8 Jan
2009
8 Jan
'09
7:33 p.m.
--- On Thu, 1/8/09, Rich Alderson <RichA at vulcan.com> wrote:
From: Rich Alderson <RichA at vulcan.com>
Subject: HP's use of DEC equipment RE: Crossing compiling HP3000 MPE on a VAX
To: "'General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts'" <cctalk at
classiccmp.org>
Date: Thursday, January 8, 2009, 10:00 AM
From: Lee Courtney
Sent: Wednesday, January 07, 2009 4:25 PM
Send me a name(s) off-line. I wasn't heavily engaged with the HP-UX Lab, but my wife
was (and still is).
Topic drift, but your post reminded me of one of
the
most interesting uses
for a VAX I know of.
Back when HP was developing PA-RISC
(mid-1980's)
to replace the 16-bit stack
architecture 3000 we used a VAX-750 running BSD
to
host a PA-RISC simulator.
[big snip ]
Hi, Lee,
[I didn't know you had worked for HP. You may have
known one of my student
friends from Stanford who worked on HP-UX for PA-RISC
after he graduated, but
that's a topic for another time.] This was not the first time, or first DEC
architecture,
that HP used in product
development. Several of the engineers at XKL were former
DEC-20 users while
employed at HP, which used the SUDS CAD package (as did
cisco Systems, where
many of them went from HP). Some of my old friends were
the system managers
for those machines.
Very interesting - if you know more I'd be interested in hearing (off-line).
When I joined HP in the late 70s I had used TOPS-20 for several years, but had never
touched an HP box.
For a while the hardware Lab also had several 3270 type terminals used for CAD/CAM,
connected to one of the IBM mainframes in Palo Alto. By the time the PA-RISC Lab moved
from Building 42 to 44 in Cupertino, and the project transitioned from HP-Labs to the
product division I believe all that work had moved to HP workstations.
We also had tricked out IBM AS400 living in the MPE Lab for a while, but that's a
different story...
Along the same lines I also heard a rumor that in the 1960s SDS used an IBM mainframe for
its internal accounting, even as they were competing with the 360 in the business DP
marketplace.
Interesting how different vendors infiltrated others. Often so things could get done
faster and more efficiently.
Cheers,
Lee Courtney