Any ex-DECies in TV?

[outahere]

Are there any other folks here that used to work for DEC (Digital Equipment Corporation)? I started with them in 1981 and was with them until my entire group was laid off in 1994. Actually met my wife at the Bedford, MA training center.

[Dan9871]

My wife and I both worked at DEC. I left in about '82 and my wife in the early 90's.

Are there any other folks here that used to work for DEC (Digital Equipment Corporation)? I started with them in 1981 and was with them until my entire group was laid off in 1994. Actually met my wife at the Bedford, MA training center.

[OldManTime]

Yep! in the 70's

[outahere]

My wife and I both worked at DEC. I left in about '82 and my wife in the early 90's.

Yep! in the 70's

Good to know I'm not alone. While I moved on to other things, my wife has survived the DEC/Compaq and Compaq/HP mergers and is now scheduled to retire at the end of next May.

[memason]

Anyone know how to program in VMS ??? :laugh:

[outahere]

Anyone know how to program in VMS ??? :laugh:

It's been a long time, but what are you trying program in? Something in VAX or Alpha Macro?

[memason]

It's been a long time, but what are you trying program in? Something in VAX or Alpha Macro?

Nothing any longer...I spent a lot of time with VAX computers and the VMS OS. That was ok, but the PDP 11 OS was a bear to use...

Haven't used a VAX computer since about 1992 or so... Actually, we used Fortran for programming purposes... Yikes! I'm dating myself.

[outahere]

Nothing any longer...I spent a lot of time with VAX computers and the VMS OS. That was ok, but the PDP 11 OS was a bear to use...

Haven't used a VAX computer since about 1992 or so... Actually, we used Fortran for programming purposes... Yikes! I'm dating myself.

Don't feel bad. When I started out as a programmer in the early 70's we were coding in COBOL and Fortran - on punched cards.

[memason]

Don't feel bad. When I started out as a programmer in the early 70's we were coding in COBOL and Fortran - on punched cards.

ha ha...been there; done that.

During my college years, I left a 10,000 card deck in the back of my car for a few days. Seems those cards don't like humidity....

[FromAus]

Or for that matter RSX11m+. However to really date myself how about I programmed on PDP8-Es, 11-34s and 11-44s.

[tuccillo]

I never worked for DEC but I did use a number of their systems such as the PDP-11/34, DEC System 20 (or 10, cant remember which), and a bunch of VAXs. DEC, of course, pretty much owned the world with the VAX. The PDP-11/34 was the first system I used that didn't have punch cards. I also remember using a DEC PC-like system but can't recall the name. I never used any of the DEC Alpha based systems. I do remember the Alpha EV-4 processor (also used in the Cray T3D) being a real dog performance wise. DEC did get it right with the EV-5 and follow on processors.

I did, and still do, use Fortran. Most of the heavy lifting around the world (in the science arena) is still done in Fortran but C/C++ continues to increase in popularity.

I also used a number of larger systems such as IBM System 360, IBM System 370, CDC Star100, CDC CYBER 203, CDC CYBER 205, Cray X-MP, Cray-2, Cray Y-MP, Cray C-90, Cray T-90, CRAY T3D, Cray T3E, IBM POWER2, POWER3, and POWER4-based clusters, and most recently various Intel based Linux clusters with typically 10K to 100K cores. The increase in capability, as well as user friendliness, is amazing. I started out using punch cards. It is amazing how things have changed over the 40+ years I have used systems.

Or for that matter RSX11m+. However to really date myself how about I programmed on PDP8-Es, 11-34s and 11-44s.

[Nucky]

I can help you program your television remote control? Whew heavy duty stuff mentioned above.

[outahere]

I can help you program your television remote control? Whew heavy duty stuff mentioned above.

Well..... if you can program a TV remote, you're one up on me! :bowdown:

I agree - lots of heavy duty stuff in tucillo's post. I got out of the programming business in the mid 70's and went to the hardware side. I worked as a DEC Field Service Engineer maintaining/repairing the largest systems they made (DEC 10's, 20's and big VAXes). The largest system I had was a DECsystem 10 that was over 30 feet long. The PC I'm sitting at right now has a faster processor and scads more memory than that machine, but that system easily supported over 100 users at a time, and it seemed like you had the whole machine to yourself.

After about 6 years I got really, really tired of being on call every other week and transferred to DEC's Training department where I wrote and delivered all levels of VMS training, including internals and crash analysis. Was part of a small team that worked directly with the Alpha engineering group to develop and deliver Alpha VMS training, prior to that product being introduced.

Long story, short - the people who took over DEC after the founder (Ken Olsen) was forced out, decided that internal Field Service training was no longer needed, so except for a couple of admin people, our entire group of almost 100 people was laid off. Up until a couple of years before I left, it was a great place to work.

[Bavarian]

This was lile a trip down memory lane. In college (Drexel University), in our mini-computer class, we entered our code on PDP8's by toggling the switches. Read off answers in Octal from the lights. When I took other computer classes on the mainframes. used punch cards.(Still have some. saved ones with one mistake. Were perfect for Writing contents on a VHS tape, fit right in)

When I graduated and worked for DoD we used punchcards. all in FORTRAN. did read in 7tk and 9tk tapes and wrote them a times. Wrote 7tk tapes to be used on our plotter.

We upgraqded some film readers with PDP8's .


Did some VAX-11 code, some in Assembly a bit in machine code.

Was funny trying to explain old code the young kids had to convert to C, did not nknow that the slash 1h (/1h ) in the format meant go to the next card.

They are spoiled

[MrGolf]

85-94 Toronto and Vancouver

[MrGolf]

The PC you were referring to was a DEC Rainbow or a DECmate. Desktop PDP-8
Then there was a Pro 350.

[Topspinmo]

:popcorn:I just got my hackers cd from overseas, can't wait to start hacking being most computers are free for all for devious activity:popcorn:

[rexxfan]

I went to high school in suburban Boston in the early '70s and learned my first assembly language on the PDP-8I that DEC donated to the school. I was in DECUS for a while and made several visits to the Maynard plant. I applied for a job there when I was graduating college but ended up at Bell Labs (and later, IBM, where I've been for 35 years now). I still remember most of the instructions you had to key in for the RIM loader :-)
--
bc

[nkrifats]

Worked with a PDP and a Vax in credit union industry. Used Punch Cards on systems in Navy. How about booting using a paper tape!

[Ed Krik]

Worked at DEC from 76 through 91. Started in Marlborough FS. Ended in Acton GIA. Loved working at Digital.

:gc:

[marennorge]

I started at DEC in 1981, too, and managed to survive the Compaq and HP mergers. I retired in 2006. Worked at several different Massachusetts locations finally ending up at MRO1 in Marlboro for the last 9 years of my career there.

[SB8476]

I worked for DEC between 1974 and 1980 in Rochester and Buffalo NY. Worked in Field and Software Services. Worked on the PDP 1, 6, 8, 10, 11, 12 and VAX. Very good experience always thankful for the training and experience that I received.

[DeanFL]

Not DEC, but Prime Computer, Computervision, and EMC.

[RetiredInTV]

I worked for DEC from 1980 to 1995 in the manufacturing plant in Augusta, Maine. Started in HR and moved to IT in the computer room. Worked on a DEC10, couple PDP 11s, and a wide variety of VAX. SCI, a company in Alabama, bought the manufacturing plant in the middle of 1995, and took on some of the employees. I worked for them for a couple months then moved to South Carolina where I was hired by a company hunting for VAX management and VMS skills.

DEC was a really great company to work for - excellent benefits and treated the employees well. Meetings and training in Massachusetts were really great trips.

[Golf-Tinker]

Joined DEC early 60s in Maynard. Worked in software development for 18-bit machines (PDP-5, 7 and 9) and 36-bit (PDP-6). The PDP-6 evolved into the DEC-10 and -20. Left when the Harlan Anderson affair forced Ken Olsen to take the company public.

Returned in mid 70s to work on PDP-11s. Later VAX/VMS.

Moved to DEC Rainbow (PC) project as product manager. Helped arrange visit of Steve Jobs to Maynard to lunch with Ken Olsen (at little French restaurant across the street from corporate headquarters). Anybody remember the place or eat there? Jobs's visit was not mentioned in the biography.

Left in 1984 when I realized Ken did not understand the PC and the changes coming to the computer industry.

FYI: VMS and RSX were operating systems, not languages. You code in a language; compile or assemble your program; and run it with an operating system.

[Dan9871]

Ate at "La Petite Auberge"... though for debug sessions Lando's was a more likely choice.

[outahere]

Ate at "La Petite Auberge"... though for debug sessions Lando's was a more likely choice.

I would LOVE to have a Lando's steak and cheese sub right about now!!! Even their small size subs were more than enough for two people!

[gcohen6]

I worked at DEC from 85 to 92. When I left, it was getting crazy there. Managers were getting pummeled in the parking lots.

It was a wild and crazy time back in the day...:)

When I started I worked in the Field Service Logistics unit in Woburn (yes, where the water was tainted). It was my job to get to the root cause failures of their PC boards. I set up a data base warehouse to suck in data from all the repair places around the world. I called it FAMIS, (Failure Analysis and Management Information System). I ran a proof of concept using 2 repair facilities in MA. I found that a chip was failing because the vendor didn't clean the ic before encapsulating it. It saved the company around $2 Million. So I was scheduled to go live worldwide. And then it got interesting.

My project got shut down for no reason. I was livid and I made no bones about it. I even left the department to work somewhere else in the company. About 4 months later, there was a news story about a ring of thieves in DEC that were stealing PC chips. I put two and two together and realized that my bosses boss was named in that ring of thieves. If my FAMIS system had gone live it would have pinpointed the IC being falsely reported as bad. The thieves were reporting IC's as bad (which they were not) and when they took an IC out of stock, they just pocketed it and sold them in the black market. it all made sense to me after that.

But no one offered me a chance to come back and set up FAMIS. Seems they just wanted to bury the story. So I moved on. C'est la vie...