On Aug 20, 2021, at 1:39 PM, Paul Koning via cctalk <cctalk@classiccmp.org> wrote: > Interestingly enough, I remember another machine that was also called 11/74; > it existed in the RSTS/E lab in Merrimack (NH). That one wasn't an MP > machine; instead, it was an 11/70 with additional microcode to add the CIS > (strings and decimal arithmetic) instruction set. COBOL-11 could use this, > and indeed CIS was a supported product in some later machines. But the 11/74 > CIS machine never saw the light of day. > > I don't know why not. Perhaps it was not cost-effective given that it was a > physically large machine, no longer a state of the art architecture for the > time (around 1980). One comment I heard is that it was forced to be canceled > because it could run COBOL faster than a VAX-11/780. No idea if that was true > (either the speed claim or the cancelation claim). It has a faint ring of > plausibility to it; when the 780 came out, DEC made some noises that PDP-11 > would disappear within just a handful of years. It didn't take them all that > long to realize the absurdity of that notion. > > paul
Given what happened with the PDP-10, it seems very plausible that it was canceled due to the VAX-11/780. Zane
