
Ken Olsen, Who Built DEC into a Power (2011) - mtviewdave
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/08/technology/business-computing/08olsen.html
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nickpsecurity
OpenVMS is still among most reliable OS's & clustering ever created. First
high-assurance VM software was done there. The Alpha processors' PALcode let
us essentially do microprogramming in assembler code with its atomic execution
having implications for concurrency work. Quite a few innovations of lasting
importance under Olsen. I'm furious at his ass for not believing in desktops
given DEC's accomplishments on other things. We may have been deprived of
something awesome because of that.

Another thing to take away from DEC is motivation and process. DEC was a
company made of engineers who built things engineers wanted to use. Such
companies still wow crowds in headlines today and is a niche worth
remembering. The other part was the quality-assurance regiment that I heard
they used for VMS. They'd code new features for a week with tests, let tests
run over weekend, and then spend entire, next week fixing problems rather than
developing new features. This alternation made for some really robust code.
They similarly payed close attention to design and operations with the
collective result being systems that lasted years under load without reboot.

So, management failures & desktops aside, Ken Olsen and his company DEC
exemplified some good, lasting lessons for creating and marketing high-quality
systems. Worth remembering both for this.

~~~
drudru11
I was a VMS admin for a few years. I have tremendous respect for DEC tech.

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nickpsecurity
The VMS admins said they slept at night. Some didn't but it wasn't VMS that
woke them up. Was that your experience? ;)

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drudru11
Yes. There was a level of quality and thought put into the systems that I
haven't experienced since.

Just to provide some more contrast... Just about every other system had to be
rebooted daily or every few days.

The problem with VMS was the hardware. Eventually the pain of being on slow,
expensive machines allowed other companies to take more share. By the time the
Alpha systems were ready, the Pentium (and soon Pentium Pro) was suprising
every OS vendor.

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nickpsecurity
"Just to provide some more contrast... Just about every other system had to be
rebooted daily or every few days."

That's the biggest point I push on it: architecture and development processes
that _worked_ in terms of reliability. It didn't emerge after billions of
investment in whatever wasn't working. Just teams working 9a-5p building
stuff, testing it, reviewing it, polishing it. And it totally worked.

"By the time the Alpha systems were ready, the Pentium (and soon Pentium Pro)
was suprising every OS vendor."

People of the time period told me it was a combo of hardware and licensing
cost. They said OpenVMS still cost a fortune while Windows and UNIX's (esp
BSD's) were "good enough." That is, DEC & Compaq seemed to ignore the lessons
of Worse is Better essay about the market power of an imperfect, mostly-
working solution. They _might_ have gotten further lowering their price alone.
Maybe still have to target commodity hardware, though.

------
gjvc
... in 2011

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dang
Ok, we added 2011 and took out "dies at 84", since that signals recent news.
The post might still make for a good historical discussion.

