What ever happened to Tandem and NonStop OS 2054

What I was saying is that all the microprocessors DEC made between the LSI-11 (actually 5 or 6 chips) and the Alpha belonged only to DEC for use in their computers. The LSI-11 and the Alpha you could put into your own box.

A PDP system as a building block for a larger system? Cite please. You imply that a stand-alone DEC CPU was at the heart of a larger system with another nameplate on the box, like Intel and Motorola have been doing for decades.

But the PDP-8 IS a computer not a part of one. Does DEC make computers or parts of computers, or both?

The term maxi computer was invented to help you out with minis that have mainframe characteristics.

Univac and Burroughs, and their current incarnation Unisys, didn't do to badly. Last I looked Unisys is still around, though a shade of their former selves.

Until the advent of the Alpha. And of that they bet the farm, unless you can tell me what they were doing in the early 90s that was going to buttist them out if Alpha couldn't.

Huh, all those DEC PCs were built during blue moons? Seems to me that DEC sunk quite alot into Wintel technology before settling on the Alpha.

The Intersil 6100.

And Intel?!? I own a DEC laptop and a DEC PC which are nothing but DEC Wintel boxes.

As well as cell phones and cable modems. But luckly for Motorola they had something left in the tank before betting almost the whole farm on the Iridium project. (Every time I lose a cellphone connection -at least once a week!- I wish Mot had won over celluar)!

You skate the point. Mot and Intel ARE hardware companies. What was DEC? Computer Co? But HW or SW? Both? Who can do that at anywhere near 50-50? Even IBM got smacked trying to do both.

No , only a part of it and not exclusively at that. The point is that DEC had something in the LSI-11 and decided not tro pursue it until 12 years later.

Seems to be a kernal from this link:

Right and reality is nothing but atoms in need of the same type of sorting.

Eric