-----Original Message-----
From: Tony Duell <ard_at_p850ug1.demon.co.uk>
To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers
<classiccmp_at_u.washington.edu>
Date: Wednesday, October 27, 1999 3:15 PM
Subject: Re: gauging interest in VAX 6000-530
>>
>> Gee, as much as folks like to pidgen-hole me, I'm really only trying to
>> understand the performance and lure of the old iron, like vaxes, in
>
>I can perhaps help with the 'lure'. For me, speed is not that important
>(provided it's fast enough for _what I want to do_). What is important is
>having a reliable machine that I can understand, repair, and keep going.
>And I find it a _lot_ easier to keep a PDP11 or an old VAX running than
>to keep a PC running.
Yikesl I eliminated our Vax for PCs years ago and have never had any
problems! Vax was a "breakdown" nightmare... slower than NT for filesharing
and DEC couldn't get "appletalk" right either. We found MAC IIs much faster
even. (I toasted all the MACs in '96).
Vax - Costly mother, boards expensive, service/software/license costs
rediculous. Brutal learning curve for new system support employees (not
everyone has a Vax at home), and of course Digitals "Unlimited Training" for
a year at $5000/employee! X-Windows? Yuck.The only thing I liked was RDB
(wonder WHO bought that?!??! :-) ). Foxpro was still faster.
I jumped in like many other large companies and quickly junked our
mainframes/minis for PCs.
>
>> relation to newer iron that I have or can use, and also understand
better.
>
>Strange. I find the older machines are lot easier to understand than the
>more modern ones. And _much_ better documented.
>
Thats not strange. Old systems USUALLY had parts and boards from a limited
number of vendors, heavily tested... How many garages are knocking out video
cards today!?!??!?! Old systems were easy to maintain for large sites, get a
million dollars from Finance and send it to DEC! It isn't so easy now... but
much easier for the end user.
>> This is, unfortunatly, gobbdleygook to me. "multiples of them for
parallelism"?
>> Why would this be necessary? Why can't one fast one be used?
>
>There are good electronic reasons why you can't switch bus lines as fast
>as you would like (just try sending 64 1GHz signals down a bus and
>expecting them (a) not to get skewed wrt each other, (b) not to couple to
>everything else in sight, and (c) not to be an EMC nightmare).
>
>Yes, improvements in bus design and driver/receiver technology has
>allowed us to produce faster buses. But there are still limits. And then
>you start using _several_ independant buses.
>
>-tony
>
Received on Wed Oct 27 1999 - 15:35:30 BST