[Info-vax] Unix on A DEC Vax?

[John Wallace]

On Jan 21, 4:11 pm, billg... at cs.uofs.edu (Bill Gunshannon) wrote:
> In article <kdgfl6$4l... at online.de>,
>         hel... at astro.multiCLOTHESvax.de (Phillip Helbig---undress to reply) writes:
>
> > In article <kdf6l6$ba... at solani.org>, Michael Kraemer <M.Krae... at gsi.de>
> > writes:
>
> >> Bill Gunshannon schrieb:
>
> >> > I doubt anyone here evert hought VMS was tsargeted for or even
> >> > reasonbly considerable for a desktop.
>
> >> Not quite true.
> >> A good part of VMS' popularity in the late 1980s was owed
> >> to its usage on desktop workstations.
>
> > Indeed.  "Desktop to datacenter."
>
> Hmmmm...  My first DEC Workstation was a DECStation (MIPS based) and
> it ran only Ultrix, no VMS that I was ever aware of.  Next came the
> VAXStation3100.  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?
>
> bill
>
> --
> Bill Gunshannon          |  de-moc-ra-cy (di mok' ra see) n.  Three wolves
> billg... at cs.scranton.edu |  and a sheep voting on what's for dinner.
> University of Scranton   |
> Scranton, Pennsylvania   |         #include <std.disclaimer.h>

Some people in DEC took "desktop to datacentre" seriously.
Unfortunately for the potential customers they were mostly individuals
in Engineering or techies in the field. Convincing HQ or the majority
of the salesforce to move out of their comfort zones was always
challenging.

Have readers ever used VAXnotes or alternatively-named successors?

It started life as a text-only product, conceptually not unlike a
newsgroup except remote access was centralised rather than
distributed.

Then along came Compound Document Architecture and along with various
other innovations, along came Notes with pictures (maybe sound too),
If I remember rightly it even included the capability of links to
other documents (which might be on other systems?) via LiveLinks, the
precursor to OLE.

All you needed for the GUIfied version was an Xwindows display
(workstation or Xterminal).

If you've never come across Notes, think of the user-contributions and
structure and linking capability of a Wiki (but without the Wiki's
usual editing capability; once it's published it's there till it's
deleted). A marvellous way for publishing and/or sharing unstructured
(or semi-structed) information, or alternatively for just hosting
random discussions sorted by topic if appropriate.

The typical Microsoft-centric IT department still haven't got anything
to match it.

Did the average DEC techy see value in it? Undoubtedly. Did the
average HQ person understand how to sell it? No. HQ barely understood
how to sell workstations in general, and availability of workstations
in the field was very limited for far too long.

Too late now.