[geeks] just to stir things up, a few predictions

[Patrick Giagnocavo]

On Sat, Oct 23, 2004 at 10:49:49PM -0500, Jonathan C. Patschke wrote:
> On Sat, 23 Oct 2004, Patrick Giagnocavo wrote:
> 
> >>VMS has a ton of areas that are definitely better.
> >
> >Until it ships on a major architecture, hardly anyone will know.
> 
> And what would you call VAX (the most successful minicomputer
> architecture EVER), AXP (the first 64-bit RISC, and one of the most
> widespread RISC at its time), and Itanium?

It was a dumb and incorrect way of trying to make my point.  VAX is
beyond major, it is seminal, that is a point not up for argument.

What I mean to say is that its low shipping volumes mean that not many
people know about the advantages. 

> >Maybe the Itanium port will lead to an AMD64 port.
> 
> Why in the hell would they do that?  What would that accomplish other
> than puttin  VMS on unreliable commodity hardware so that it's not
> nearly so bulletproof.  -That- will sure sell a million more licenses,
> right?

Itanium will not evolve as quickly as AMD64. It is the Motorola 68K
story all over again.

> Just because you can't run an OS on your desktop doesn't mean that it's
> not successful.  And, for that matter, a VAXstation or AlphaStation will
> -give- you VMS on your desktop, and you can still buy AlphaStations


> <flame>
> Hey, here's an idea, let's port VMS to IA32.  All the world's a PC!!

AMD64 != IA32 , but you knew that.

I don't want to get into a PC flamefest.  See above for what I should
have written.

I too wish VMS was more popular, if only so that I could more easily
learn about it. 

--Patrick