UFO over DEC

Michael> * Were DLTs indeed made in Colorado Springs? As far as I know they were designed in SHR (Shrewsbury, Mass.). Where the manufacturing facility was I have no idea. Michael> * If it is indeed in Colorado Springs, does anyone have any Michael> more information on that ex-DEC facility? Does anyone know Michael> of any government/CSS work done there? Michael> * This guy also mentioned CD-ROMs. He said they made the Michael> first DEC CD-ROMs there, in 1993-94 timeframe. I thought Michael> the first CD-ROM sold by DEC was RRD40 and was actually a Michael> Philips drive, wasn't it? The next was RRD42, which was Michael> actually made by Sony, right? Did DEC ever build CD-ROM Michael> drives themselves or did they all outsourced to Sony and Michael> such? If RRD40 and RRD42 were Philips/Sony, why did they Michael> need a clean room in Colorado Springs? Or was it the next Michael> one, RRD43? Was RRD43 also Sony or was it made by DEC Michael> itself? What was DEC's cutting edge CD-ROM drive in Michael> 1993-94? Did they make any CD-ROM drives at the same place Michael> where they made DLTs? It kinda makes sense that it would be Michael> the same group, "Tape and Optical Products" if I'm not Michael> mistaken, but just checking. Storage was in several places... and DEC often did manufacturing in random places in the world. I don't remember whether DEC ever made CDROM drives. But there's an interesting story I remember -- way back in the early days of CDROMs, I heard that DEC was planning to build a CD factory (to make the disks, not the drives). That was so they could make the media in volume. The plan at the time was to put CDROM drives into every VAX and put all the software on one CDROM. (Back then software was small enough that you could do this...). Apparently, this is why License Manager was invented. I don't remember the date for this anymore -- it seems to me it would have been somewhere around 1985. paul