Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: What is so greate about the PDP 10?
From: don@zl2tnm.gen.nz (Don Stokes)
Date: 19 Dec 92 06:18:05 GMT
Distribution: world
Organization: The Wolery

lasner@watsun.cc.columbia.edu (Charles Lasner) writes:
> >You're saying DEC is having trouble today because they killed the -10?
> >
> Yes, taken literally.
> 
> More importantly, DEC is a self-destructive company.  IBM has *never* killed
> off anything, and I believe it was about a year ago that the last of the
> 704 or something really old machines was retired by the user so that ended an
> era, not IBM's unwillingness to support it if the user community paid a decent
> amount for the support.

DEC did not stop supporting existing -10s, although they did encourage 
users to move to other things (mainly by making maintenance of the old 
iron too expensive, a standard trick throughout the industry).

And I wouldn't crow too much about IBM -- ever heard of the System/36?  
Yes, there are a lot of 'em out there.  That architecture is dead; the
AS/400 is a development of the System/38.

> Whether the -10 would have made any specific difference is not the point:  DEC
> made it clear that the VAX was *THE* one and and only way to go, and any other
> project would get very little support.  The inability for something as inept
> as the VAXmate to evolve properly is additional evidence of this.  How much
> futzing around with a mundane product can one company do.  The dumb thing was
> at best a poor PC assuming it even ever worked, yet it never fully did, thus
> deepening DEC's woes in that department.

DEC have done very badly in the "PC" market.  We have (in roughly
chronological order):

	VT78		Small system PDP-8
	PDT-11/110	LSI11 in VT100
	PDT-11/130	LSI11 in VT100 with TU58 cartridge tapes
	PDT-11/150	LSI11 in box with one or two 8" floppies
			PDT11-line all marketed as "intelligent terminals"
	DECmate I	Wordprocessor based on single chip "PDP-8"
	Robin (VT180)	CP/M in a VT100, probably too expensive
	DECmate II	Good machine, marketed as WP (needs CP/M copro
			to be genuinely useful) (Intersil 61x0 based) 
	Rainbow		CP/M & CP/M-86 box, retrofitted to run MS-DOS, Not
			PC compatible when PCklones became de-facto standard)
	Pro/350		F-11 chip, let down by s/w
	DECmate III	Small box DECmate, shares many characteristics with 
			DECmate II, but not parts (Intersil 6120)!
	Pro/380		Faster 350 (J-11 chip)
	VAXmate		PCklone, expensive, poorly built, limited expansion.
			Just oddball enough to be a problem.
	DECmate IIIplus	III with hard disk

Personally, I think the DECmate II & III[plus] were the only ones of the
above to hit the mark, with the Rainbow a close third (to be fair, it wasn't
clear at the time how the market would go, and DEC seemed to be covering 
the bases by having a Z80 to maintain compatibility with old CP/M-80 code 
as well as an 8088 to run 16 bit code under CP/M-86; it was a good machine,
well built and competitive with the IBM PC, but stomped on heavily when the
klones hit). 

The DECmate II & III were intended as a wordprocessors (under WPS-8), but
could take a "CP/M" board, which made them much more useful.  The II 
could take an 8086 expansion and run MS-DOS (but not with any measure
of PC combatibility).  (The III is a small box, with one 5.25" full
height drive bay; the II has two drive bays and is about the size of a
larg box PC.)  In these parts, DECmates made an incredible penetration
into the market. 

But really, DEC never had the heart to market their machines as any kind of
general purpose machine; they always pushed them into existing customers
as adjuncts to their bigger systems, or as special purpose boxes.  I knew
of a few sites that used PDT-11/150s as personal computers anyway. 

> Successful companies make *many* products, and divisions don't backstab each
> other.  The only "product" you could ascribe the word "many" to at DEC is
> the "product" called "managers".

A universal problem, alas.  Name a large computer company that doesn't have
some kind of competition between development groups.

--
Don Stokes, ZL2TNM (DS555)                        don@zl2tnm.gen.nz (home)
Network Manager, Computing Services Centre            don@vuw.ac.nz (work)
Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand              +64-4-495-5052
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers