[Info-vax] VAX 6000 on Young Sheldon

[Johnny Billquist]

On 2023-02-08 00:25, bill wrote:
> On 2/7/2023 5:35 PM, Scott Dorsey wrote:
>> gah4  <gah4 at u.washington.edu> wrote:
>>> The 360/30 is a little bigger, and might not have that.
>>>
>>> Some will question exactly how big one has to be to be a real mainframe.
>>>
>>> And VAX were some that had that asked of them.  Even in the beginning.
>>
>> Being a mainframe is less about size than about I/O throughput.  The vax
>> was no mainframe.  The DECSYSTEM-20 was a mainframe.  DEC's customers 
>> knew
>> the difference even if DEC's marketing people had no clue.
> 
> Did anyone other than the DECSYSTEM-20 users think it was or call it a
> mainframe?

It was sortof/generally accepted as a mainframe, but it wasn't anywhere 
near what IBM was peddling. But it's also hard to compare, as IBM was 
still very much batch back then, while the -20 was this wonderful, 
interactive system.

However, much got lost when ethernet arrived, and the front end PDP-11 
basically became idle/unused except for booting and monitoring the -10.


But if we talk I/O, the VAX 9000 is actually quite a beast.

   Johnny