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From: BillW@sri-kl@sri-unix.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.micro
Subject: DEC Professional Series.
Message-ID: <4596@sri-arpa.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 26-Aug-83 17:31:00 EDT
Article-I.D.: sri-arpa.4596
Posted: Fri Aug 26 17:31:00 1983
Date-Received: Tue, 30-Aug-83 01:48:54 EDT
Lines: 32

From:  William "Chops" Westfield <BillW@sri-kl>

Its actually true.  Ive seen the DEC350 technical manual at
the local DEC store.  The micro may be successful yet, Ill
beleive it when I see 3rd party hardware.

However, I object to Jeffrey Rudy's comments that "we never planned
to keep it that way (a closed system) forever".  Maybe he didnt,
and no ne ever told anyone else.  SRI was privledged to see a
presentation on the pro series very early in its life.  The presentation
was fairly technical, well polished, and relatively well received.
This being a research institute though, the following dialog occurred
after the formal presentation:

Q: We like to connect up all sort of wierd hardware to our computers.
   are bus specs and hardware design aids available?
A: No.  From a hardware point of veiw, te system will be closed.  We
   want to keep the systems maintainale by DEC,without a lot of
   inferior 3rd party hardware around to worry about.
Q: sounds like a lose.
A: we dont think so.  the system will be supplied with sufficient
   hardware to do "professional" type applications, so there wont
   be a need for extra harware for most people.  The technical
   market can buy micro-pdp11's, which use the standard QBus.

Q: Will it ever run UNIX?
A: No.  Never.

Both of these situations seem to have changed.  Which is good.
You can change your minds, but I wish you wouldn't lie to us.

Bill Westfield