[TUHS] Early Unix function calls: expensive?

[Tim Bradshaw]

On 4 Jan 2016, at 04:40, Armando Stettner <aps at ieee.org> wrote:

> I guess I experienced things a little differently: computer science basis notwithstanding, the VAX was hugely successful for DEC.

I think it was, too.  What I meant, though, was that, although x86 demonstrates that it's possible to make almost anything fast by the application of sufficient money, the VAX was something which was expensive to keep performance-competitive, especially in the era when RISC could make really easy wins, and the cost of doing that hurt DEC pretty badly, I would expect (and made VAXes increasingly expensive compared to the competition, which I remember them being in the late 80s).  And I guess Alpha was too late.

--tim