The VAX 9000 is a discontinued family of mainframes developed and manufactured by Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) using custom ECL-based processors implementing the VAX instruction set architecture (ISA). Equipped with optional vector processors, they were marketed into the supercomputer space as well.[1] As with other VAX systems, they were sold with either the VMS or Ultrix operating systems.
The systems trace their history to DEC's 1984 licensing of several technologies from Trilogy Systems, who had introduced a new way to densely pack ECL chips into complex modules. Development of the 9000 design began in 1986, intended as a replacement for the VAX 8800 family,[2] at that time the high-end VAX offering. The initial plans called for two general models, the high-performance Aquarius using water cooling as seen on IBM systems, and the midrange-performance Aridus systems using air cooling. During development, engineers so improved the air cooling system that Aquarius was not offered; the Aridus models were "field-upgradeable" to Aquarius, but they did not offer it.[3]
The 9000 was positioned within DEC as an "IBM killer", a machine with unmatched performance at a much lower price point than IBM systems. DEC intended the 9000 to allow the company to move back into the mainframe market, which it had abandoned starting in 1983,[4] as it watched the low end of the computer market being taken over by ever-improving IBM compatible personal computer systems and the new 32-bit Unix workstation machines. The company invested an estimated $1 billion in the development of the 9000, in spite of considerable in-company concern about the concept in the era of rapidly improving RISC performance. Production problems pushed back its release, by which time these fears had come true and newer microprocessors like DEC's own NVAX offered a significant fraction of the 9000's performance for a tiny fraction of the price.
Roughly four dozen systems were delivered before production was discontinued,[citation needed] a massive failure. One representative example CPU sits in storage at the Computer History Museum, not on public display. Another is in storage at the Large Scale Systems Museum.
^Winstanley, Graham (1991). Artificial intelligence in engineering. West Sussex, England: Wiley, Chichester. p. 391. ISBN 9780471926030. PDP-10...was discontinued in 1983
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offered about 25 VAX Unit of Performance (VUPs), while the NVAX+ was roughly 35 VUPs. This was only slightly less than the VAX9000 mainframe's roughly...
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decided to move into the large-computer space instead, introducing the VAX9000 mainframe in 1989, but it was a flop in the market and disappeared after...
rate. US patent 4,435,756 and others were granted on this scheme. The DEC VAX9000, announced in 1989, is both microprogrammed and pipelined, and performs...
VAXserver 9000 – (Based on the VAX9000) VAXserver 9000 Model 110 VAXserver 9000 Model 3x0 VAXserver 9000 Model 310/Model 310VP VAXserver 9000 Model 320/Model...
compete against each other was a strain. Of the three ECL projects, the VAX9000 was the only one that was directly commercialized. Primarily because of...
Harris (CHI) Culler Scientific Cydrome (founded 1984, closed in 1988) DEC (VAX9000) (Acquired by Compaq in 1998, who was acquired by HP in 2002) Elxsi Corporation...
calculus Synthesis of Integral Design by DEC, a 1980s tool used to design VAX9000 mainframe CPUs and others ICs "Synthesis:Verilog to Gates" (PDF). Naveed...
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to the interconnect and cooling technologies. These were used for its VAX9000 mainframe computers. Years later, the manufacturing difficulties of the...
developed earlier for the Bell-internal CB UNIX. SVR1 ran on DEC PDP-11 and VAX minicomputers. AT&T's UNIX Support Group (USG) transformed into the UNIX...
2023. A VAX computer was installed at Berkeley in 1978, but the port of Unix to the VAX architecture, UNIX/32V, did not take advantage of the VAX's virtual...