Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!rutgers!njin!princeton!phoenix!eacelari
From: eacelari@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Edward A Celarier)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: In defense of the VAX
Message-ID: <6563@phoenix.Princeton.EDU>
Date: 21 Feb 89 23:12:39 GMT
References: <11037@tekecs.TEK.COM> <28200279@mcdurb>
Reply-To: eacelari@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Edward A Celarier)
Organization: Princeton University, NJ
Lines: 31

In article <28200279@mcdurb> aglew@mcdurb.Urbana.Gould.COM writes:
>
>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.

Though I admit my experience in such matters is somewhat limited, It
does suggest that those responsible for the purchase of computers, and
thus the financial success of the correspondingmanufacturers, are not,
typically, interested in these sorts of details.

IBM's corporate success is implausible to me, given the difficulty of
using their machines, the inadequate nature of their software, their
primitive OSs, etc....

And I really am hard put to explain why the success of UNIX.

Certainly, these details are much nearer the visible surface of
computing.  The considerations addressed in the foregoing postings are
important, to be sure, but not to the financial success of computer
manufacturers.

>