As compared to CP/M and early DOS offerings, and the 8086, we were hugely predisposed to the Pro-350.  The advertising hype certainly helped.  I mean thousands of programs, a modern stable operating system base, a functioning DECnet stack and a reasonable processor ISA.  What's not to love?

    Until we started using it an early version on a daily basis...

Well, let me rephrase that: tried to use it.  My manager at the time was one of the most fair-minded, even keeled, understated individuals I've ever met—the very soul of mellow patience.  I, on the other hand, being in my mid-20's and of southern Italian extraction was frequently anything but.

So one can imagine my shock watching my manager getting seriously bent out of shape, pointing his straight armed finger at the floor and swooping it around backwards, up over his head to come down to push the "Do" button, this accompanied by an increasingly strident, "Do.  DO.  DO!  DO!!"  when it hung, which was often.  We'd never seen him that annoyed about pretty much anything.  He was more of the sad and disappointed type in that regard when things weren't going his way.

So we returned the demonstration unit and looked elsewhere, which I thought was a shame.  I mean, DEC would have had to improve it.  I believe another site on CCnet (Stevens) actually required engineering undergraduates to purchase these, so one assumes that they actually put it through its paces and were satisfied.

The F11 is not the worst thing in the world as long as you are not locked into it and have a growth and transition path.  What did they do about the addressing?  That would have eventually been a problem.

---

On 9/30/23 10:20 AM, Johnny Billquist wrote:

    ,

    ,

    ,

... But usually you access files, as everything else, through the menu system. Even for remote machines.

Some things in P/OS are actually rather nice. It's just that it was so limiting in other ways, and they locked themselves into slow hardware and only use what the F11 could provide.

  Johnny