I don't really have an anti-DEC bias. They kept the industry moving forward
(which served their interests if no one else's) at a time when the BIG guys
didn't really want it to move form mainframes to distributed minis/micros.
I did however, back in the days when this happened, have a bias against
buying what we could make and sell at a profit, since I was the resident
hardware/systems guru. Having come from a circuit design background as
opposed to the usual "rack 'em and stack 'em" position assumed by
defense/aerospace contractors, I wanted build something which inherently was
suited to the task as opposed to buying a bunch of stuff that didn't and
then filing, cutting, and gluing until it did.
-----Original Message-----
From: Bill Pechter <pechter_at_pechter.dyndns.org>
To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers
<classiccmp_at_u.washington.edu>
Date: Saturday, April 24, 1999 1:10 PM
Subject: Re: DEC
>> That's the name of the guy! Stan Olson . . . the fellows at that one
pitch
>> to which I was referring in my original post on this subject were touting
>> Stan Olson as being so cagey that he kept the gov out of the company's
books
>> by selling his wares to the gov through integration contractors so that
the
>> folks at the gov could specify DEC without naming them, and the various
>> competing contractors would always decode the RFP to mean DEC and so DEC
>> would win every time. I thought it was clever, if true, but the genius's
>> name was Stan Olson.
>
This is actually a very clever and inherently legal way to get around the
risk that someone else's product might get introduced into a market you
nearly own all for yourself.
>
>No. Stan Olson's Ken Olson's brother and one of the folks who
>kept pushing the company into things like the VT78 and WPS word
>processors. He left the company a while back.
>
Well . . . it COULD have been Ken Olson to whom reference was being made.
>
>I think you've got a serious anti DEC bias here.
>
>Someone's very misinformed here or (more likely) the sales guy's full of
it.
>
Well, there were bunches of them swooping down on us . . . the project in
question involved about 60 8800's and bunches and bunches of microVaxen with
each one. It was many hundreds of the taxpayer's millions that were
involved . . .
>
>Q: How do you tell a computer salesman is lying?
>A: His lips move.
>
>Q: What's the difference between a computer salesman and a used car
salesman?
>A: The used car salesman KNOWS when he's lying.
>
>Bill
Received on Sat Apr 24 1999 - 14:35:27 BST