[Simh] VAX/VMS

[Clem Cole]

On Tue, Feb 16, 2016 at 10:54 AM, <lists at openmailbox.org> wrote:

> Every new IBM machine and OS was designed to preserve the investment in all
> ​ ​
> the software and development skills the customer already had. In terms of
> ​ ​
> architectural and implementation purity with compatability as a fundamental
> principle and a 52 year track record of success, IBM wrote the book.
>

​I agree, but I suggest that you don't sell Intel short.  To be honest, I
used to think the folks @ Intel had to be brain dead until I thought it
about and looked more carefully.  Once I started to work for them, I really
understood.   They deal with with an ugly architecture, but they make the
best of it for their customers.

You are right Intel killed compatibility many times between lots of
different impure attempts ( 432, ​

​all of their RISC systems etc...), but to Intel's credit - they always did
a good enough job on compatibility in the 4004-8080-8086-80386-INTEL*64
transitions to move the customers programs over somehow (again you are
right, sometimes easier than others)​.

But the trick is that economics of the Intel family, along with
compatibility - drove the price of computing down. And Intel was compatible
enough to have people keep doing it.  The fact is you can still boot and
old copy of DOS and the programs will run.

As was brought up in this thread, if you take the last VAX made it will not
boot VMS 1.x and I suspect it will not even run user code compiled for it
for any really sophisticated user code.


More over before DOS, Intel (while hardly perfect) did manage to bring 8080
programs to 8086 systems (and 4004 to 8008 and 8008 to 8080).   Yes, IBM
and DEC did it better than Intel did early on and on many threads, but over
the long haul of their flagship architecture, stuff just works.

The bottom line is ugly as it may be, Intel did, does it and the ecosystem
for their compatible architecture is frankly worth a great deal more than
S/360 or anything DEC did.  The economics puts Intel in the leadership
position here.


You can agree or not, but my point is not that 8080/x86/INTEL*64 is a great
architecture (it is not); but that Intel has done an incredible job of
moving it forward, with binaries continuing to "just work" and all while
dropping the price all the time.

Unless you are using a cell phone, I'm willing to bet that you are typing
your messages on a INTEL*64 architecture system, even if the processor is
not made by Intel.


Clem
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://mailman.trailing-edge.com/pipermail/simh/attachments/20160216/22177bd2/attachment-0001.html>