[Info-vax] Internationalization

[Bill Gunshannon]

On 1/1/19 6:21 PM, Dave Froble wrote:
> On 1/1/2019 2:02 PM, Bill Gunshannon wrote:
>> On 1/1/19 11:21 AM, Jan-Erik Söderholm wrote:
>>> Den 2019-01-01 kl. 01:10, skrev Bill Gunshannon:
>>>> On 12/31/18 7:01 PM, Jan-Erik Söderholm wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> Same reasons as today to not use VMS. A new HW platform doesn't
>>>>> change much for those that do not want to stay on VMS anyway.
>>>>
>>>> But if your customer is already on VMS maybe the question
>>>> should be why did they choose VMS in the first place.
>>>
>>> Why they choose that VAX 11/750 in 1982-83?
>>> It was probably a logical decision at the time.
>>
>> Based on what?  At that time Pr1me was still going strong
>> and beat DEC in every benchmark I ever saw.  There were
>> others as well, depending on what you were planning on
>> doing.
> 
> You constantly go on about how great Prime was.  What's the problem? 
> Butthurt?

No, I just had a lot of experience with Pr1me and know
from examining lots of benchmarks that Pr1me outperformed
VAX considerably.  Makes it hard to understand what happened.
But, the data I am getting here helps.  DEC had a large
PDP-11 userbase who migrated.  DEC had much better marketing
than Pr1me had.  And DEC didn't shoot themselves in the foot
until long after Pr1me had died from their self-inflicted
wound.  :-)

> 
> To counter some your comments, perhaps we should sponsor a "Prime 
> bashing" day, just for you.

No need to.  Pr1me bashed themselves right out of business.
And I am not bashing VAX or VMS.  I like VAX.  I have a bunch
of them. Just like my PDP-11's.  Another reason I like to use
Pr1me as an example is the fact that the user interface was
very english-like, at least as much as VMS. ASSIGN, CLOSE,
CONCAT, COPY, CREATE MESSAGE, etc.  As different from Unix
as VMS was. MOstly, I had a lot of experience with Pr1mes
and it makes the most sense to rely on what I know best.

> 
> In the early 80s VAX was a very good choice for all kinds of work.

See, that's the point.  People keep saying this but the fact
is there were better, technically.  But DEC won.  I just want
to know how and why.  Those who do not learn from the past are
doomed to repeat the same mistakes in the future.

bill