[HECnet] NT 4 on AlphaServer es40

[Johnny Billquist]

On 2013-02-13 17:58, Bill Pechter wrote:
On Wed, Feb 13, 2013 at 10:09 AM, Clem Cole <clemc at ccc.com
<mailto:clemc at ccc.com>> wrote:


      On Tue, Feb 12, 2013 at 8:08 PM, Johnny Billquist <bqt at softjar.se
      <mailto:bqt at softjar.se>> wrote:

              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.


      Interesting data.     I'm a little surprised to hear it because DEC
      was clearly trying to get the traditional 11/70 customer to move to
      the VAX line in those days.     I wonder if the 70 was used in some
      commercial settings where they wanted a real duplicate.     Unlike the
      Nova/Esclipe the VAX had a "compatibility mode" but it was a tad
      impure.     The OS was different and binaries did not work with some
      assistance.       Other than running Dungeon and few other games, I
      never knew a customer that used compatibility mode in production -
      it was a great sales tools, but once folks got their VAX they tended
      to do a "full port" of the code.         So swapping a VAX besides
      costing more, meant some systems/SW work on the customers part.
      That was not true of the 11/44.

      I remember buying an 11/44 for use where we did not need (could not
      afford an VAX for that use) but wanted the larger address space over
      the 40 class machines.   We had a very large 11/70 and were also
      buying Vaxen at the time,

      That particular machine was the last 11 I ever personally was part
      of the purchase and I moved on to other things, so I sort of stopped
      watching the progress of the PDP11 line.     I know the QBUS gave the
      11 some amount of resurgence, although by then most of us were using
      Vaxen or 68K based UNIX boxes.


      Thanks for the information.

      Clem


I thought the 11/70 couldn't be sold past about 1984 or 85.
Some FCC Regulations on emissions blocked new ones.   They didn't want to
reengineer and retrofit them.

As far as I remember and understand, that was the case for the original 11/70. And I understood it that the DEC DATASYSTEM 570 (ie, the 11//0 in a corporate cabinet) was done to solve the FCC issues.

They pulled back all the ones they could from the field and regional
offices (replacing some with the rare 11/74 KB11Cm boxes) so they could
sell refurbs to AT&T (who purchased a ton for COSMOS and other network
functions).

I worked at DEC in 1986, and we had at least four 11/70 machines (all corporate cabinets) running at that point in the office.

I know and heard of lots of other 11/70 machines out in the field way later than that too. I think it was something like 911 in Los Angeles who ran on a couple of 11/70 into 2000 or beyond, for example.

I had the fun of troubleshooting an 11/74 single cpu and parts were
really rare.

I bet. I wish I had one. I've seen the pictures of CASTOR, with all four CPUs, but the whereabouts of that machine now is unknown. It was dismantled in 2000 or 2001, if I remember right.

I seem to remember 11/44's being sold until the 11/84 came out.   A
google search said it was in '88, two years after I left DEC...

The 11/84 came out way earlier.
The technical manual for it that I have is dated 1985.
(See http://bitsavers.trailing-edge.com/pdf/dec/pdp11/1184/)

I can believe that the 11/84 made the 11/44 obsolete, however. They fulfill the same niche, with the 11/84 being faster, smaller and probably cheaper.

I'm pretty sure the 11/70 may have outlived the 11/44 on used and refurb
boxes, only.

That might be.

Funny thing. I just read a little in the 11/44 Technical Manual, and it says it is meant for (among other things), TRAX, and refers to TRAX V2.0. That sounds like it must have been a product for more than a week, or else they released V2 super fast.

	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