VAX 9000 (was: Re: Sun 386i available) - test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

17 Dec 2005

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Subject: Re: VAX 9000 (was: Re: Sun 386i available)
   From: "Witchy" <witchy at binarydinosaurs.co.uk>
   Date: Sun, 18 Dec 2005 00:29:15 +0000 (GMT)
     To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" <cctalk at
classiccmp.org>

On Fri, December 16, 2005 12:55 am, Allison said:
  didn't like the idea or could not support
water for the system.  NY some
 of the older buildings took near a year to get adaquate power for smaller
 machines.  Water, forget about that. 
The naiive side of me decided that companies based in older buildings
wouldn't need the power of a VAX 9000, but I've only been a tourist in NYC
so I'm fully prepared to be scoffed at :) 
As you should be.  A lot of those builtings in NYC are older than dirt and
there nothing like getting high power up to the 14th floor of a building 
that originally had gaslight.

...
   It was a good
machine that held up well in use.  The bulk of them
 succumed when installed (phase rotation had the blowers backward!)
 and the usual field circus tricks. 
My contact had their uptime at 24 days max, but perhaps that was a UK bad
machine! 
Sounds unusual or maybe buggy software factors.  Most I'd heard of were
running months at a time if not longer.

...
   a mill. Field
service offered them all sorts of inducements during
 the 80s to replace it.  I believe they system cost over a half million
 to replace with software and stuff tossed in.  It was just too costly
 to fix the PDP1 if it broke. 
I'd love to know if that's still in use, they'd be surely in line for some
sort of award! 
I think FS won out by the late 80s, one of the few people that knew anything
about it retured and a few others were not up for trips to Yellowknife in 
the cold season.

Allison