Talk:VAX

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[edit] Emulated Vaxen?

Should we perhaps include emulators such as simh in the list of Vax hardware? (I'm running one right now in fact) Or at least some pointer to the fact that emulators exist, and actually work pretty darned well. Likewise about the DECUS/Encompass hobbyist license program?

I wouldn't put the software emulators in the list of models but I think it's definitely worth adding a short section on VAX emulation. VMS hobbyist licences should probably be mentioned in the OpenVMS article though. Letdorf 15:16, 8 August 2007 (UTC).

[edit] VAX Clustering

Although I am probably not qualified to add the comments, perhaps some recognition of Digital's work with loosely coupled processors through the VAX Cluster architecture may be in order. While IBM had been accomplishing much with more tightly coupled processing in its 360 architecture, the VAX Cluster offerred scalability, load balancing and redundancy at a fraction of the cost of IBM and, I believe, at a fraction of the complexity in OS administration.

There's no doubt that VAX clustering (now "VMS Clustering") is notable, but it tends to be more of an attribute of OpenVMS than of VAX hardware per se. We probably ought to include a better reference out to the other articles (and get them sorted out/improved).
Atlant 13:36, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] VAX as a real-time processor

It might also be useful to point out that the VAX/VMS served as the successor operating system to the highly successful PDP-11 RSX-11 operating system, which supported real-time, processor interrupt driven applications that were highly critical to shop floor and factory automation applications.

I'd offer the same comment as I offered in #VAX Clustering above; realtime performance was more an attribute of the operating system than the hardware, and even DEC realized that VMS was not a sufficiently-potent follow-on to RMS; they eventually offered VAXELN (and eventually VxWorks on Alpha) to meet the hard-core realtime marketplace. But a mention inthe VAX article would certainly be appropriate.
Atlant 13:36, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] ECL, TTC, MOS

Greg, are you sure the 11-780 was ECL? I vaguely thought it was TTL. Certainly the 11-750 a year or two later was TTL. 8700 was ECL but that came much later.

Yep, The 11/780 was TTL the MicroVAX was NMOS and the sucessors were CMOS with the top-line servers being ECL. See : http://simh.trailing-edge.com/vax.html
To see which model is TTL/ECL/MOS (except the MicroVaxen which were all MOS) take a look there fr:VAX. fr:Utilisateur:Poil

[edit] VAXnames

VAX65X0 was codenamed Mariah. VAX 66X0 was codenamend NVAX (I worked on them) VAX62X0 was Codenamed Calypso, the 63X0 had another codename, can't remeber

[edit] The lockstep redundant VAX

What was the model number/codename of the dual-processor lockstep redundant VAX that was sold in limited quantities? It was based on the Scorpio chipset, wasn't it?

Atlant 23:22, 14 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] The VAX as a mainframe?

Regarding the recent categorisation of the VAX as a mainframe, I observe that it is denoted as such on a whole lot of websites around. I most certainly agree that the machine looked pretty much like "big iron", but should we actually categorise this and other superminis as belonging to the class of mainframes? --Wernher 19:19, 4 September 2005 (UTC)

While I'd never include most VAXen in that category, Digital definitely tried to market the VAX 9000 model as a mainframe. Whether they were successful at that is debateable, but given that they called it a mainframe, I'd say we should too.
Atlant 16:58, 6 September 2005 (UTC)
Wasn't the whole mainframe/mini thing really more of a marketing angle rather than a usefully descriptive term? I recall various usenet discussions about what really constitutes a mainframe and what doesn't, a few of which have some merit (ie throughput vs. CPU power) but ultimately it seemed that consensus was that it was down to whatever the vendor decided to call it. Chris 22:08, 10 July 2006 (UTC)
There's a lot to be said for that idea. Another idea, of course, and one that had a lot to do with Digital's demise in the highest-end market is that "a mainframe is any computer that runs MVS (Z/OS, etc.)". In any case, Digital definitely tried several times to enter the "mainframe" business, but the VAX 9000 was their best shot.
Atlant 00:22, 11 July 2006 (UTC)
I can't help wondering if DEC contributed to the "a mainframe is something that runs MVS" viewpoint by strongly marketing the early Vax line as a refreshing change to what were seen as stuffy old batch-oriented mainframes. I think that by distancing the Vax from the mainframe stereotype of the time and later trying to cash-in on the market was a bit of a case of trying to have their cake and eat it, and it wasn't going to happen. That's my understanding of how things were, anyway: I wasn't around in the early days and only have various other people's recollection of history to go on, but I do know that a good few Vax-heads were still vehemently of the opinion that the Vax was definitely not a mainframe (often using the argument that a Vax was a nice interactive environment and a mainframe wasn't, although I'm not sure how much most end-users bashing away at some transaction-processor would've noticed the difference). I think that'll do for today's ramble! Chris 17:51, 11 July 2006 (UTC)
(Venturing off into my own personal opinion now...) I think that another aspect that distinguishes a "mainframe" from other computers is the customer's expectations of reliability and availability. Mainframes are expected to simply always be there, and when you look at some of the directions that IBM has taken with the Z series, this becomes especially obvious. For example, they designed the microprocessors with dual cores, but not for increased throughput (as they do in their Unix servers), but instead for increased reliability; they then run the two cores in lock-step, comparing the results of each machine instruction executed. If a mis-compare occurs, they fault the instruction out to the service processor and it sorts out which core got it right, retries the failing instruction, and, if a core continues to fail, maps out that core and calls the IBM SE to come fix the problem at some convenient time. The end result is that from the user's point of view, the user's program ran flawlessly, even in the face of a failed CPU core. This is different than the approach that VAX (and VMS) took, whereby individual nodes were allowed to crash. The user could certainly restart their work, but the crash was definitely a user-visible event. Only a very few VAXen (the FT series) approached the sort of seamless operation that mainframes now routinely deliver. Even the Tandem Computers' approach isn't like this; they required the user to help program-in the recovery from hardware failures.
You see this same thing in power supply redundancy, chiller redundancy, and so on. Mainframes are just not supposed to ever trouble the user with nasty things like hardware failures.
Atlant 12:29, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] VAX slogan

The earliest reference to the "Nothing sucks like a Vax!" slogan that I can find on usenet is http://groups.google.co.uk/group/comp.sys.dec/msg/8e7c4dadee829143. I can't find any images of the slogan... Has anyone actually seen the adverts/commercials for themselves? Maybe it's apocryphal? --StuartBrady 21:26, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

Well, as far as I can remember it's been in the Jargon File for quite a while, so even if it could still be apocryphal it's at least wide-spread =) --wwwwolf (barks/growls) 16:38, 26 May 2006 (UTC)
Hah! some googling later, I found an ad picture: "Nothing sucks like an Electrolux" - and according to the Jargon file [1], this was the original phrase, VAX just copied it. Additional bits are here and here. --wwwwolf (barks/growls) 16:46, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] External link

http://micro.magnet.fsu.edu/creatures/pages/russians.html

[edit] The 57-byte instruction

Everywhere on the web one can read that the maximum length of a VAX instruction is 57 bytes, but I couldn't find an example. Maybe this would fit in the trivia section? --RolandIllig, 2006-02-20

[edit] The Name

The section in the main article, titled "The Name," is more-or-less from the Jargon File.

I'd like to delete the sentence, "In the historical context, ... this seemed much less ridiculous than today," which appears to have been originated by Packrat on 04:08, 25 November 2003. My main concerns about that sentence are: it seems more editorial than encyclopedic; the appropriateness of DEC's business decision to enter into that non-competition agreement seems beyond the scope of this section, and probably of the entire article; also, I think it's best to avoid the word "today" without a date reference, especially in an article about such a rapidly changing technological and business environment. Do you disagree? If you find the sentence worth keeping in some form, perhaps you might rewrite it to describe only the historical context of the time when the agreement was made. --Rich Janis 02:40, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

My opinion is that you should not delete the sentence entirely, maybe just find a different word or phrase for the "ridiculous" part which is very POV-ish. It is still important to note the industrial electronics makers thing specifically for the context.  ?maybe make the sentence parenthetical () to make it sort-of a reference to the previous sentence? I don't know for sure... Dzubint 13:11, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
Thanks. I took out the POV. I'll let others with knowledge of the business environment assess the remaining statement's validity. --Rich Janis 10:01, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] VAX 11/788?

Does anyone know anything about this model? It's listed in some DEC software documentation but I can't find any other info about it....Letdorf 23:05, 12 July 2006 (UTC).

[edit] Nothing sucks like a VAX

In the section "The name", the "VAX" brand of vacuum-cleaners is mentioned, and it is said that

The advertising slogan of a rival vacuum cleaner manufacturer, Electrolux, was humorously punned on by users of VAX computers to the slogan "Nothing sucks like a Vax".

But in the webpage VAX, from the Jargon File, it is said that the slogan "Nothing sucks like a VAX" was adapted from Electrolux to the VAX vacuum cleaners. So I think we should put in the Wikipedia article that the slogan was indeed used by the vacuum-cleaners-makers. Jorge Peixoto 02:48, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

A quick check of Google tells me that the slogan was used by Vax_(vacuum) sometime after Electrolux used it. The timing seems to suggest that the VAX company started using the slogan sometime after it was appropriated by the VAX computer detractors. Frotz 04:04, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Ubersoft, VAX and wikipedia...

Just an FYI... http://www.ubersoft.net/comic/kp/2005/12/proving-notability Mr. Berry 01:33, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Vax 11/630?

What about the Vax 630? I've only seen it once and only remember that it was yet weaker than the 750 I was responsible for in the 80's, but a quick Google confirms that such a beast exists but it's not mentioned anywhere in this page.

Amos Shapira 01:29, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

I take it you are referring to the "Industrial VAX 630". I've added an entry for this based on Google results. Sounds like quite a rarity. Letdorf 10:38, 11 May 2007 (UTC).

[edit] Complaints

This article has a lot of trivial detail while missing basic information about the hardware. How much memory did a VAX have? This article doesn't say anywhere. So I look on the web, find stuff like a "64MB MEMORY KIT FOR VS4000/MV3100/VAX4100" and come back to find when that was made. In the long list of all the VAX models, it neglects to mention when they were made. Nowhere in the article can you even find when the MicroVAX architecture started being made. But, oh yes, we need to know the details of the Processor Status Register. (Grumpy)--Prosfilaes 17:15, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] MicroVAX merger proposal

User Letdorf (talk ยท contribs) has suggested merging MicroVAX here. Since this article already covers the MicroVAX, it would only add a paragraph or two. Let's see what the consensus is. Cheers, CWC 13:53, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

  • Support. CWC 13:53, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
  • Support. There seems to be an error in the MicroVAX article. It states that the MicroVAX 2000 was the first VAX targeted at universities. It seems to me that universities were very much in mind all along. Frotz 20:36, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] VAXen - VAXes

I think VAXen is thoroughly supported as a plural for VAX.[2] Gwen Gale (talk) 14:27, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

I think so too. Adamantios (talk) 17:32, 20 February 2008 (UTC)