13 Feb
2013
13 Feb
'13
2:08 a.m.
On 2013-02-13 00:51, Clem Cole wrote:
On Tue, Feb 12, 2013 at 3:54 PM, Johnny Billquist <bqt at softjar.se
<mailto:bqt at softjar.se>> wrote:
Nope. The 11/60 wasn't a big flop. It wasn't a success, admittedly,
but it did sell in some numbers. (I at one time, had four 11/60
machines to play with in a computer club, and I still have a
complete CPU board set for an 11/60 - no WCS though.)
The limited success of the 11/60 was due to the totally
incomprehensible decision to go for 11/34 feature parity at a time
when the 11/70 had already set the future standard.
But apart from that stupidity, it was a rather nice machine, in a
very nice package.
I still occasionally still see product manager for it, socially. He
was the one that told me that it was the fastest from release to EOL.
I once asked him about why the 40/34 not the 45/55/70 [i.e. at least add
the 17th bit - I/D] space, and he told me that the 60 was marketed to be
a small business machine -i.e. going up against the Burroughs B1700 and
IBMs System 34 and 38. WCS was so they could have special uCode for
different languages such as RSTS Cobol something both IBM and Burroughs
were making a big deal about (the B1700 switched it ucode on the fly -
actually very cool machine). Anyway, he once told me that marketing was
afraid that people that we buying 11/70s would go for the 60 if it I/D
space (what they would later do with the 11/44).
Well, the 11/70 easily outlived the 11/44, in that 11/70 machines were still sold after
the 11/44 was terminated, as far as I know.
Speed was probably the biggest reason for that. Although the RH70 probably played a small
part as well.
I even seem to remember that at one point DEC believed they had to stop the 11/70 because
of emission regulations. But the 11/70 came back in the corporate cabinet for that.
As for speed from release to EOL, can anything beat the 11/74? It came as far as field
test before withdrawn, although a few machines survived for many, many years inside DEC.
In essence, the machine existed, but was EOLed before hitting market.
By the way, Paul claimed TRAX was the fastest from release to EOL. But as far as I know,
TRAX never had a dedicated machine, so it's a little like comparing apples to oranges.
TRAX was software. Intended to run on the 11/70 as far as I know. But with special
terminals (the VT61). Those terminals gotta have been EOLed pretty fast after launch,
though.
Johnny
--
Johnny Billquist || "I'm on a bus
|| on a psychedelic
trip
email: bqt at softjar.se || Reading murder books
pdp is alive! || tryin' to stay hip" -
B. Idol