VAX 9000 (was: Re: Sun 386i available)

[Allison]

>
>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