Phil Goldstein writes that Digital Equipment Corp.’s VAX line of superminicomputers acted as a vital bridge between mainframe-dominated computing and the rise of personal computers. These systems became indispensable for federal research and academic institutions because they offered high performance, significant virtual memory capacity, and backward compatibility with earlier DEC architectures.
- The first model introduced was the VAX-11/780 in October 1977.
- Success in proprietary operating systems like VMS eventually failed as the market shifted toward commodity hardware running Windows or Linux.
- Compaq acquired DEC in 1998, which was later bought by Hewlett Packard in 2002.
- The first model introduced was the VAX-11/780 in October 1977.
- Success in proprietary operating systems like VMS eventually failed as the market shifted toward commodity hardware running Windows or Linux.
- Compaq acquired DEC in 1998, which was later bought by Hewlett Packard in 2002.
