[HECnet] Which DECnet interfaces support remote, unattended, booting?

[Clem Cole]

On Fri, May 17, 2013 at 2:57 PM, Johnny Billquist <bqt at softjar.se> wrote:
Well, in all honesty. We did just cover network booted PDP-11s. Not to mention that PDP-11s could boot from tape pretty much from day 1.

Yep - but it was a different target customer originally.   The 11 was the take over the laboratory systems that the 8 had.    And many of those systems did not have rotating storage in them.    Cassette tape was not unheard of (and the PDP-11's could boot from cassette tape).

The Vax was envisioned as a system that could move into the same class of customer and (use)   as the 10 (and this start the 36/32 bit war).    But both vax and 10's were supposed to the computing hub.      As I have said before, the 750 was a part of that war between LDP (laboratory  data products) enterprise folks.    It's a big reason why Masscomp was formed.    Dave Cane used to say that the MC-500 was the computer he had always wanted the 750 to be.


That said, you're right, at some point -- network boot because de  rigor   but I >>think<< that was all post BI systems and long after I was tracking the vax closely.