Talk:VAX 8000

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Model categorization[edit]

I would suggest something like the following taxonomy (in rough chronological order):

8600 (Venus)
- 8650 (Morningstar)
8200/8300 (Scorpio, V-11 VLSI CPU)
- 8250/8350
8700/8800 (Nautilus)
- 88x0 (Polarstar)
- 8974/8978
8500/8530/8550 (Flounder/Skipjack)

Should probably also cross-reference to VAXstation 8000. Letdorf (talk) 13:02, 27 October 2008 (UTC).[reply]

That's probably a better idea. Does the chronological order account for architectural similarity? Or is it less important than chronological ordering?

How similar is the VAXstation 8000 to the VAX 8000? The Computer Business Review (links at the VAXstation 8000 section in the VAXstation article) claims that it had MicroVAXen serving as I/O controllers. I don't think the VAX 8000 it was based on had those. Rilak (talk) 05:46, 28 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The VS8000's CPU was defintely the same KA825 as in the VAX 8250. However, there was also something called a KA800 Real Time Accelerator in the VS8000, which was a MicroVAX II running VAXELN [1]. There's some DEC documentation on the VS8000 here.

I think the main architectural division was between the 8200/8300 (VLSI V-11 CPU) and the rest (ECL array CPUs). I guess there's also a significant difference between the 86x0 series and the VAXBI-based 85x0/8700/88x0/897x models. Letdorf (talk) 13:03, 28 October 2008 (UTC).[reply]

I have tweaked the categorization a bit. I am currently going through the February 1987 issue of the Digital Technical Journal, which is about the VAX 8800 family, including the VAX 8700, VAX 8550 and VAX 8500. The older issues can be found here, in case you did not know. Rilak (talk) 07:23, 29 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

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Macropipelining[edit]

I wish someone who knows more about this stuff than I do would write about the unusual architecture of the VAX 8800, [2], and Doug Clark's unusual management style during its development [3]... the story deserves to be better known. Jar354 (talk) 17:19, 21 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Polarstar - 8840 question[edit]

I remember there was a decision not to market the 8840 because it offered no more processing power than the 8830. One of the busses could be saturated by 3 processors and so there was no reason to pay for a forth processor. I did some benchmarking on an 8840 at spitbrook road so I know they existed but I don't think they sold any. 149.32.192.35 (talk) 16:40, 1 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]