Transcription of 1995/June/23 webcast: (opening scene, a small Japanese girl sitting on a stool in front of a table with several devices on it, she is dressed in a white, buttoned shirt, slacks, and loafers.) Naru: I'm Oosaka Naru, interim CEO of DEC, Digital Equipment Corporation. For the last few weeks, as the rumors doubtless have already told you, we've been making some changes. We've layed off over three thousand people, we've dropped several product lines, and pissed off several of our suppliers. (pause, Naru takes a drink from the glass of water next to her) Naru: There is a simple reason for each of these choices. (short pause, Naru sets down the glass) Naru: The lion food was stupid. They were getting in the way of our core business, hassling the actual employees and interfering with their work. Now, lion food has its uses, they set deadlines and help get things done on time, but we had way too much of it, and too much of its time was taken up playing games with itself. So, we canned two thousand members of it. (another pause, as the live audience rustles) Naru: Our marketing department sucked. It couldn't sell cocaine to the CIA, let alone the world's fastest conventional mass-produced processor to the public. So, we canned them too. (loud murmor from the crowd) The remaining three hundred people were mainly in upper management, or sales, with a few from other parts of the company, and were canned for stupidity far above and beyond expectations. (continued murmors from the crowd, as Naru takes another drink) Naru: We dropped all of our Intel based systems. We dropped all of our support for Windows. Why would we do such a thing, when Intel based systems running Windows dominate the desktop market? (another pause, with silence this time) We funneled millions of dollars into the Windows NT port to Alpha, in exchange for promises from Microsoft that they would port their applications to the platform. It has been two years, and what has come of it? (Naru glares at the camera for an instant) Just about nothing. Some of you should know about our technology, called FX!32, and isn't that a pretentious name, which allows one to dynamicly translate a program written for one processor to run upon another, completely different, processor. FX!32 only allows one to run Intel Windows binaries upon Alpha Windows. That is no small feat, but we've taken it a step further. We carefully documented the entirety of the current Windows API, even the bits that Microsoft doesn't publish. This is available for immediate download from our web site, or via anonymous FTP from gatekeeper.digital.com. This is only a stopgap, but it should take Microsoft a little while to re-write their APIs. Why would Microsoft want to re-write their APIs? Because we extended FX!32 to create a new technology, which we call GoatGetter. GoatGetter allows any windows binary, from DOS games to _Monty Python's Complete Waste of Time_ to Microsoft office, to be run under any of the real OSs that run on Alpha: Linux, Digital UNIX, or VMS. We are currently working with the NetBSD/Alpha port, and expect that NetBSD will run on Alpha by the end of the month, with GoatGetter running within a few weeks of that. Why are we doing this? Because, the more operating systems run on Alpha, and the more programs one can run on Alpha, the more useful it is, and the more of them we can sell. Why are we giving away GoatGetter? GoatGetter is free. Not just free as in beer, but free as in speach as well. Anyone who wants to can make changes to the source code of the program, and, provided they provide those changes in source code form, distribute them as they wish. We have a single goal with GoatGetter, to make our own products more useable. Too much of the software written today is written for Windows. What happens when you manage to crash Microsoft Word? Here, let me show you what often happens to me. This, (Naru turns, and picks up a small laptop computer, connected by a single cable back to the bench) is a Hi-Note Ultra II, one of the last Intel based systems Digital made. I have it running Microsoft Windows NT, which is marketed for its stability. Let me just call up Word, and turn the projector on. (a large screen lights up behind the bench, showing Word starting. Naru twiddles her thumbs, reversing direction several times while she waits.) OK, there it is, finally. I have a document containing a Word macro virus, which one of our employees wrote. Here it is opening, (a document window pops up) and Word is thoughtfully reading all of the macros attached to the document. (the system goes into the Blue Screen of Death) Word jumped off into hyperspace before NT could catch it. Now, we all know what the next step is, right? We reboot. (Keys rattle, then Naru goes back to twiddling her thumbs for a moment) This, (Naru points with her chin at the screen) is the lilo bootloader. Right now, it is waiting for me to tell it what to do, but just about now, (the screen suddenly shifts, the standard linux boot messages flashing up the screen) it will decide to boot my default OS, which, for this machine, is Linux. Linux will boot, check to make sure it didn't crash the last time it was brought down, and then mount its disks, and NT's disk, too. (the screen displays a login prompt. Naru logs in as on, then an ornate prompt, with the date, hostname, and current working directory all in different colors is displayed. Naru types "type word" and the computer responds with: word is a function word () { GoatGetter /losent/programs/office/word $@ } Naru then types word junk.doc. ) You should notice that word is a shell function, a batch file, if you will, that is in the shell, instead of having to be read from the disk each time it is called. Word still takes an inordinate amount of time to start, but this time it is in its own little world, isolated from the real OS. (Word pops up its little toolbars, then the document window, then crashes and burns) Notice how Word still crashes when it reads that macro virus, but the OS is still fine. I can even call up another copy of word, with a different file, and everything will work as if one had rebooted the machine. (Naru types word silly.doc, then twiddles her thumbs until it shows up.) Silly.doc is just a word document, and I can manipulate it as I wish. However, not only do the Microsoft key bindings work, but so do the normal X windows bindings, particularly the wonderful, quick, and easy copy and paste. (Naru copies a paragraph from one part of the screen to another in three clicks of the mouse buttons, and a bit of shifting with the trackball.) Let me just put this to sleep, and I'll show you why we've dropped Intel. (Naru shifts the mouse pointer to the root window, and down a pop-up menu. Within moments the laptop goes to sleep) This, (Naru slips down the bench a little ways, and slaps a mouse. A diffent xdm screen pops up on the projector screen, and she quickly logs in again as on.) is an Alphaserver 1200. Two 21164 processors at 533 Mhz, each with four meg of level two cache. Lets try this again. (she types word silly.doc, and it pops up much quicker) Notice how much more responsive the Alpha is than the Intel box. I admit, the Ultra II is only a Pentium 75, and Intel has released Pentium Pros at up to two hundred Mhz. (Naru slides her chair a little further down the bench, and in an ornate sequence of keystrokes, logs onto NT) However, as you can tell, (she starts word, on a convienient silly.doc, then waits) It isn't as fast, even with the high-end, one meg of cache PPro 200. (Naru shifts back to the 1200, and the projector screen follows) We can also run as many copies of GoatGetter as we want, to the limits of physical memory. (she calls up a copy of doom, one of tie fighter, _Monty Python and The Holy Grail_, Netscape, Mosaic, and WordPerfect 5.1 for dos.) Each one is separate, and crashing any of them doesn't effect any of the others. This is why we're dropping both Windows and Intel. Naru: What about pissing off our suppliers? You already know about Intel and Microsoft. Sony is miffed because we are not renewing our contracts for monitors, having decided to shift to DKG units. Our steel suppliers are also upset, because we are going to be replacing our steel cases with DKG glass ones. Our memory suppliers are upset, because we will be producing our own memory very shortly, and are currently using DKG microCore RAM. Naru: But what does this mean to you? Faster systems. The shift to microCore memory alone will improve performance by a factor of two. Cheaper systems. By limiting internal infighting, we will be able to provide tighter integration, quicker design, and simpler upgrade paths. More choice, both in system archetectures and operating systems. The PDP-10 is probably dead, and TOPS with it. If we can get twelve orders for any combination of the two, we will resurect it. The PDP-11 is not going to die just yet. The PDP-11/95, which you can order today, provides a 36-bit memory controller, 200 Mhz system clock, two GB of microCore main memory at full processor speed, and source compatability with prior PDP-11s. It will be available in a number of forms, ranging from the Personal PDP-11/95, which will sell for around a thousand dollars, have limited expansion capabilites, and come with a set of programs designed to make one's home computing experience easier, to the PDP-11/95 IOB, which will quite adequite for monitoring, say, traffic at every intersection in New York City, by weight of vehicle. There will be four new models of VAX, and new, much less expensive, VMS licenses, including clustering. There will be six new Alpha models, each at least three times as fast as the current systems. Also, certain of our Alpha systems, particularly the Jenson and the Multia, are far too pitiful, and we will be providing, free of charge, harware replacement or reconstruction to bring them up to a decent level of performance. (silence from the crowd) Naru: If anyone has any questions, the floor is open. Reporter (ABC): How were you chosen to be CEO? What is your prior experience? Naru: I own twenty five percent of the stock. I control another five percent directly, and DECUS likes me. In terms of prior experience, I don't have much. I hold the rank of Leftenant in the Dark Kingdom Special Police, and participated in the recent intervention in Ethiopia. Reporter (CBS): How has your takeover affected the Digital's bottom line? Naru: (laughs) It is a little soon to tell for sure, but orders of DEC systems are up a hundred and ten percent, including three tentative requests for information on new TOPS-10 SMP systems. Fab 6, which had been running at between ten and twenty-five percent capacity is up to 95% capacity, and new semiconductor products are due to be released into the market in two months. I'll be able to tell you more then. Reporter (NPR): Who do you see as your toughest competion? Naru: I'm not sure we have any. I've made arrangements with both Genom and DKG whereby they'll help us get re-established in the market. None of the other system vendors, not Sun, not IBM, not HP, nor even NCR can match our price/performance, even before the recent changes. With them, we will have the most powerful conventional systems on the planet. Reporter (NBC): What do you mean by `conventional system?' You've used the term repeatedly. Naru: Nemesis is a non-conventional system. The Photons are non-conventional systems. QSVPs are non-conventional systems. A conventional system is one that uses changes in materials to store and process data. Reporter (Wired): Why would one buy a Digital system, rather than renting time on one of the Photons? Naru: I'm assuming you are refering to the fact that Photon Seven found a brute-force solution to the RC5-64 challenge in two yoctoseconds, right? Reporter (Wired): Right. Naru: That is quite simple. First, time on Photon Seven, the only one of the Photons available for public use, time is charged by the 10^-33 second, which I can't remember the prefix for, sorry, (laughs), and each ten to the negative thirty-third of a second will cost $100,000 US. Second, both the program submitted and the answer returned will be looked over by the operators, and if they don't think that the person buying the time should be trusted, the fee will be refunded, without returning the answer. This has already happened to No Such Agency, about three separate queries, and the DOD, with some nuclear weapons simulations. If you buy a PDP, a VAX, or an Alpha, it is yours, to do with as you will, and to run whatever codes, for whatever reasons, you like. (pause, as Naru looks over the audience) Naru: If there are no further questions at this time, I hope to see you again in a few months. Thank you. (Naru smiles at the camera, and the screen fades to black) --- log: 2000 August late: written. 2000 Sept 21: tiny edit, log added 2001 Jan 19: tiny edit