> but did they really take that seriously?
>  
> In technical/scientific computing of the late 1980s
> one or two central VAXen serving one or two dozen VS31xx 
> was a very regular setup. Nobody, especially younger people,
> wanted dumb VTxxx anymore. DECwrite and friends was rather popular.
> Some of that stuff also made it into Ultrix.  

If the work was done on "one or two central VAXen" why would you need
a VS3100 at all?  There were VXT2000's (which, I guess, are really
just stripped down VAXStations) and numerous third party X-terminals
many of which I used that supported DECNet as well as IP.  Nothing
proprietary from DEC that I ever used showed a serious interest in
the Desktop or matched the likes of Sun and (at that time a competitor)
HP.

bill

-- 
Bill Gunshannon          |  de-moc-ra-cy (di mok' ra see) n.  Three wolves
billg999 at cs.scranton.edu |  and a sheep voting on what's for dinner.
University of Scranton   |
Scranton, Pennsylvania   |         #include <std.disclaimer.h>