--- blstuart_at_bellsouth.net wrote:
> In message <199906271535.AA28999_at_world.std.com>, Allison J Parent writes:
> >BI is open but, was designed for high speed and multiple processesors.
> >The bus requires a chipset to communucate over it and while it was supposed
> >ot be widely available it was never widely adopted.
>
> It was open? I could swear I remember a really big stink in
> the DEC press when the BI was introduced. Of course, this
> wouldn't be the first time bit-rot affected my historical
> claims.
It was licensed. I worked for a "third-party vendor" back in those days. We
were denied a license in 1984 when we first applied (when it would have done
some good) and were granted one in 1989, long after the VAX-BI was relevant.
We sold a handful of boards, only part of our prototype batch (compared with
hundreds of Q-bus boards and a couple thousand UNIBUS boards).
Because DEC never really opened up the licensing program until later (unless
you made a board that they didn't care about, then it was easy), the market
never really took off for them. Once the VAX-4000 line came out, it was
easier and cheaper to buy a couple of 4000's to replace aging 11/7xx and
other mid-range VAXen than it was to jump up to a 6xxx or 8700/88xx. We
had more UNIBUS->Q-bus upgrade sales than anything->VAXBI.
I still have most of that first run of board. If I ever have far too much
time on my hands, I'll write some new code for it - 68010 _at_ 10Mhz, Z8530 SIO,
2Mb RAM, 64kb ROM, DMA interface, timer. I suppose I could turn it into an
intellegent PPP interface or make it do Localtalk (with a change in line
drivers)
-ethan
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Received on Tue Jun 29 1999 - 08:21:24 BST