[Info-vax] Should VSI create a modern day VMS applications book ?

[Chris]

On 08/23/18 19:12, Arne Vajhøj wrote:
> On 8/23/2018 1:29 PM, Chris wrote:
>> On 08/23/18 12:24, Bill Gunshannon wrote:
>>> VMS believed that the users didn't want a GUI but were happy with a
>>> clunky CLI.
>>
>> To be fair, dec were part of the gui revolution from the start, as part
>> of the team that sponsered the early X windows development. They had a
>> gui on VMS from quite early on, but their kit was just too expensive,
>> partly at least because of the gold plated engineering design. Nothing
>> wrong with that, but not competitive in the age of single board
>> workstation systems. Expensive backplanes, separate card for every
>> function and built like a tank mechanical construction.
>
> VWS and early DECWindows may have been relative competitive
> at least functionality wise (you may be right that they were
> too expensive).
>
> But that is about 30 years ago.
>
> VMS GUI was not competitive functionality wise in the 90's.
>
> Arne
>

The early nineties was nearly thirty years ago and at the time,
I ran a Vaxstation II Gpx beside a Sun Sparcstation 1, which ran
rings round the Vax performance wise, availability of both
commercial and open source software and size. Dec should have
put far more effort into their mips offerings at the time, which
always seemed half hearted, but there again, unix was still snake
oil in some quarters. As for the gui, that was more or less
common throughout the industry.

Anyway. looks like yet another thread to exhume and examine the
entrails :-)...

Chris