[Simh] Why no VAX laptop? (was Re: SIMH emulator running on Windows Mobile 2003?)

[A.Bucher at alcatel.de]

Hi there, 

-----
Why was there never a VAX laptop? Just because it was possible did not 
mean it would/should be done.
As explained to me by a Digital Product Manager many years ago...
 
1) It would have ventured into hardware areas that Digital did not do at 
the time:
   ATA/IDE disk drives
   ISA bus (keyboard, mouse, serial, parallel)
   PCI or ISA bus (network, video)
[PC technology was first assimilated into the Alpha systems, and then 
retrofitted to the VAX line.]
 
2) A laptop would have been cool, but how many would they have sold at 
2X-5X (this *was* Digital) times the cost of an Intel laptop?
 
3) If VMS/Ultrix was for secure networked multiuser computing, why would 
people want a portable (insecure console, single-user, infrequent 
network)?
 
Reasons #2 and #3 also apply to an Alpha laptop, with the additional 
challenge of the heat dissipation from the Alpha chip.
 
There were two designed-to-be-portable systems that I remember:
  1) The non-Digital Tadpole
  2) There was a company [can't remember the name] that advertised that it 
would take an existing MicroVAX2 BA23-based system and recase it into a 
compact "luggable" [small suitcase size with a handle] unit with a screen 
and keyboard. They extracted your BA23 chassis and remounted it into the 
luggable chassis along with a custom plasma-based VT100. My company at the 
time actually explored this option for taking our VAX-based manufacturing 
diagnostics to the customer site, rather than requiring the customer to 
ship the questionable unit back for testing. They decided it would cheaper 
to port the diagnostics to a laptop PC. :-)
 
Dave


But: Even on my laptop, VMS is cool - remembering the 11/750 I once owned 
:-) 
And I always regretted that DEC never built a VAX laptop (why ? should 
have been possible in the early 90s ?!) 
At least a VS2000 with plasma screen in a box would have been handy some 
times ... 

Andreas

----------

The Tadpole AlphaBook ? Yes, but for me, a true VAX has to contain a VAX 
CPU :-) 
IMHO, Alpha VAXen are no "genuine" VAXes ... this is like running VMS on a 
x86 chip - it's not the original thing. I'd like to have it binary code 
compatible ... from desktop to mainframe, all systems running the same 
code.

If you say non-Digital - I was wondering why you can currently find the 
firmware for this system on a DEC ftp server ?


And, ok, I was referring to the 80's, the "golden age" of DEC and VAX - 
but I think at that time, "portable computing" was not considered as an 
option. 
I always had the Apple ][ in mind, or the CBM SX64  - or the early 
portable PC clones, Tandon and the like - and wondered, why DEC doesn't 
offer the VS2000 in a different housing with integrated CRT or plasma 
screen. 

Anyway, it's not really important (unless I can get hold of on of those 
Alphabook, of course) - for vintage purposes, I stacked some real DEC 
hardware, for the "daily dose of relaxation from Wintel", I use simh on a 
Wintel laptop :-)


Well, after letting my remark "slip out", I re-thought the idea of a 
portable VAX again ... what would have been the gain at that time ? Would 
anyone had wanted to buy it at that time (mid 80s) ? It might be "way 
cool" to show around VMS on a PDA today, but what would be the real use 
besides showing off ?

So, I could agree with reason #3, but only for central data processing 
systems. As you mentioned, there where testing/diagnostics/measuring 
systems in place requiring quick relocation possibilities - mostly still 
no use for a laptop, because of the required IO-slots. Still a good reason 
to have the suitcase VAX beeing built.

Anyway, it think it was still much cheaper to use dial-up PSTN lines with 
modems and remote VT100s to allow "Home Workers" or techs access their 
data than even thinking about buying a portable WS (besides, remember that 
for the price of a VT320 and later you could almost buy a PC ...)
But from my own experience, there should have been enough reasons to have 
portable (stand-alone) test systems.

I can remember an advertisement for a 68k (68030 ?) based Unix "Laptop" 
computer, LCD screen and featuring a polished wooden case (oakwood ? ebony 
? I don't quite remember, but it was very amusing) for "only" $16k ... but 
on the other hand, I remember buying the first Toshiba 386 color(!!)LCD 
Laptops for $8k each - featuring two ISA slots.

So I don't see Reason #2, because almost all VAX (workstation) systems 
were sold at that prices, and compared to other manufacturers, it still 
was affordable - and people (companies) bought it anyway !

Also, IMHO Reason #1 does not apply, the VS2000 or similar small systems 
don't make use of any of the fancy PC-gadgets. I think, DEC had enough 
components available to build a portable VAX (builtin graphics, serial 
LKxxx keyboard and mouse, composite sync CRT or plasma, SCSI or MFM disks, 
QBUS, etc.). 

I could guess it was the fact that no-one could even think about portable 
computing at that time ?! The VS2000 might have been a revolution already 
:-) 

Maybe Bob himself has had some insight of what DEC thought about that then 
...


Whatever ..nowadays, with SIMH, everybody can have his/her own private 
"VAX to go" on a laptop ;-)




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