Damned shame that they killed Alpha and with that move doomed VMS. The Itanium port didn't help expand the VMS base, since there wasn't enough support to VARs to keep the support for VMS in applications. There are only two viable OS choices now.
Windows and Linux/Unix. (And the Unix part is weakening over time due to costs vs. Linix).

It may have been the kind of things like an NSA letter -- it also needs to be said that she is very serious and zealous about maintaining her privacy. Remember the SCO suit seemed to even have private investigators looking to find PJ.

This may not be about secret magic security letters -- but again... how do we ever know. 8-(

We need a Groklaw NOW to keep a light on the legal maneuvers that are impacting the digital ecosphere.

I wouldn't have minded if PJ shut down Groklaw after SCO -- but the coverage of the patent suits and other
recent reports on the IBM suit have proven we need to have someone covering this. The mainstream media (not a political issue -- but a fact that they are not tech aware enough to cover this) can't do the job on these stories.

I was a reporter once and moved to Hardware and then Sysadmin. There are technical things that the journalism school crowd can't cover. PJ's legal background made Groklaw a major resource.

We do need Groklaw now more than ever.

I'd love to see a good investigative reporter pick up and run with the story. I'm afraid, though, that the folks who "know where the bodies are buried" won't talk.
Perhaps if someone went at the story like they did in All The Presidents Men and just follow the money.

Amazing to see a decent company ruined by it's own management.
I liked Caldera and owned OldSCO stock before they made this ridiculous lawsuit happen. I got out before they killed the company.

How could anyone find it surprising that a corporation is promoting use of it's own products. Please. Actually, Microsoft's got a couple of good products that I've used and been happy with. One's Microsoft Lync which we use at work to do messaging, desktop sharing etc. I just wished there was a linux client for the thing. It would make my life much better.

I'm Linux/Unix guy for a living but I do admit Microsoft makes some reasonable products. I wish the corporate lock-in was not as bad as it is and I wish they published docs documenting all their file formats for interoperability. They have made some strides in the last couple of years.

I've got one laying in the basement. Or perhaps it's the SLC.

Runs nicely with Solaris 1.1.x (SunOS 4.1.x).

What's it worth to you...? I've got IPX's, Opus Sparcstation II clones with the SparcUP upgrades... etc.

They've got at least one 11/70...
I remember the VT11 on PDP's running Lunar Lander.
I remember VSV11's (qbus connecting to Unibus via an adapter) running on Vax11/780's. Was the VS11 similar to the VSV?

I used to be the guy who fixed this stuff.
TU77 tape drives, RP06 disk drives, VAX11/780's.

I'd kill to have a job doing that today. Much more fun than Unix Sysadmin.
Now the techs just do parts delivery -- if that. Now it's mostly customer swap with manufacturer sending the stuff via FedEX/UPS or courier.

Adjusting the TU45's on those PDP10's was a real PITA.

My kid and I both use it.
It's handy as both a browser, nntp and email client in one.
Even the html editor comes in handy for occasional quick stuff...

It's a good throwback to the old Netscape Navigator days and it's still being updated regularly.
I've been using that and Chrome.

Try something bigger. More lights and fun. And the fan noise. I had a PDP11 in my kitchen. Power up both 14 inch disk drives and watch the breaker for the 20 amp circuit blow. 8-(

The SIMH emulator can run PDP11 software and give you the 11/40 blinking lights in a window. I put up RT11 and did some toggle in programs to test it. Amazing. I just wish we had the 11/45 and 11/70 light panels to watch as well.

I never met him, but I always admired the way he put values ahead of pure profit.

As a Field Grunt in Field Service I always was told to do what's right for the customer. In these days of call centers, untrained support personnel reading from scripts, software that requires a paid support contract to fix security defects in the releases... or to upgrade firmware which used to be free for buying the hardware (Oracle, HP).

We're in a world which views the customer as a consumer and pushes profit ahead of everything else.

VAX/VMS was a solid well supported product and Vaxclusters were revolutionary.

Ken Olsen made mistakes... but he never forgot he was an engineer first. Here's to the techie's techie who valued more than just the bottom line.

He missed the Unix boat and was late to the "Open Systems" camp -- but the folks at DEC put an awful lot of source stuff up for download on decwrl and market-20 on their dime before there were web browsers and download.com.
Here's to AltaVista, DECnet and BasicPlus. Here's to distributed computing to the desktop.

Boy... HP's done everything but driven a stake through the heart of VMS and it's still out there in places like chip manufacture.

VMS -- the Timex of operationg systems.