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From: jgd@cix.co.uk (John Dallman)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: is Vax addressing sane today
Date: Sat, 7 Sep 2024 16:31 +0100 (BST)
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In article <2024Sep7.104440@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at>,
anton@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at (Anton Ertl) wrote:

> Sure, there was marketing pressure to deliver 64-bit architectures
> early, but I think that a competetive 32-bit OoO VAX in 1996 with an
> announcement of a future 64-bit extension would have been fine
> wrt. marketing.  And a 0.25um 64-bit VAX in 1999 or 2000 (they 
> shrank the 21264 to 0.25um in 1999) would have certainly made good 
> on that promise.

VAX had initially been very successful for the late 1970s and early 1980s
in technical computing, because it was performance-competitive and had a
better operating system than any of the other superminis of the time. 

Then multiple RISCs with Unix came along, which were cheaper, had equal
or better performance, and a satisfactory operating system. Those ate
DEC's technical computing market quite fast, but its business IT market
lasted longer. 

The technical computing market was /much/ more interested in 64-bit than
the business IT market. When I got involved at a software supplier for
technical computing in 1995, VAX was not performance-competitive and was
on the way out, but Alpha was the fastest thing around until Pentium Pro,
stayed competitive for a couple more years, and didn't die out completely
until 2002 or so. 

DEC seem to have concluded in 1988 that they could not keep VAX
performance competitive with the RISCs of the time at a competitive price.
Also, 64-bit ASAP was necessary to retain their part of the technical
computing market and try to win some of it back. 

Trying to hold on with VAX, in the hope technology would emerge that
would make it practical, without a clear idea of when or what that would
be is not something that shareholders will tolerate for very long. 

John