Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!swrinde!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!mips!winchester!mash
From: mash@mips.COM (John Mashey)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: Looking for a really odd computer
Keywords: VAX, ha ha
Message-ID: <41932@mips.mips.COM>
Date: 4 Oct 90 22:12:06 GMT
References: <2721@crdos1.crd.ge.COM> <11791@pucc.Princeton.EDU> <18429@haddock.ima.isc.com>
Sender: news@mips.COM
Reply-To: mash@mips.COM (John Mashey)
Organization: MIPS Computer Systems, Inc.
Lines: 32

In article <18429@haddock.ima.isc.com> suitti@anchovy.UUCP (Stephen Uitti) writes:
>In article <11791@pucc.Princeton.EDU> EGNILGES@pucc.Princeton.EDU writes:
>>...All are even numbers
>>save for one.  This is the "Electrologica X8", with "27 bits per cell."
>>I have never heard anything else about this machine, which sounds
>>like a vacuum cleaner.
>
>From the Jan 18th, 1990 Boston Globe:
>
>                        Now, Lechmere is
>                        not only selling
>                     the incredible VAX, (R)
>                       they're giving them
>                            away too.

The VAX is indeed a vacuuum cleaner, in fact "3 vacuum cleaners in one".
I'd heard of it before, but a few months ago, I was in a hotel in
Australia, and saw a commercial, and even got a photo of it...

I'm not sure if this is just an apocryphal story, but I'd swear that
I heard there was once a lawsuit against DEC regarding this name,
where the judge finally threw it by saying "you say there's going to be
confusion in the market.  Are you really telling me people can't
tell the difference between a vacuum cleaner and a computer, and buy
one when they think they're getting the other?  be serious."
or words to that effect. (Maybe somebody who really knows can shed
more light, although this really belongs in alt....)
-- 
-john mashey	DISCLAIMER: <generic disclaimer, I speak for me only, etc>
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