Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!ncar!tank!uxc!uxc.cso.uiuc.edu!mcdurb!aglew
From: aglew@mcdurb.Urbana.Gould.COM
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: In defense of the VAX
Message-ID: <28200279@mcdurb>
Date: 19 Feb 89 20:16:00 GMT
References: <11037@tekecs.TEK.COM>
Lines: 19
Nf-ID: #R:tekecs.TEK.COM:11037:mcdurb:28200279:000:829
Nf-From: mcdurb.Urbana.Gould.COM!aglew    Feb 19 14:16:00 1989


Paul Rodman at Multiflow (rodman@mfci.UUCP) writes:

	"Personally, I think the vax has about the worst possible
	archtecture one could come up with ... Byte aligned
	instructions make the hardware more difficult and buy you
	nothing. So many instructions that serve no purpose, etc, etc.
	Blech, what a mess. And so many minds worked *hard* to create
	it! Ha!"

I sure would like to be able to design such a lousy architecture
and make so much money selling it.

Apart from the fact that the VAX was designed under entirely different
constraints than we have today, maybe the fact that it was so
horribly successful says that there are factors to success other
than instruction set. Like, software strategy, support, good
scheduling of new hardware, etc. Isn't that a humbling thought
for all of us aspiring computer architects?