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From: perkins@bnrmtv.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.misc
Subject: Re: Dubious marketing practices
Message-ID: <1503@bnrmtv.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 10-Mar-87 14:54:54 EST
Article-I.D.: bnrmtv.1503
Posted: Tue Mar 10 14:54:54 1987
Date-Received: Wed, 11-Mar-87 21:53:21 EST
References: <2607@phri.UUCP>
Organization: BNR Inc., Mountain View, California
Lines: 23

> 	I gather the new machine is really "just" a VaxCluster of 8 8700's,
> 2 HSC-50's, 4 TA-78's, 16 RA-82's, and a uVax-II for a console.  Does it
> offend anyone else that DEC (just to name an example; they all do it) takes
> a collection of off-the-shelf parts, sticks a model number on it and touts
> it as some new push-back-the-edges-of-technology machine?  Granted this is
> a pretty hefty amount of computing power, but it's nothing more than
> plugging some standard parts together.
>
> Roy Smith, {allegra,cmcl2,philabs}!phri!roy

Actually, the amazing thing is that all this off-the-shelf hardware
actually works together.  DEC has managed to do this fairly well,
whereas IBM is unable to make most of its machines talk to each
other.  Other vendors (example: Apollo) have done a good job of
supplying a single source "solution" for whatever problem you want
solved, but DEC has a much larger array of choices than anyone
except IBM.  Since DEC's multi-machine systems work and IBM's don't,
DEC is making big bucks.
-- 
{hplabs,amdahl,3comvax}!bnrmtv!perkins        --Henry Perkins

It is better never to have been born.  But who among us has such luck?
One in a million, perhaps.