yann64andClaude Opus 5.5
cf3a03350c
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com> Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01YDRjtmAiNpo5mK5N3d7QwZ
22 lines
2.3 KiB
HTML
22 lines
2.3 KiB
HTML
{
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"title": "VAX 11/780, THE FIRST VAX SYSTEM",
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"date": "1977-10-01",
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"years": [
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"1977"
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],
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"topics": [
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"Hardware"
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],
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"params": {
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"when": "OCTOBER 1977",
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"image": "/media/history/images/timeline_vax780_2.jpg",
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"oc_id": 20,
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"source": {
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"url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20220408001423/http://www.old-computers.com/history/detail.asp?n=20",
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"date": "2022-04-08"
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}
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}
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}
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<img src="/media/history/images/timeline_vax780_2.jpg"/> <br/><br/> <p>The <b>VAX 11/780</b> was introduced on October 25, 1977 at the Digital Equipment Corporation's Annual Meeting of Shareholders. It was the first member of the VAX computer family, the first commercially available 32-bit computer and the first <b>one MIPS</b> (one million instructions per second) machine. <br/><br/> The computer and its operating system (VMS) were designed both from scratch. The result was a really reliable, powerful and user-friendly system. The affordable price level allowed many institutions and universities to acquire it. <br/><br/> In a VAX, one finds the basic architecture of the previous <b>Digital PDP-11</b>. Both systems were partially hardware and software compatible. However, the <b>V</b>irtual <b>A</b>ddress e<b>X</b>tension (VAX) allowed the use of 32-bit addressing, the number of the processor general registers has been doubled (16 instead of 8) and the instructions set deeply improved. The systeme bus, called LSI-11 then Q-Bus was the same as the PDP-11's. The Vax 11/780 was UNIBUS based system (16 bits). <br/><br/> For many years, VAX 11/780 remained the base system every computer speed benchmarks refered to. Several programming languages could be used, such as Fortran-77, Cobol, Bliss-32, PL/I, BASIC, PASCAL, CORAL 66, and a netware software called DecNet. <br/><br/> The VAX 11 series was sold until 1988. A dual processor version has been launched in 1981 (11/782) as well as various systems, from the small VAXstation 1 up to the VAX 9000 mainframe. The VMS operating system is still sold by Digital (bought by Compaq in 1999) and it seems that a few of VAX 11/780 were still in use in the year 2000. <br/><br/> The photo below is of Proto Type 15, the first Vax to have cabinet skins, taken in Tewksbury, Massachusetts, about 1977. <br/><br/> </p><img src="/media/history/images/timeline_vax780_3.jpg"/>
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