From Ed.Wilts@gems1.gov.bc.ca Thu Dec 12 13:14:36 1996 Path: stc06.ctd.ornl.gov!news.he.net!www.nntp.primenet.com!nntp.primenet.com!news-peer.gsl.net!news.gsl.net!portc01.blue.aol.com!newsstand.cit.cornell.edu!cornellcs!uw-beaver!nntp.cs.ubc.ca!bcsystems!Ed.Wilts Newsgroups: comp.sys.dec,comp.os.vms,vmsnet.alpha Subject: Re: DEC Press Release that never got released Message-ID: From: Ed.Wilts@gems1.gov.bc.ca (Ed Wilts) Date: Wed, 04 Dec 1996 09:12:42 -0800 References: <57usvk$a90$1@nntpd.lkg.dec.com> <57v5kf$ce6@senator-bedfellow.MIT.EDU> Organization: ITSD, Province of BC Nntp-Posting-Host: ewilts.bcsc.gov.bc.ca Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-transfer-encoding: 8bit X-No-Archive: yes X-Newsreader: Yet Another NewsWatcher 2.3.4 Lines: 32 Xref: stc06.ctd.ornl.gov comp.sys.dec:39815 comp.os.vms:117506 vmsnet.alpha:5406 In article , "Terry C. Shannon" wrote: [info on 9000 deleted] > T'was a good product, but it was a day late and a dollar short. Within a > year of the introduction of the 9000, DEC was getting equivalent > performance out of the NVAX chips used in the VAX 6000 series. Still, the > 9000 incorporated mainframe-class availability and reliability adjuncts, > as well as a nice crossbar switch architecture. Actually, it wasn't a good product. Even back at Decus in Atlanta (was that '91 or '92?), the 9000 was discussed in the "lemon" presentation. The 9000 never delivered on its promised performance specs for time-sharing environments. For scientific number-crunching applications it performed rather well, although short-lived. The reliability was never there with the 9000 - the 6xxx and 7xxx systems have always been far more reliable here. Digital sunk way too dollars into the project trying to sell this is as mainframe, when all it really was was just another Vax (although 15' long!). I can't remember how much time Digital spent here planning for its installation - certainly far more than was called for. I'm sure glad ours is long gone... -- .../Ed Ed Wilts, ITSD, Province of BC mailto:Ed.Wilts@gems1.gov.bc.ca