[TUHS] If not Linux, then what?

[Jon Forrest]

On 8/28/2019 10:32 AM, Larry McVoy wrote:

> Perhaps Clem can shed some light on why DEC did a MIPS machine?  I had
> sort of stopped paying attention to them, so don't know the reasoning.

I always thought it was because the Vaxes were too slow (and too
expensive) to compete with Sun, and the Alphas wouldn't be ready
soon enough. So, going with MIPS was a relatively quick and easy
solution.

In UC Berkeley CS in the early 90s we had lots of DEC MIP-stations.
In fact, I believe that Ousterhout used them to develop Sprite.
IIRC, there weren't nearly as many Suns, which was odd, considering
that Dave Patterson was in the department. As a result of the Sequoia
2000 project we got great deals on DEC hardware.

Jon