The passing of an IT legend
Not many people remember DIGITAL or DEC (Digital Equipment Corporation). Back in the 70s and 80s, DEC was considered the second largest IT company in the world behind IBM. And it defined the mini-computer era with its PDPs and VAXes.
This week, the industry mourned the passing of Kenneth Olsen, the founder and CEO of DEC.
I had several brief encounters with DEC both in the university and early on in my career. I remembered those nights where I had to do my ADA assignments on the VAX, compiling my compiler and getting it to do what it was supposed to do. The commands on the VAX were different, archaic even and I didn't like it much.
But after I started my IT career, I came to realize that DEC, especially the VAX running VAX/VMS, were the power workhorses of the manufacturing industry in Malaysia. And the VAXes were very, very resilient and stable.
Their resiliency were top notch and I have never seen clustering as resilient as DEC's. The system administrator at Siemens Melaka was so confident that he literally pulled out VAX controllers and switching them LIVE in their production environment. I was impressed and from then on, I respected the VAXes a lot.
My second encounter with DEC in my IT career was DECnet. It was DEC's own version of Ethernet network and I was the "appointed" engineer for SunDNI. SunDNI was the Sun Microsystem's gateway between the TCP/IP network and DECnet. I had my share of fun with SunDNI but those implementation was rare. But it was fun while it lasted.
In the 90s, DEC started its decline. Microsoft Windows with Windows NT 3.51 started making dents into the DEC juggernaut and eventually overwhelmed DEC. Although there were some success with the Alpha chip, DEC was eventually acquired by Compaq in 1998. Subsequently Compaq was acquired by HP. Hence, the demise of DEC.
Kenneth Olsen was a visionary and he created a creative and innovative culture in DEC and the company spearhead many new technologies that were beyond its time. The industry mourns Kenneth Olsen's passing.
