Just want to point out that the 11/750 was newer than the OG 11/780 and 11/782. Then came the 11/730 and eventually the MicroVax (based on the 78032 microprocessor that was hardware compatible with 68000 bus systems, fabricated at DEC’s famed Hudson plant)...then they went on to release 8000, 6000, 9000 and 10000 series while getting what would become Alpha out the door. Before Bill Gates hired David Cutler away from DEC and created the Windows dystopia, we had the finest hardware, operating systems and applications that money could buy (maybe with the exception of our database management systems lol).
DEC was definitely the pride of the New England tech scene for most of the 80's and 90's. One of the first multiuser systems I worked with was a VAX 11/730 running VMS.
However, to say they had the "finest operating systems" is a bit of an exaggeration. You ever use Ultrix? It paled in comparison to SunOS. Example: it didn't even support shared libraries, which was a big deal with small disks.
Ultrix WAS DEFINITELY trash —I didn’t even consider it a “DEC” operating system (was referring to VMS, RSX, RT11, VAXeln, RSTS/E, TOPS). You have to realize that Ultrix was despised by virtually (hah) the entire organization. It was a product of DECWRL in Palo Alto for use in situations where the customer required Unix due to edict or integration, much like Apple A/UX and many others.
Did SunOS (before 5, i.e. BSD based) or did it come with Solaris (SunOS 5, SystemV based)? I honestly don't remember. I do remember that Interactive Unix around '92 (later bought by SUN to enhance their x86 port) did not support shared libraries, when Linux did. And yes, that was a big deal back then.
I remember shared libraries on SunOS 4.x. SunOS 4.x was retroactively renamed to Solaris 1 sometime around the first Solaris 2 (SunOS 5.x) release. I ran it on both a Sun 3/60 and a Sparc. Up until Solaris 2.4 or so, most folks still preferred the older SunOS.
Ultrix? You ever use OS/278? It didn't even support disk volumes containing more than 2^20 (12-bit) words, which was a big deal with "large" (20 MB) disks.
Source: one of my first few "home computers" was a DECmate II with a 20 MB hard drive.
What about the "desktop environment"? Everytime I see screenshots of them I shudder. Not to diss the Vaxen as such, but I like graphical environments, as in more like a terminal multiplexer for some xterms, or such.
Also, what is that about bus compatibilty with 68k? What was that for, where can I read more about that?
Read his site and want to point out for the younglings that even as far back as 1984, DEC was showing slides at DECUS that projected 1 BIPS performance from future models. They went into intricate detail explaining how their multi-stage pipelining and other cooling techniques would scale.
Then Sun Microsystems declared bankruptcy so it could pivot off of 680x0 tech (that was no match for the VAX) and onto SPARC. (Trump’s companies and many others used the same technique.) That prompted DEC to begin developing what would become Alpha whose architecture was reportedly stolen by Intel while being shopped to them as a potential second source supplier, then misappropriated into Pentium Pro/II/III/IV models which all but killed the market for minicomputers from DEC (there was a legal settlement that resulted in Intel buying DEC’s Hudson chip FAB business unit which also produced the StrongARM chip which took hold of the nascent smartphone and Chromebook-like industries, but of course Intel sold it off because Microsoft wasn’t interested in that BS.) Intel then killed off their own amazing 432-chip (a potential VAX killer) and formally released the Alpha tech from DEC inside of Itanium, which sort of flopped around like a dying fish as the whole PC-monopoly and security nightmare began.
The DEC operating system, carefully evolved by scientists over 30 years, was first ported to Alpha, then Itanium before DEC itself wound up merged with its historic competitors that had their own 30 year old proprietary software and DEC’s system did not survive. They kept their foot on the throat of anyone who would port it to the Pentium chips long enough to make sure it never took off. Seeing it come back on rPi (which is a descendant of StrongARM) is so ironic. Maybe we could get all the crazies out there still working on Plan9 and other obscure systems to merge Android infrastructure with VAX/VMS and...
There's quite a bit of fantasy in this post. 432 "amazing". Hmm. Perhaps you're confusing Itanium being related to HP PA which in turn was related to Apollo risc?
“fantasy”? I lived it and I’m likely at least a decade or more younger than you if you did too.
Yes, I read a/the hardcover book on 432 and was really impressed. There was a slow build for that architecture because it was so different than x86.
Itanium is as I said and the downvote, plus raising the competing architecture that crushed DEC into oblivion once Carly “That Face” Fiorina bought Compaq/DEC and you guys finally got your paws on it and your insult (“fantasy”) tells me where you are coming from. I only hope you are retired (either in Microsoft or on Social Security )
The iAPX432 was released in 1981 but by 1984 Intel had already given up on it, morphing it into the Intel 960. That was a long time before the DEC Alpha came out. The Alpha had already been killed in practice by the time the Itanium project actually started: 1998.
I never said Alpha had something to do with 432. (If anything, it had more to do with the VAX and DG MV/8000.) It's demise (and the 960) had something to do with Alpha though.
And uhgain...Itanium was the legit successor to Alpha, Pentium Pro/II/III/IV were the illegit knock-offs that made that horrific turn of events possible.
No, it was actual bankruptcy (Chapter 11, Holloween 1985..pre IPO). SPARC really hurt DEC. Until that point none of the half-dozen Unix-based platforms could offer enough performance to offset the disadvantage of its architecture and relative lack of standards.
Well, bear in mind that as a DECie, I was being fed information by DEC. The story on EasyNet (a social media system for 200,000 workers in DEC's famed "matrix management") was that Reorganization allowed them to finish SPARC and that led to a highly successful IPO but by 1989 they were floundering due to the difficult customer transition process (from 680x0 to SPARC). But also worth noting, in October 1987, the stock market had its first significant "correction" since 1929 which really hurt DEC stock that, at that time, held the same position in portfolios that AAPL does today and it never recovered. The primary beneficiaries of DEC's collapse were the PC manufacturers building Windows NT "servers". SUN survived with DEC's old Engineering/Science/Academia/FinTech customers and eventually found its way back when the Internet took off (only to later be beaten by PC manufacturers allowing LINUX installs).
Yer screen name is awesome. Highly recommend rolling your own home automation to the PDP11 and writing the control software in FORTRAN-IV (not sure if FORTRAN-77 runs on PDP11...the DEC version was called VAX FORTRAN...probably was back ported to the 11 though, since those were commonly used for interfacing with industrial machinery via GPIB/IEEE488 and relaying back to the VAX via DECnet, XNS/ITP, etc). You could do the same thing, replacing the VAX part with an rPi4 but I wouldn't use TCP.IP or WiFi or Zigbee or any of that garbage modern tech :)