From: lasner@watsun.cc.columbia.edu (Charles Lasner)
Subject: Re: What is so greate about the PDP 10?
Reply-To: lasner@watsun.cc.columbia.edu (Charles Lasner)
Organization: Columbia University
Date: Sat, 19 Dec 1992 13:07:21 GMT

In article <7477353@zl2tnm.gen.nz> don@zl2tnm.gen.nz (Don Stokes) writes:
>lasner@watsun.cc.columbia.edu (Charles Lasner) writes:
>
>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).

True, but IBM didn't make those 704 users pay so much that they curled up
and died for well over 20 years.

>
>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.

As far as I'm concerned, System 3 never was a viable product, and its
followons 32, 34, 36, 38, 36-revisited, AS-400 are as miserable.  But that's
besides the point.  IBM isn't telling existing customers to chuck them by
manipulating them into a newer product by the extortive technique of telling
them they are officially obsoleting the product.  On the contrary, they kept
stringing along customers claiming that actual software was going to be
producted for these turkeys.

>
>DEC have done very badly in the "PC" market.  We have (in roughly
>chronological order):
>
>	VT78		Small system PDP-8

I think that for its time-period, the VT-78 did OK for itself.  Moreover, it
was totally compatible with the PDP-8, thus not "diluting" any software
effort to support it like the PRO did later.  (And to some extent the DECmates
did the same thing by being "a little" incompatible.)

>	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"

Project "White Tornado" was predicated on planned obsolescence; the DECmate I
was produced with an official expiration date, because DEC was knowledgeable of
a modicum of accurate information: that they weren't ready for the PC market,
thus it was seen as a stopgap product.  BTW, DEC's notion of a personal 
computer largely was predicated on a box that made noises and was all
bells and whistles, no substance.  A Commie 64 with a DEC logo was their idea
of a PC at that time!

>	Robin (VT180)	CP/M in a VT100, probably too expensive

Another stopgap; the VT-180 was a retrofit for existing VT-100 boxes; DEC
got caught up into that obligatory market where you just had to have a 
*something* that ran CP/M.  Having a minimal peripheral set made it a toy
even by CP/M standards.


>	DECmate II	Good machine, marketed as WP (needs CP/M copro
>			to be genuinely useful) (Intersil 61x0 based) 

Having scared away virtually all of the first-string PDP-8 hackers who
ever worked for DEC, the WPS people came up with the bizarre notion that
the otherwise all-PDP8 WPS product should grow some useful extensions such
as footnote formatting and DECspell via the strange path of using the
optional CP/M board for these relatively menial utilities.  They had to
seek outside contractors to have the Z80 code written as a standalone utility
(w/o CP/M) that is "woken up" by PDP-8 code that then waits for the Z80 to
finish.

This machine is unnecessarily "slightly" incompatible with the PDP-8 in
the few ways that "matter".  The PDP-8 world is still rewriting software 
to overcome this foolishness.


>	Rainbow		CP/M & CP/M-86 box, retrofitted to run MS-DOS, Not
>			PC compatible when PCklones became de-facto standard)

When the Rainbow was being thunk through, the world was using Victor 9000
aka Sirius 1, a much better 8088 PC than an IBM.  Then IBM quickly overtook
Victor and knocked them and everyone else out of the race.  Most of them
started making obligatory PC-clones (name-brand *literal* clones, including
Victor).  (This is not to be confused with later efforts in the industry where
name brand machines appear that are erroneously called clones.  Look at these
machines; most are merely software compatible, but not electro-mechanical 
clones by any means.  They are highly incompatible, and force you to be
locked into the manufacturer for spare parts.  However, there is a very large
"no-name" true-clone market as well; these machines are absolutely compatible.)

>	Pro/350		F-11 chip, let down by s/w

No, let down by itself.  It's not compatible with certain key requirements of
existing -11 software.  It caused wasted efforts to attempt to make the
prevailing -11 software be compatible with its incompatibilities, and was
only partially successful and at great expense.  The incompatiblity could've
easily been avoided.  Same for DECmates.  Moral: don't let Harris Semiconductor
design the software configuration of your hardware you farm out the design
of to them.

>	DECmate III	Small box DECmate, shares many characteristics with 
>			DECmate II, but not parts (Intersil 6120)!

This was a partial VLSI treatment of the DM II to get the whole thing smaller.

>	Pro/380		Faster 350 (J-11 chip)

Better, but still "tainted" by the Pro/325 and 350.

>	VAXmate		PCklone, expensive, poorly built, limited expansion.
>			Just oddball enough to be a problem.

More problems than that: the VAXmate group ordered the DECmates cancelled
while not having a viable product.  Again, DEC allows backstabbing to rule
what gets sold.  The VAXmate project slips so much that it is undeliverable
for over 2 years, and eventually has the hard disk expansion cancelled
because it's non-functional as intended.

>	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). 

But these machines were priced way too high to compete.  It's a wonder that
anyone could affort to buy them.

>
>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. 

The III is the "toy" model and comes with only two floppies and no upgrade
possible, while the II has 2 floppies and optionally more floppies or a
hard disk.

>
>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. 


Yes, and DEC made it clear to uninformed customers that a DECmate was only
a wordprocessor; its O/S's and application programs didn't exist in the
eyes of potential new customers.

>
>> 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.

There's competition and then there's cutthroat competition.

cjl
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