From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: kevin.bowling@kev009.com (Kevin Bowling) Date: Wed, 27 Dec 2017 16:38:59 -0700 Subject: [TUHS] Why did PDPs become so popular? In-Reply-To: <109152082.5216233.1514413535270@mail.yahoo.com> References: <109152082.5216233.1514413535270.ref@mail.yahoo.com> <109152082.5216233.1514413535270@mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: I understand IBM systems history a lot better, but it looks simplistically to me that, in business terms, DEC created or became the brand leader for a net new market for minicomputers rather than competing against the establish(ed, ing) market of large systems. I'm sure their marketers worked very hard to differentiate the systems from large systems, precisely because they didn't want to compete with anyone. This is one of the most common motifs in technology business, start with a small niche and build out. It happened with UNIX, PCs, networking, etc. These things also usually follow power laws, where only a couple companies control the market. There are awesome plate tectonics and associated earthquakes, disasters, and rebuilding from ashes where markets collide, like UNIX systems taking on system of record, transaction processing, CAD in the '80s-'90s against mainframes, and the associated brand names tend to reshuffle (i.e. Sun for a while). Regards, On Wed, Dec 27, 2017 at 3:25 PM, Dave Ritchie via TUHS wrote: > > I think that steep educational discounts and equipment grants from Digital > to major collages also had a major impact, > as did the existence of DECUS that made a lot of software readily available. > > Best regards, > David Ritchie