[Info-vax] Hard links on VMS ODS5 disks

[bill]

On 7/27/2023 8:46 AM, Johnny Billquist wrote:
> On 2023-07-27 02:05, bill wrote:
>> On 7/26/2023 2:33 PM, Rich Alderson wrote:
> 
>>> Ha!  I still make a living programming in Macro-{10,20}, because 
>>> certain tools
>>> are written in it and nothing else will do.
>>>
>>
>> Wait a minute.  Are you saying you still make a living supporting 
>> SYSTEM-10 and SYSTEM-20 computers and not just hobbyist machines?
>>
>> Brings up  yet another question, I guess.
>>
>> I have always wondered why they created the VAX instead of continuing
>> development of the PDP-11. I mean, look what INTEL did taking the 8080
>> (or maybe even the 8008) all the way to x86-64.
> 
> You could argue that this is what DEC did. Except they eventually 
> dropped PDP-11 support in hardware and moved it to software emulation,

Sorry, I certainly don't see it that way.  I see nothing in the VAX that
reminds me of the PDP-11.

> and then dropped it altogether. Which just suggest they didn't think 
> there was enough value to keep it around.
> And doing explicitly as a compatibility mode allowed for a cleaner 
> design than what Intel did with the 8080.
> I assume you haven't missed all the cursing of that architecture.

I worked with 8080's and Z80's (yes, I know that's not Intel).  They
were just fine.  Unlike the 6502 which I thought was a piece of crap.

> 
>> But now I have to wonder why they didn't just continue development of
>> the 10 and 20.
> 
> Do you really want to open up that wound again? :-D

I would love to see what the performance would be for any of these
processors made with today's tech.  I think even without growing
memory size they would be more than adequate and probably a lot
better than some of the Windows Servers running applications today.

bill