[Info-vax] Hard links on VMS ODS5 disks

[bill]

On 8/23/2023 4:40 PM, Arne Vajhøj wrote:
> On 8/23/2023 2:44 AM, John Dallman wrote:
>> In article <u9n69c$r61o$1 at dont-email.me>, arne at vajhoej.dk (Arne Vajhøj)
>> wrote:
>>> There are two very different questions:
>>>
>>> #1: Did DEC's decisions in 1977 make sense given 1977 knowledge?
>>>
>>> I believe the answer to #1 is YES. Their decisions was similar to
>>> how most OS was designed at the time.
>>
>> The decisions in 1977 were defensible, but not forward-looking. Operating
>> systems written in high-level languages already existed, and
>> microprocessor-based machines offered a possibility of computers becoming
>> much cheaper. VAX/VMS solved the problems of the recent past, quite well,
>> but did not anticipate the future.
> 
> It is difficult to anticipate the future.
> 
> They made some choices that looked OK at the time.
> 
> I suspect that it reflect the leadership.
> 
> the engineering approach: let us choose something
> that we are 99.9% sure to work fine
> 
> the visionary approach: let us choose something
> where there is 50% chance of huge success and
> 50% chance of total failure
> 

The marketing approach:  Just tell the customer that it will
do everything, even make coffee.  Then over-price it and move
on.

And there you have the Digital timeline.  :-)


> Engineers are trained to build stuff that is guaranteed
> to work.
> 
> The Steve Jobs and Elon Musk types takes a chance - sometimes
> it works - sometimes it doesn't work.

bill