28 Dec
2017
28 Dec
'17
5:44 a.m.
On 12/27/17, Dave Horsfall <dave(a)horsfall.org> wrote:
On Wed, 27 Dec 2017, Dave Ritchie via TUHS wrote:
That may have been true in the 1960s, but by the mid-1970s IBM
System/360/370 was no longer competitive in the educational market.
Circa 1973, Boston College--a true Blue IBM shop with a
System/370-145--wanted to provide time-sharing services to the student
body. For less than the cost to upgrade the model 145 to a 158, they
bought a PDP-11/70 and ran RSTS on it. Similarly Holy Cross (my alma
mater) had outgrown their System/370-125 by 1976. For the price of an
upgrade to a model 135, they could by a complete VAX-11/780 system for
academic use and retain the S/370-125 exclusively for college admin
purposes. The 11/780 was equivalent in compute power and memory
capacity to a S/370-158, but for about 1/4 the cost.
-Paul W.
I think that steep educational discounts and
equipment grants from
Digital to major collages also had a major impact, as did the existence
of DECUS that made a lot of software readily available.
IBM practically gave away their kit to educational institutions too (and
made their money from the maintenance); there was no way that the
University of NSW e.g. could've afforded their 360/50 otherwise,