[TUHS] Why did PDPs become so popular?

[lm@mcvoy.com (Larry McVoy)]

On Thu, Dec 28, 2017 at 10:59:29AM -0500, Paul Winalski wrote:
> On 12/28/17, Noel Chiappa <jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu> wrote:
> >     > From: Paul Winalski
> >
> >     > Lack of marketing skill eventually caught up to DEC by the late 1980s
> >     > and was a principal reason for its downfall.
> >
> > I got the impression that fundamentally, DEC's engineering 'corporate culture'
> > was the biggest problem; it wasn't suited to the commodity world of computing,
> > and it couldn't change fast enough. (DEC had always provided very well built
> > gear, lots of engineering documentation, etc, etc.)
> >
> > I dunno, maybe my perception is wrong?
> 
> I think you're right.  The disinterest in marketing and advertising
> (Ken Olsen, and therefore DEC, had a "build it and they will come"
> mentality) was one aspect of the corporate culture.  An example of its
> negative impact:  When the Alpha EV5 came out, it was several times
> faster than anything else around.  

Got a reference for that performance claim?  Wasn't that mid 1990's?
If so, I was heavily into benchmarking and performance work during
that period.  If there was a processor that was 2x faster, let alone
several times faster, I would have noticed.

http://www.bitmover.com/lmbench/lmbench-usenix.pdf

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Larry McVoy            	     lm at mcvoy.com             http://www.mcvoy.com/lm