[geeks] DaveM: Crays up?

[Eric Dittman]

> >>    What??  Why would they not have?  There were new VAX models
> >> introduced after that if I remember correctly, and VAX is a very big
> >> FORTRAN platform.
> >
> > There were new VAX models introduced after FORTRAN 90, but
> > most of the drive was migrate to Alpha for extra speed.  Most
> > applications that stayed on the VAX would have been legacy,
> > with new development on Alpha.  With the Alpha supporting
> > F77 and the common VAX extensions, migrating to Alpha along
> > with migrating to F90 would have made more sense, since only
> > applications that relied on Unibus or QBUS peripherals would
> > be unable to migrate to Alpha.
> 
>    I was largely out of the DEC world when they were pushing people to 
> Alphas (I took a hiatus of sorts from the DEC world between [about] the 
> time VMS 5.1 came out and 3-4 years ago) so I never saw any of this.  
> This is most disturbing.

For applications that didn't rely on special hardware,
the transition from VAX to Alpha was largely uneventful
for VMS.  For ELN, the migration was to VxWorks, IIRC.
I used VAXELN, but I didn't do any realtime on the Alpha.

> > I don't necessarily agree with the decision, but then again
> > I'm not a suit trying to cut VMS off at the knees (not to
> > name names {GQ Palmer}) to kiss Gate's ass.
> 
>    Ahh yes, listen to other CEOs instead of your customer base.  Way to 
> go, GQ.
> Fucking suits.

GQ just wanted to get DEC down to a point where he could sell
it off.
-- 
Eric Dittman
dittman at dittman.net
Check out the DEC Enthusiasts Club at http://www.dittman.net/