On October 23, 2014 at 04:42 randy@psg.com (Randy Bush) wrote:
Barry Schein:
Interesting you went to the trouble to add a 'c' to my name! You need better quoting tools.
I'm reminded of the remark often attributed to DEC CEO Ken Olson, roughly:
With VMS (their big complex OS) it might take hours searching through manuals to find a feature you need while with Unix you can determine in seconds that it is not available.
and how did that work out for vms? and digital?
A few people made billions, a few more made many millions, hundreds of thousands (or thereabouts) had pretty good jobs for upwards of 20 years, and then the second largest computer company in the world vaporized almost mysteriously. The VAX hardware was important. It was for the time relatively inexpensive and very capable, the 32-bit address space (ok, technically four 30 bit addr spaces) and VM hardware at those prices were revolutionary. You had many of the capabilities of a multi-million dollar mainframe for about 1/10th the cost. Ran Unix great! VMS not so much. Mostly re-warmed over RSX (an earlier DEC OS) with a few new ideas to take advantage of the platform, and some cobbling from their TOPS-10 and TOPS-20 OS's (e.g. galaxy.) IMHO DEC desparately wanted to go head on with IBM's 370 line but just didn't seem to "get" why companies bought IBM mainframes, or found those parts too expensive to compete on. But they did ok financially anyhow so who's to criticize? VMS even had PIP! And sometimes you needed it. -- -Barry Shein The World | bzs@TheWorld.com | http://www.TheWorld.com Purveyors to the Trade | Voice: 800-THE-WRLD | Dial-Up: US, PR, Canada Software Tool & Die | Public Access Internet | SINCE 1989 *oo*