[Info-vax] Multia

[MG]

On 11/9/21 00:50, Bill Gunshannon wrote:
> Maybe, but I have had very little luck getting VMS on an
> Alpha emulator to do much that was useful.  Even with
> my PDP's and VAX I still prefer real hardware over any
> emulated system.

Good point, many AXP emulators are messy and the ones
working best tend to be commercial products relegated
largely to Windows host platforms, on top of that, too.

I was also not terribly impressed with the performance
of some of these emulators.  Maybe things improved since
then (i.e. half a decade or so ago, in my estimation).


> I don't do this for a living any more so the question of
> practicality doesn't come into it.  It's all about what
> I find to provide fun.

I don't run these old systems for a living either, but
I do value my time.


> I have been doing Unix since V7.  I still have at least six
> different flavors available to me any time I want them.  I
> have never been intersted in Tru64.  And as for support,
> I'm just a Hobbyist.  Support is not an issue.

I meant support in the sense of hardware support, e.g.
driver compatibility.

Digital/Tru64 UNIX is boring in my opinion, so I definitely
don't blame you there.  I found little unique about Tru64,
compared to, say, IRIX or even SunOS/Solaris had to offer
back in the day.

However, there are some interesting features here and there,
like TruCluster and the aforementioned LSM, plus it feeling
very well-integrated and 'wholesome´, with good documentation.
But in the end boring with a very limited userland and close
to non-existent F/OSS offering (except what you'd be able to
build yourself, if you wanted to give a crack at getting e.g.
pkgsrc stuff to build).


> If everyone thinks like you there should be a lot of them
> available.  Send to me and keep them out of your landfills.

That actually wouldn't surprise me, that many did,
considering the many disappointed user reports over
the years and "as-is"/'parts systems' offered.  The
parts cannibalization alone amounts to roughly the
same in the end.

I always thought that the Multi/UDB was very poor
advertisement for AXP and DEC in general, especially
for anyone who wanted to see what the architecture/
platform is about and never experienced anything else.

You were lucky, in terms of having a unit that ran
reliably, but there are lots of reports of people
who struggled to get their systems to run and, if
at all, for longer periods of time.

If it wasn't for the business-driven price inflation,
an HP Alpha{Station,Server} DS15(A) would be a more
sensible choice and it's only marginally bigger since
you still need to sacrifice 'desk space', as the
Multia/UDB with the hacked-together VMS bits didn't
allow for headless operation anyway, in so far I
recall.

  - MG