Blast from the 1988s (DEC proposal)

While looking for a binder to use for printed doc, I stumbled on a 1988 proposal by Digital with a former employer.

Interestingly, it starts with "This document is the property of, and is proprietary to Digital Equipment of Canada Ltd". Interesting since all the material in that proposal was publically available from the DECdirect capatlogue and various press releases about Digital ;-)

Interesting how the "proprietary" nature of Digital had gotten all the way to its proposals :-)

There is a nice page: (provides some numbers from the 1987/1988 time frame)

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2.0 Digital Corporare Overview

Digital Equipment Corporation has grown in thirty years to a size, profitability and leadership position matched by few organisations,

Thirthy years ago an engineer from Massachusetts Institude of Technology develeopped a vision of creating a smaller less expensive, more practical computer system. The vision transformed into a reality and a strategy now shared by over 110,500 employees worldwide. Our strategy at Digital is to use computers to make the world a better place, while recognizing the importance of the customer's success in the marketplace.

Today, Digital Equipment Corporation is the *world's largest manufacturer of network integrated computer systems*. The corporation's philosophy is still one of distributed departmental computing, utilized at the fingertips of users who require computer power the most.

In 1987, the corporation achieved yet another very healthy fiscal year. Net income increased 84% while return on shareholders equity increased from 12% to 19% during the same period. The successes accomplished by the corporation far exceed the industry average. Principal reasos for the success may be attributed to the quality of product, service excellence and support commitment, extended to our customers.

Because of the Digital Style of Computer, the Corporation has achieved phenomenal successes in the financial markets around the world. Many firms have maximized the useful benefit of office automation and global networks developed by Digital. Three reasos for financial institutions selecting of Digital revolved around these factors:
+ Support
+ Commitment
+ Technology

We hope these reasons will be realized by <customer name> and we look forward to supporting the firm as another of the most technological competitive financial institutions in Canada.

###

Note the number of times the word "Commitment" has been mentioned. Back then, it really meant something. Of course, today, "commitment" just reminds us that the owner of VMS makes commitments knowing it won't be honouring them.

Also interesting that the last paragraph, the global change for customer name and market (financial instititions) didn't quite result in proper syntax of the last sentence and they didn't even bother fixing it.


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Software for independant vendors which provide TCP/IP is available for VAX systems as well, and we are currently in the process of implementing a gateway between TCP and DECnet als allow other vendors UNIX systems to access the network in a coherent manner.
##


Some interesting numbers (in a 1988 timeframe)

-over 100,000 VAX processors have been delivered to date.

- More than 75,000 VAX systems have been installed, most running VMS

- More than 3000 applications are available on VMS

-The 17 member VAX family is the largest installed 32-bit minicomputer in the world



A sign of the times: (remember that PCs didn't really network back then)
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Digital, in an effort to promote "seamless" computing, is committed to developing communications products to industry standards (SNA) or international standards (OSI).
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(the text then goes on with DEC being proud to being a leader to implementing X.400 , OSI and X.25).



At the time, the graphs showed from the all mighty microvax II to the VAX 8978. The document mentions up to 15 8800 nodes in a cluster. (when did it go from 15 to 96 nodes in a cluster ?)

In 1988, Digital was pitching TK70s. In 1987, it pitched me TK50s.


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