Talk:Digital Equipment Corporation

message: Didn't DEC go bankrupt due to its own inept sales force pushing Pentium machines over the AlphaPC? I once heard someone complain that DEC was a company you couldn't give money away to (his words). — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ark~enwiki (talk • contribs) 19:33, 10 July 2022 (UTC)
thread_title: Reason for bankruptcy

message: The reason I came to this page was because I read (on a web history page) that DEC put up the first commercial website. In this article it says they were amongst the first .com websites. Were there any .com websites before DEC that weren't commercial? I thought if it was one it would be the other as well, but it'd seem strange to refer to the first ever as one of the first... sheridan 03:30, 31 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  website 

message: I believe one of the other items DEC divested was their management software known as Polycenter. This software went to Computer Associates. — Preceding unsigned comment added by D9nno (talk • contribs) 22:43, 26 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes it was one of the first generation of enterprise management offers in the market. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.128.138.176 (talk) 17:31, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: While today's SOA gets attention, is it important to note DEC pioneered much of the architecture in todays systems. Much of BEA Systems is based on software developed by DEC. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.69.103.254 (talk) 20:10, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Polycenter? 

message: Is it worth noting that an 11/782 was seized in 1983 as part of a contraband shipment to the Soviets? --Gadget850 ( Ed) 13:48, 27 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: There should be a lot more to say about this. I read that many Soviet bloc computers were modeled on (or clones of) PDP's and Micro-VAXes. Hrcohen (talk) 01:16, 9 October 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Soviets

message: The article discusses how one can get the acronym "W/NT" by incrementing each letter in "VMS". Someone just edited in "Cutler later verified this."
AFAIK, Cutler has never actually made any affirmative statement such as "Yes, I did that intentionally." Instead, he's always said something coy like "Did you just notice that?". (That is, he makes it clear that it was deliberate while not actually saying so.)
Have I got this right?
If so, we should edit the article.
Atlant 16:28, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: That's how it looked to me, too, when I Googled for this. So yes, we should probably reword that a little. -- CWesling 23:21, 16 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  VMS++ = WNT 

message: "AR&D later sold its investment in Digital for approximately $450 million, certainly the best VC return ever at the time"
http://www.computinghistorymuseum.org/teaching/lectures/pptlectures/10-dec.ppt
"When Doriot sold his share in 1972, it was worth $350,000,000" — Preceding unsigned comment added by CSuarezdelReal (talk • contribs) 20:05, 29 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  450 or 350 million dollar? 

message: It is quite interesting that Digital excluded the word "Computer" from their product and brand names, both, as an early way to get funds, so that investor were not afraid to give money to a company that would compete against giant IBM (besides other large computer companies were losing money at that time), and as an early marketing strategy to sell their products to engineering teams in companies where the accountants would reject computers. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 158.116.112.10 (talk) 21:58, 29 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Another version of this story, is that because computers were on one General Services Administration schedule and electronic equipment on another, that it would be easier for government-funded agencies and schools to buy DEC products if they were called something other than computers for purchasing approval. patsw (talk) 18:50, 15 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  The word "Computer" banned. 

message: I dispute the use of the word 'architect' as a verb in this otherwise well-written article, because it is not a verb.
*http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/architect
*http://www.google.com.au/search?q=define%3A+architect
There are plenty of other verbs that can be used in place of 'architecting' and 'architected': construct, design, create, devise, invent, plan, produce. JeffreyMeunier 01:05, 8 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Mis-use of ARCHITECT as a verb 

message: Atlant removed the information on writable control store, and in the edit summary asked which models supported it.  WCS was optional on the 11/780, and standard on the 11/785, 11/750, 8600, 8650, 9000 series, and possibly other models.  Microcode development tools were offered as a product for the 11/78x.  Most of the later VAX implementations based on VLSI processors had small a on-chip WCS intended to patch microcode bugs.  --Brouhaha 00:35, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Writable control store 

message: Could someone add information on this chip? Drutt 08:35, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  T11? 

message: This article severely needs to be restructured in chronological sequence. Grouping products by the architecture type does not really accurately reflect how this company developed, unlike, say, Intel. Also, one tidbit that should be added -- DEC produced some very hard drives for a long time. During the late 1980s and early 1990s, they were among the best (if not the best) in the business. As part of the dismantling of the company in the early 1990s, that group was sold to Quantum. The Quantum Atlas line was the result. This facility passed through Maxtor, and then to Seagate. The DEC Shrewsbury facility still operational. 66.92.132.155 (talk) 05:27, 24 February 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Structure of article 

message: It seems that HP has retired the server that runs ftp.digital.com. The announcement can be found here: http://h18002.www1.hp.com/alphaserver/options/asgs1280/asgs1280_options.html
The ftp service is now inaccessible. The ftp.digital.com link(s) at the bottom of this page should be replaced with another link that provides the same information if possible, or removed. Rilak (talk) 08:08, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  ftp.digital.com 

message: I think it's incorrect to credit DEC with the idea of not using letters which are homoglyphs or near-homoglyphs. I expect there are several examples of prior art - one that springs to my mind are United Kingdom military aircraft serials, which have omitted the letters C, I, O, Q, U and Y since 1940. Letdorf (talk) 09:56, 9 October 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  "DEC alphabet" 

message: Besides tons of messages in mail archives, I gave an invited talk at Usenix some years ago to cover (some of X's) history. I leave it to someone who knows wiki markup better than me to add it to the main article JimGettys (talk) 21:31, 19 November 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Citation for Assertion about the X Window System 

message: Added Radia Perlman because of her many achievements.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 161.130.5.129 (talk) 20:01, 15 January 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Famous people who worked at DEC 

message: On 2 apr 2009 10:55 User:Badger Drink removed my original/historical Digital coffee-mug?
*Ken Olsen's primary concern about customers and employees "Our Employees are our greatest Asset" was distributed on a coffee mug, to encourage all employees.
What do the others think? Geert Van Pamel (talk) 00:23, 28 April 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: I do like your coffee mug picture, as evidence of Ken Olsen's attitude towards DEC employees.  I suggest moving it to the biographical article about him, which is sadly in need of good pictures, including a picture of the man himself. Reify-tech (talk) 20:15, 21 March 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  You did not like my coffee-mug? 

message: In March 2010, a series of major edits were made that introduced major changes into the article. One of the changes made greatly concerns me. It is in regards to DEC's PC product lines during the 1990s. If one looks at the revision from 25 Feb. 2010, one will find that DEC's PC product lines of the 1990s are mentioned. This is very important because DEC's Alpha business only constituted less than a third of the company's revenue, IIRC. The other major hardware product line were PCs. The omission of these product changes how the article reads. Before, it was: "DEC failed in early its PC attempts, but it eventually got out some PC product lines during the 1990s." Now it reads like this: "Stupid DEC failed in its early PC attempts, it never tried to get back into the PC market, and left only with silly overpriced closed VAX systems, DEC failed. What a bunch of dinosuars! LOL!" Not NPOV is it?
I would fix it myself, if there was a section that I could put it in. But the article structure was altered significantly, and it is not much better from the previous structure. The issue remains the same. Trying to tell DEC's history by organizing it into sections around product lines mixed with out-of-place sections about specific happenings doesn't work. Why? Because DEC's product lines overlap each other. It also encourages work on the products, not the history. And it is a problem as people for some reason don't seem to realize that Wikipedia has articles on the products, so they add detailed information about products into an article that was not meant to be about the products.
The article needs to be rewritten entirely. The present version is poorly structured and it misses the point. For example, if one were to look in Electronics, the articles from the late 1980s say that DEC got successful from one ISA, one OS, one product line from workstations to superminicomputers, networking, and VAXclusters. And then it began to decline because of client/server computing, open platforms, and RISC microprocessors. The current article doesn't say this explicitly, it barely even mentions these points, and it implies that what caused DEC's demise were "business microcomputers". In regards to structure, the history should be organized by decade, not by product. This will allow the article to read more smoothly and allow it to show relations between events and products that are presently disjointed.
Have the problems that I described been noticed by other editors? Are there any comments about my proposed solutions or my comments in general? Rilak (talk) 04:13, 20 August 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Major edits made during March 2010 

message: The comments for Cutler and Getty far exceed their actual accomplishments. TEDickey (talk) 01:25, 24 May 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Apologies for the sloppy edits; I was in a hurry at that time.  Of course there were many other people working on those projects. I've modified the summary descriptions, and hope they are more accurate and acceptable.  You're certainly welcome and invited to improve them further.  --Reify-tech (talk) 01:52, 24 May 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  unsourced/exaggerated synopses of notable people 

message: - Two people led the RSX-11 team of which Cutler was 1 
- Three people led the VMS development team of which Cutler was 1
This is fairly well documented in the various books published by the Corporations own "DEC Press" / "Digital Press".
Furthermore - RSX was not such a complicated system to be developing an OS for ex. a total of 64KB real memory! so a bit exaggerated.
Whilst Cutler was 1/3 leading the VMS 1.0 Development in 1974 there were 14 releases over some 30 years. He did however contribute to some of what would be significant formative & characteristic design of early VMS but did not stay around to contribute to even bigger stuff like Clusters and SMP back in the 1980s when nobody else even knew what that meant.
His BS was in Physics at a time when Universities did not teach Computer Science. So he learned everything on the job (unheard of these days).
He then left NH for CA to set up WRL to do new work on RISC with his MICA project. Another technological innovation which the business (back then) had no use for. This was the final straw for him.
The next 3 years were spent in the wilderness before he eventually got the call from Bill Gates.
Most memorable Cutler Quote, "Getting past HR is the most difficult part of the Job".
Mld01 (talk) 21:14, 31 January 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  somewhat exaggerated but a significant player. 

message: "In the period 1994–99 Linus Torvalds developed versions of Linux on early AlphaServer systems made available to him by the engineering department. Compaq software engineers developed special Linux kernel modules"
You cannot mention Compaq to the effect it is substitutable for Digital Equipment
Alphaserver hardware first commercial shipping was during 1993. There were already a comprehensive range of platforms ready to go. Workstations, Servers, Datacentre Systems. so 'early Alphaserver' is vague & misleading.
Linus Torvalds is not in any way part of the Digital Equipment Story.
By direct comparison 20% of the DECs substantial OS budget went into staffing & running out of the DEC WRL office a Digital Internal Engineering Group effort to Port under Licence from Microsoft NT v1.0.
Mld01 (talk) 21:52, 31 January 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  General vagueness in paragraph 

message: Dec is a corporation that died and merged with other corporations.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.114.77.38 (talk) 17:26, 19 April 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: Yup. What's your point? Garchy (talk) 17:29, 19 April 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  DEC