Path: utzoo!utgpu!utstat!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!unmvax!ncar!tank!uxc!uxc.cso.uiuc.edu!m.cs.uiuc.edu!p.cs.uiuc.edu!gillies
From: gillies@p.cs.uiuc.edu
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: In defense of the VAX
Message-ID: <76700075@p.cs.uiuc.edu>
Date: 23 Feb 89 11:11:00 GMT
References: <11037@tekecs.TEK.COM>
Lines: 31
Nf-ID: #R:tekecs.TEK.COM:11037:p.cs.uiuc.edu:76700075:000:1272
Nf-From: p.cs.uiuc.edu!gillies    Feb 23 05:11:00 1989


In article <28200279@mcdurb> aglew@mcdurb.Urbana.Gould.COM writes:
>
>I sure would like to be able to design such a lousy architecture [VAX]
>and make so much money selling it.

This is one thing that really frustrated me about engineering computer
architecture.  It's why I avoided entering the field --

A. You can design an extremely good machine an ruin it with software

B. You can design a messy, aesthetically ugly machine and have it be 
   a big success, so long as the performance is not horrible...

In other words, the success is out of your hands....  It depends on
your software people.  The job is only half-done when the architecture
is implemented -- you can still screw it up with a bad compiler and/or
bad OS.  And then you need to worry about applications!

Therefore, software is the key.

Companies like DEC & IBM have the resources to make their machines
successful through software.  The IBM PC was successful only because
of the software it ran (in particular, Visicalc).  For a long time,
people were buying PC's because they were the only thing that would
run Visicalc.


Don Gillies, Dept. of Computer Science, University of Illinois
1304 W. Springfield, Urbana, Ill 61801      
ARPA: gillies@cs.uiuc.edu   UUCP: {uunet,harvard}!uiucdcs!gillies