[rescue] DEC12000 masPar

[Ed Thierbach]

> > If someone with a high-value product with certifications running on one
> > has their hardware break, half a million may be chump change compared
> > to the costs of porting/rewriting the software and re-getting assorted
> > certifications for the new system.
> >
> > Of course, that's total speculation.  I have no specific reason to
> > think such a `someone' exists.
>
> Think 'nuclear power plant'. Typically nothing can be changed - including
> computer systems - in a plant for the entirety of its certification life.
>
> Back in the day at Digital (say around 1995), we heard about a nuclear
> plant
> in Italy that was still running a VAX 11/780 with VMS V1.7. (This is when
> the
> then-current version was 6.0).
> DEC Field Service was buying 11/780 parts from 3rd party parts-and-systems
> brokers - at top dollar - to keep that machine going.
>

Back in an earlier day (mid-80s I think), the Washington DC VAXLUG did a
VMS version poll at the start of each meeting. There was always one guy in
the front who would raise his hand for VMS 1. The facilitator would laugh
and say, "It runs the reactor, right?"  Of course, being the DC area,
nobody knew for sure if that was really true, or some other application. :-)

-Ed-