🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1k78j4INN3kh@slab.mtholyoke.edu>, jbotz@mtholyoke.edu (Jurgen Botz) writes:
> 
> When DEC announced last spring that they wouldn't
> be porting OSF/1 to existing MIPS machines the users screamed bloody 
> murder and DEC management said "oops" and quickly announced that they
> had changed their mind.  ....

  But was that whole "exercise" really one of decision-making or to give a
  clear "signal" to software vendors not to waste their time ?  You know,

    DEC: "OSF/1 and MIPS forever !!!
          The golden sliced bread !!"

    DEC: (six months later) "OSF/1 and MIPS ? Never !! 
         Alpha, the golden sliced bread !!"

    USERS: "You damn bloody well better !!"

    DEC: "Oh well, ok, for a while, however.....
          it's still Alpha, the golden sliced bread !!"

    VENDORS: "OSF/1 and MIPS ??? *@^#^@# You gotta be kidding !!
              (rhyme ? we don't need no stinking rhyme.  Reality
               is it's own poetry ...)"

  
> If I can't rely on DEC to support the investment I've made
> in them, I'm going to turn to Sun and/or HP which have a better track-
> record -- and guess what -- are profitable as companies because of it.
> 

  There seems to be a lot of that going on, around these parts, anyway, but
  substitute "IBM" (RS/6000) for "Sun".  Not that IBM is having an easy time
  of it either.  It's a tough (impossible ?) business to be in the computer
  vendor business these days.  Wouldn't want to be in their shoes, no way
  sir.  Life's too short as it is.

  greg pavlov
  pavlov@fstrf.org