Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!think.com!mintaka!spdcc!rbraun
From: rbraun@spdcc.COM (Rich Braun)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.sysv386
Subject: Re: Performance of 80486 based machines running Unix
Message-ID: <8086@spdcc.SPDCC.COM>
Date: 26 Jun 91 17:20:35 GMT
References: <1991Jun24.214207.21425@engage.pko.dec.com> <1991Jun25.231318.8991@unixland.natick.ma.us>
Organization: Kronos Inc., Waltham, Mass.
Lines: 21

bill@unixland.natick.ma.us (Bill Heiser) writes:
>This is ABSURD!!!!  What does DEC have to gain by making their drives
>unusable by "the rest of the world?"

Ah, you have it backwards:  DEC has a lot to gain by forcing The DEC
Installed Base to buy DEC drives, rather than letting them mail-order
drives from whomever.

Another company which has long done things this way is Tandy.  The Tandy
1000 computer, for example, didn't have DMA logic on the motherboard;
they put it into their add-on hard disk controller card.  So you had to
buy their hard-drive kit instead of someone else's.  I long ago gave
up on Tandy's "cheap" home computers for this reason.

I note with some bemusement (and a little shock!) that DEC has given
up on the O/S business by handing Ultrix over to SCO.  What a sad day
in Maynard...  VAX/VMS is a rapidly decaying dinosaur (with a huge
installed base, just like TOPS-10 did in 1982...), so I'm not sure where
DEC will go next.

-rich