note VAX sold into the same mid-range market with IBM 4300s and in about
the same numbers for small number orders ... however some large
corporations had multi-hundred vm/4300s orders for placing out in
departmental areas (sort of the leading edge of the coming distributed
computer orders). IBM was expecting that 4361/4381 order volume would
continue like the 4331/4341 orders ... however can be seen in the VAX
numbers, by the mid-80s the mid-range market was starting to move to
workstation and large PC servers.
a.f.c. repost from 2002:
more drift ... from a 1988 IDC report:
VAX INVENTORY
-------------
SYSTEM US NON-US TOTAL
--------- --------- --------- ---------
11/725 950 550 1,500
11/730 4,100 2,950 7,050
11/750 12,230 9,370 21,600
11/780 14,280 9,660 23,940
11/782 190 120 310
11/785 2,460 1,590 4,050
MVI 1,840 960 2,800
MVII 41,000 23,900 64,900
82XX 2,800 1,870 4,670
83XX 900 600 1,500
85XX 1,200 905 2,105
86XX 2,360 1,240 3,600
8700 400 270 670
8800 300 200 500
-------- -------- --------
TOTAL 85,010 54,185 139,195
VAX SHIPMENTS
-------------
NO. OF VAX
YEAR US NON-US TOTAL MODELS SHIPPED
--------- --------- --------- --------- --------------
1978 312 78 390 1
1979 627 313 940 1
1980 1,512 1,038 2,550 2
1981 1,979 1,726 3,705 2
1982 4,129 2,794 6,923 4
1983 6,178 4,384 10,562 5
1984 11,703 8,227 19,930 7
1985 17,600 7,300 24,900 8
1986 19,190 12,840 32,030 12
1987 21,780 15,485 37,265 12
-------- -------- --------
TOTAL 85,010 54,185 139,195
VAX SHIPMENTS - NON US
----------------------
1978-
SYSTEM 1984 1985 1986 1987 TOTAL
-------- -------- -------- -------- -------- --------
11/725 450 100 0 0 550
11/730 2,350 600 0 0 2,950
11/750 7,040 1,700 430 200 9,370
11/780 7,700 1,500 270 190 9,660
11/782 120 0 0 0 190
11/785 40 1,100 350 100 1,590
MVI 860 100 0 0 960
MVII 0 1,900 10,000 12,000 23,900
82XX 0 0 725 1,145 1,870
83XX 0 0 200 400 600
85XX 0 0 305 600 905
86XX 0 300 470 470 1,240
8700 0 0 60 210 270
8800 0 0 30 170 200
-------- -------- -------- -------- --------
TOTAL 18,560 7,300 12,840 15,485 54,185
VAX SHIPMENTS - US
------------------
1978-
SYSTEM 1984 1985 1986 1987 TOTAL
-------- -------- -------- -------- -------- --------
11/725 650 300 0 0 950
11/730 3,200 900 0 0 4,100
11/750 9,300 2,200 560 170 12,230
11/780 11,500 2,200 400 180 14,280
11/782 190 0 0 0 190
11/785 260 1,600 500 100 2,460
MVI 1,340 500 0 0 1,840
MVII 0 9,000 15,000 17,000 41,000
82XX 0 0 1,150 1,650 2,800
83XX 0 0 300 600 900
85XX 0 0 420 780 1,200
86XX 0 900 730 730 2,360
8700 0 0 80 320 400
8800 0 0 50 250 300
-------- -------- -------- -------- --------
TOTAL 26,440 17,600 19,190 21,780 85,010
VAX SHIPMENTS - WORLD-WIDE
--------------------------
1978-
SYSTEM 1984 1985 1986 1987 TOTAL
-------- -------- -------- -------- -------- --------
11/725 1,100 400 0 0 1,500
11/730 5,550 1,500 0 0 7,050
11/750 16,340 3,900 990 370 21,600
11/780 19,200 3,700 670 370 23,940
11/782 310 0 0 0 310
11/785 300 2,700 850 200 4,050
MVI 2,200 600 0 0 2,800
MVII 0 10,900 25,000 29,000 64,900
82XX 0 0 1,875 2,795 4,670
83XX 0 0 500 1,000 1,500
85XX 0 0 725 1,380 2,105
86XX 0 1,200 1,200 1,200 3,600
8700 0 0 140 530 640
8800 0 0 80 420 500
-------- -------- -------- -------- --------
TOTAL 45,000 24,900 32,030 37,265 139,195
... also 1988
6,500 clusters installed, From 14,000 DEC VAX sites:
Percentage of VAX processors clustered
15% - 1985
21% - 1986
26% - 1987
...
IBM favorite son batch system (MVS) looked at the size of the
distributed vm/4341 market and wanted some of the business ... however
it required non-datacenter hardware ... and MVS was CKD DASD only, never
getting around to supporting FBA (fixed-block) disk ... and the only new
CKD DASD was large datacenter 3880/3380 (note there has been no CKD DASD
made for decades, all being simulated on industry standard fixed-block
disks). Eventually IBM came up with CKD simulation for the 3370 FBA as
3375 ... but didn't do MVS much good. MVS was still scores of staff per
system, and the distributed computing market was scores of systems per
staff.
--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970