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by icedchai 2114 days ago
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.
3 comments
vaxman 2114 days ago
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.
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icedchai 2114 days ago
Makes sense. It was the child from another mother, I guess. I still play around with VMS from time to time. I have an Alpha in my collection.
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guenthert 2114 days ago
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.

EDIT: http://iraf.noao.edu/docs/src/dosf/unixsmg-N-3.2.html indicates that BSD based SunOS did offer shared libraries (at least late in its live, as early on it was a 3rd party project to add those: https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/0433/bb8fb59cc457b74b3f8ad0...).

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icedchai 2114 days ago
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.
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jasomill 2114 days ago
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.

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