Re: interesting take on Olsen's "no reason for any individual tohave acomputer in his home"

david20_at_alpha2.mdx.ac.uk
Date: 11/25/04

  • Next message: JF Mezei: "Re: interesting take on Olsen's "no reason for any individual tohave acomputer in his home"" 
    Date: Thu, 25 Nov 2004 17:30:29 +0000 (UTC)

    In article <i8GdnU8Y9aoJQTjcRVn-pw@rcn.net>, jmfbahciv@aol.com writes:
    >In article <co2cm4$am0$1@news.mdx.ac.uk>, david20@alpha2.mdx.ac.uk wrote:
    >>In article <8_ednfguruIPATncRVn-qg@rcn.net>, jmfbahciv@aol.com writes:
    >>>In article <co25q6$88s$1@news.mdx.ac.uk>, david20@alpha2.mdx.ac.uk wrote:
    >>>>In article <8_edncIuruJnCDncRVn-qg@rcn.net>, jmfbahciv@aol.com writes:
    >>>>>In article <41A34237.55FA3814@teksavvy.com>,
    >>>>> JF Mezei <jfmezei.spamnot@teksavvy.com> wrote:
    >>>>>>jmfbahciv@aol.com wrote:
    >>>>>>> HUH!!!! Stay within the decade. We were talking about the
    >beginnings
    >>>>>>> of the PC market.
    >>>>>>
    >>>>>>DEC started to shift to resellers paradigm in the 1980s. I fact, by
    >>>1986,
    >>>>>>calling dec to ask to buy a vax
    >>>>>
    >>>>>This happened because DEC was going out of the VAX business. It's
    >>>>>exactly how DEC treated people who wanted to buy PDP-10s in 1979.
    >>>>
    >>>>Going out of the Vax business in 1986 ?
    >>>
    >>>Yes.
    >>>
    >>>>Alpha wasn't released until about 1991.
    >>>
    >>>So?
    >>>
    >>>Jupiter wasn't cancelled until 1983; PDP-10 sales were
    >>>getting denied in 1979.
    >>>
    >>>
    >>
    >>However Vax and VMS was already there in 1979.
    >
    >So? My point was that the policy of denying a sale had already
    >been established when a replacement architecture was years into
    >the future. And VAX wasn't already "there" in 79. The company
    >was still doing the 11/780 bit and trying to establish a customer
    >base for VAXes. Since the performance sucked, there wasn't any
    >existing customers who bought a VAX when they needed mainframe
    >computing services.
    >
    >>As I recall VAX/VMS was riding pretty high in 1986.
    >
    >Compared to what? In 1986 I was starting to study how to
    >convince current PDP-10 customers to replace their 10s with
    >VAXes. This was after the fiasco of "*** you" at 1978 DECUS,
    >the Jupiter disaster, and then the idiocy that marketing
    >developed in 1984 and 1985 they called "migration".
    >

    1985/1986 was about the time I first worked on a VAX. The company part of GEC
    had links to IBM mainframe systems at Chelmsford and a Mcdonald Douglas machine
    running Pick on site. When they came to look for their next system then, since
    they wanted a mid-range system rather than an IBM mainframe, the choice of
    a VMS system seemed obvious.
    The year of Unix was still something the computer press was saying would be
    next year.

    >IOW, DEC managed to piss off, alienate, and loudly announce
    >to all current mainframe customers that they had absolutely no
    >say in the matter. This was a 180 degree turn from corporate
    >policy where we tried to include customer input when planning
    >the future hardware product lines.
    >>
    >>In my personal experience we were still dealing directly with Digital in
    >1989
    >>when I joined Middlesex University it wasn't until maybe 92/93 that we
    >were
    >>forced to go through resellers (and then that was for both VAX and
    >>Alpha systems).
    >
    >Palmer was supposed to strip the company of cash and all product lines
    >that had nothing to do with the customer support piece of the biz.
    >This is an educated guess based on what happened inside the company; I
    >saw no documents.
    >

    When I said dealing direct with Digital I meant purchasing VAX systems direct
    from Digital nothing to do with maintenance or support.

    David Webb
    Security team leader
    CCSS
    Middlesex University

    >
    >/BAH
    >
    >Subtract a hundred and four for e-mail.

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