Vintage Computer History: Ken Olsen and Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) (PDP, VAX)

[@tweetyuno]

I was fortunate to work for DEC for almost 20 years. Mr Olsen. Was a beautiful human being, for him every employee was important. DEC the best company ever existed in the World.

[@ASCIITerminal]

I really, really miss Digital!

[@jeromewhelan6723]

This film and story was so enjoyable. I met my first DEC mini in the form of a PDP-8 back in 1970; it was collecting tracking radar az/el/range data from a small radar I maintained and sending it down the line to a large mainframe. I was in the USAF at the time, and a civilian scientist who served as my mentor handed me a full set of books on the system and encouraged me to study them. That later bloomed into an electrical engineering career where I employed, interfaced, and programmed PDP-11s and VAXen. Fifty years now and I still remember fondly the DEC family of computers and peripherals.

[@shedwork]

Thanks for this video. I worked at DEC in Australia for a few years before the Compaq takeover. It was one of the best workplaces I ever experienced.

[@ComputerHistoryArchivesProject]

Hi Shedwork, glad you enjoyed the video! ~ VK

[@Codeaholic1]

Several years ago I got to tour the Mill when it was occupied by 38 Studios. It was a crazy cool experience, seeing a historical campus and inside a games company at the same time. Glad Jeff could show me around. I miss ya buddy.

[@josephcote6120]

The Dec-10 we had at college (1977-1982) is still my favorite machine.

[@MessiahProphylaxis]

My dad worked for Digital in the 80s/early 90s until the mass layoffs in 1994. I remember going with him to work one day at the Maynard campus. I had a large Digital computer crate in my room for storing my toys. He said his division had the option to keep their jobs if they wanted to move to New Jersey. I'm glad he declined!

[@sjpbrooklyn7699]

About 15 minutes in, Olsen matter-of-factly notes one of the most important features of VAXen: they all look alike to the user. In 1981 at the American Cancer Society we paid $280,000 for a VAX 11/780 to support a new survey of 1,000,000 men and women to be followed for years (some of this cohort is still under active study today). Before signing the contract we benchmarked it against a comparable Data General minicomputer and IBM 360/75. [DG happily let us test our own FORTRAN and BMDP benchmarks at a Long Island sales office. IBM declined to let us use one of their machines so we bought time on one at Columbia University.] The VAX was the mainstay of the operation until 1988 when the ACS moved from New York to Atlanta. I left the ACS but stayed in New York. Twelve or 13 years later I needed to look at some of my old data. The data were on magnetic tapes which could be read on any computer of the day, but I had developed database management software that was specific to the VAX. At that time there was a lively market in used or refurbished older computers. I bought a micro-VAX for about $2,000 and a tape drive to go with it. When I powered up the micro-VAX, the VMS system immediately came to life as if I were on the 11/780, the FORTRAN was installed immediately, and my programs ran as if I had just run them the day before.

[@ComputerHistoryArchivesProject]

Hi Sjpbrooklyn, that is a pretty amazing story! A quality machine from a quality company. Thank you for sharing this bit of your personal history! ~ Victor, CHAP

[@nicolacorsaro1835]

Thank you for this video. I thought they would talk about the famous PDP 11 used by Ken Thompson and Dennis Ritchie

[@velocityjockey1272]

And you were correct, they did mention the PDP 11 donated to MIT on which the first digital video game displayed on CRT called spacewar was created.

[@ibm3609]

I think that this en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultrix can help you to understand why...

[@sergeaudenaert]

Thank you for the nice share and Merry Christmas :-)

[@ComputerHistoryArchivesProject]

Thank you too! ~ Victor, CHAP

[@davidpillitteri5393]

Grazie per aver condiviso questo video. E' un vero ed originale regalo di Natale.

[@ComputerHistoryArchivesProject]

Google Translate says: "Thanks for sharing this video. It is a real and original Christmas gift." Thanks very much for the kind words! ~ CHAP

[@LymanPhillips]

I love the design at 11:38. PCs should be that cool looking again.

[@ComputerHistoryArchivesProject]

Yes, would agree with that!

[@kalkan4]

I really enjoyed this one. Totally absorbed for 19 minutes. Thanks again for all of your fascinating uploads.

[@ComputerHistoryArchivesProject]

Glad you enjoyed it! ~ Vincent, at CHAP

[@MarvinStroud3]

I programmed one of the early PDP-11's. It was my first stack machine. I loved it, particularly when compared to the Data General Nova.

[@pseydtonne]

Out of curiosity: what did the Nova lack compared to the PDP-11? I fear that I'll start a Ford vs GM fight here. I've heard so many stories about either. However I have never seen a Nova emulator to try a comparison.

[@gregsb3454]

They made some of the best computer equipment, a really innovative company.

[@rw-xf4cb]

VT escape codes and the VT standard is still around long after Digtial/DEC moved on. Lovely to see the old ESC[2J escape sequences around. Loved my VT220 green screen in those days with 4 session to various VAXen and today I now need 4/5 screens to keep track of what I had in my head as a youth was easy flipping the sessions doing something on one and editing on another.

[@The_Conspiracy_Analyst]

0:30 oh wow i didnt know this!! It was my exact same thought process about a decade ago. I realized doing anything entreprenural with high tech electronics would be difficult if i had to farm ecerything out, it would be too expensive. So i got a milling machine and lots of other tooling and learned alot. Made jigs and a press to laminate multi layer PCBs, and a manual pick n place jig that was just as fast as CNC equipment because it places many chips at once.

[@billschlafly4107]

My first desktop computer, purchased in 1994, was branded Digital.

[@JeffRyman69]

I did some work on the DECSystem 10 at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory. It was, at its zenith, the largest DECSystem 10 in the world. DEC used to test software on it to make sure it could run on any size system. I also worked for a group that bought a MicroVAX. It came with the operating system on tapes and instructions on how to install it. I was able to set up the system, install the operating system (and compilers) and begin developing programs in about three days.

[@ComputerHistoryArchivesProject]

Hi @JeffRyman69, Oak Ridge National Laboratory is quite a famous place! I bet that was quite a fascinating place to work. I didn't know they had the larges DECSystem 10. Sounds like a lot of horse power. Wonder what they use today. Thank you for sharing a bit of history. Sounds like it was fun! ~ Victor, CHAP

[@victorpinasarnault9135]

And Bob Kahn and Vincent Cerf created the TCP/IP protocol to connect a PDP computer to anothers.

[@James_Knott]

DEC had DECNET, to connect their computers and it ran on the original 10base5 Ethernet. We had it at my work, connecting 7 VAX 11/780s. Of course, many DEC systems were connected with IP. BTW, it was Vinton Cerf, not Vincent.

[@tma2001]

Famous last words from Olsen at the end about PC's and workstations - he was gone 4 years later.

[@boblake2340]

I was given a private course on maintaining the PDP1 at chalk river, by one of the designers, as a young Field Service technician. Played Space War on it too . :)

[@chumbawumba1959]

In 1980's while working on Masters Thesis in Computer Science at USM in Hattiesburg MS ... I created a diagram that depicted distributed local computers on a shared network fabric called 'clients' and a collection of remote VAX systems in VAXCluster configuration called 'servers'. Referred to the VAXCluster server portion of the diagram as in a ''CLOUD'!!!!!

[@ComputerHistoryArchivesProject]

Very cool! Thank you for your feedback and comment on the VAX/DEC film! ~

[@bawol-official]

Currently doing a big research project with DEC as a focal point and the impact it had not just in the field of computers but on my hometown itself, Hudson MA. If any former engineers see this comment please reply/message me for a possible interview!! I have a lot of questions and would love to have a chat.

[@josephgaviota]

10:30 Ah, back in 1975, I worked on a PDP-8I, paper tape in, paper tape out, and ran a Fototronic 480 (as shown), plus multiple TxTs (with 5 discs, similar to 10:35) ... Ah, the good old days.

[@josephgaviota]

Of course eventually we had PDP-11/34 and later PDP-11/35 ... but it then became hard to hold programmers, who all wanted to work on VAX.

[@MicrobyteAlan]

I worked for DEC pdp11s DECsytems20s and VAXen. 1979 - 2000

[@346Moody]

Great find thank you!

[@ComputerHistoryArchivesProject]

Glad you enjoyed it. ~ CHAP

[@thebittenmac]

I used a VAX 11/780 👍 So I am old 😢

[@craig893]

Ditto! 11/750, 11/780, VAX 6000, 8000 AND 9000. Several MicroVAXen was well. I miss VMS!

[@James_Knott]

Back when I was a computer tech, working on the VAX 11/780, I took a Fortran course at night school and did my homework on the VAX. Also, I can thank the VAX for my first modem. My wife was visiting my office and I showed her the Adventure game. She asked if we could run it on my computer (an IMSAI 8080). I said no, but if we had a modem... I was soon the proud owner of a 300B manual modem, which I often used to dial into a VAX at work.

[@owenwilberforce6138]

My dad, Jaime Urquidi, worked for DEC from ‘77 to ‘92 or so. It is interesting to see why DEC computers were being used at places like NASA’s Moffett Ames and all around the world. I like their philosophy of keeping their systems compatible. If only small companies like Apple could have thought in those kinds of legacy values.

[@laustinspeiss]

Easily one of my best working experiences at DEC around 1980. (118138)

[@georgef551]

To think, Ken Olsen said there would never be a market for a computer in the home, but also said at that moment that a computer will fit in your pocket in the future.

[@uni-byte]

What we have in the home these days are not computers in the sense that a PDP-11 or a VAX was. They are more internet access terminals. For the great majority of home "computing" the machines have not been used as computers, but as games consoles, terminals and/or communications devices. A minority were/are indeed used as computers but not as many as you'd think.

[@frankfahrenheit9537]

what is missing: the DEC Alpha processor. 2x faster than an Intel in 1994. I had the pleasure to log in remotely to such a machine. Fast like hell.

[@Shredxcam22]

This is awesome I work on an integrity machine in openVMS that started life as a vax/vms

[@dzee9481]

Wow, this was a time I was just a kid, any had no idea America was so GREAT! This is when America had geniuses and we created a lot of the technology we see today. I found it amazing that Japan and other countries buying these computer from us. I bet back then they dont do what China does today is steal our intellectual property. Although we let that happen to ourselves and deserve it due to pure laziness and dont care attitude. Seeing this documentary reminds me of how great America was once, with very creative people making up our middle class economy then. Today America only has restaurants and other food services that puts us so far back in technologically compared to the Asian world.

[@ComputerHistoryArchivesProject]

Hi D Zee, you make some great points. Glad you enjoyed this film. Thank you for your feedback too.~ Victor, CHAP

[@djorgesen4823]

I taught DecSystem-10 hardware and peripherals in MA from 1973 through 1976. One time Ken was walking across the production floor in the Marlboro large systems building and a tech, knowing Ken was a tight-was, super glued a quarter to the floor. Sure enough Ken spotted it and tried to pick it up. The company committed suicide by bad management. Tragic.

[@ComputerHistoryArchivesProject]

Hi D Jorgensen, that is a great story about Ken. I wish I had known him personally. I bet he was quite a personality.

[@victorpinasarnault9135]

Dennis Ritchie created C language for a PDP 10 computer.

[@ComputerHistoryArchivesProject]

Victor, thanks very much! (Wikipedia has a pretty good entry on Dennis Ritchie too. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dennis_Ritchie ~ Victor, at CHAP

[@PatrickRosenbalm]

That's Ken Olsen. Not Olson. ;-) Great find!! Thanks for posting. If only you could remove the cheesy dated video game music!! LOL!! By the way, Ever read the book The Soul of a New Machine?

[@ComputerHistoryArchivesProject]

Hi Patrick, thanks (fixed "Olsen" in the video title). Interesting book, The Soul of a New Machine, haven't read it yet, but thank you for the tip. Will check it out! ~ Victor, at CHAP

[@BrianBoniMakes]

When was this made? Looks like the late 80s.

[@jamesslick4790]

She said the PDP11 "Continues after 20 years" That would seem to "peg" it at the very early 1990s, as the PDP11 dates to 1970.

[@ComputerHistoryArchivesProject]

You can see near the end of the film there is a slide showing "DEC World '88" and then reference to DEC in the 1990's. I would estimate the film was made around 1989 or so. If we find the exact date, we will post that here. Thanks very much! ~ Victor, at CHAP

[@RobertKohut]

Nice!

[@rabidbigdog]

The destruction of Digital in Amercian business history continues to be a crime that should have resulted in capital punishment.

[@MicrobyteAlan]

Guess my Favorite machine. Field Service

[@KhemchandDhakar-g5i]

Skill development new future new India 2025

[@dmitrykazakov2829]

Great engineering, but very poor marketing and total lack of vision. I don't want to repeat his infamous quotation, but should LSI-11 had been aggressively pushed as a PC, the world would be very different today. Intel architecture was (and still is) inferior in all possible aspects. MS-DOS was not even a proper OS, when RSX-11 was a mature multi-user, multi-tasking, safe, networking, real-time OS with everything we have today. Intel, Microsoft and also UNIX drove us into the Dark Age of Computing for many decades and ruined the software market, and DEC? DEC is in history archives...

[@ComputerHistoryArchivesProject]

Hi Dmitry, very interesting points! LSI-11 does sound like it had lots of potential. Not sure why the company took a different turn in the long run. Thank you for your perspective! ~ Victor, CHAP

[@dmitrykazakov2829]

@@ComputerHistoryArchivesProject Thank you for bringing this treasure back. It was a sheer pleasure to work on PDP, VAX, Alpha. Each of them was a true revolution. DEC Ada compiler was a gold standard for many years and DEC C was the only one C compiler giving meaningful error messages. Thanks again.

[@victorpinasarnault9135]

I know about DEC from Bill Gates's book: the road to the future.

[@83hjf]

how scary. i was just today thinking about that book and now i read your comment here about it. what are the odds?