Date   : Sun, 16 Oct 1983 00:01:00 pdt
From   : Bakin.SSID@hi-multics
Subject: Re: DEC Rainbow questions

Thanks for that info!  I gather MS-languages to include Pascal and
Fortran?  Hopefully, Pascal can call Fortran and vice versa? I am
waiting to hear just a bit more before buying.  I have one major concern
that you might explain to me and info-cpm?

I have used DEC-10s, DEC-20s, PDP-11s, and various Vaxen....  While I
have noticed enormous amounts of software available from third party
vendors for each of those machines, the primary writer was DEC.  I can
expect no one but Digital to have any real interest in keeping the
Rainbow alive.  Hence, I can expect no one but Digital to write complete
systems for the Rainbow, be it mutually callable languages, OS updates,
Mail Systems, what have you.  Yet as far as I can tell, DEC has not
written much for the Rainbow.  This seems to leave a gaping hole which
cannot be filled by third parties.

What are DEC's future plan's for the Rainbow?  They now have CP/M and
MSDOS, what about a multitasking OS?  CCPM?  Unix?  How about some
munged version of RT or RSX that supports DCL?  (RT-86?)

It seems horribly brain damaged that DEC doesn't write software for its
machine.  Please!  Tell me why I'm wrong in that opinion!

Jerry Bakin <Bakin -at HI-Multics>