From mboxrd@z Thu Jan  1 00:00:00 1970
From: tfb@tfeb.org (Tim Bradshaw)
Date: Mon, 4 Jan 2016 08:52:51 +0000
Subject: [TUHS] Early Unix function calls: expensive?
In-Reply-To: <328D91D8-FF74-46EE-A281-5432716E6206@ieee.org>
References: <20160103233543.GA10102@minnie.tuhs.org>
 <76BC99D5-A8C4-4F8B-8D7D-C621CBD18238@tfeb.org>
 <20160104000113.GD1602@mercury.ccil.org>
 <328D91D8-FF74-46EE-A281-5432716E6206@ieee.org>
Message-ID: <6CCB0746-0243-4EA5-8171-D06A442D7D36@tfeb.org>

On 4 Jan 2016, at 04:40, Armando Stettner <aps at ieee.org> wrote:

> I guess I experienced things a little differently: computer science basis notwithstanding, the VAX was hugely successful for DEC.

I think it was, too.  What I meant, though, was that, although x86 demonstrates that it's possible to make almost anything fast by the application of sufficient money, the VAX was something which was expensive to keep performance-competitive, especially in the era when RISC could make really easy wins, and the cost of doing that hurt DEC pretty badly, I would expect (and made VAXes increasingly expensive compared to the competition, which I remember them being in the late 80s).  And I guess Alpha was too late.

--tim