32 lines
3.9 KiB
HTML
32 lines
3.9 KiB
HTML
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1" standalone="no"?>
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<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><head><title>Mars</title><link rel="stylesheet" href="../../jargon.css" type="text/css"/><meta name="generator" content="DocBook XSL Stylesheets V1.61.0"/><link rel="home" href="../index.html" title="The Jargon File"/><link rel="up" href="../M.html" title="M"/><link rel="previous" href="marketroid.html" title="marketroid"/><link rel="next" href="martian.html" title="martian"/></head><body><div class="navheader"><table width="100%" summary="Navigation header"><tr><th colspan="3" align="center">Mars</th></tr><tr><td width="20%" align="left"><a accesskey="p" href="marketroid.html">Prev</a> </td><th width="60%" align="center">M</th><td width="20%" align="right"> <a accesskey="n" href="martian.html">Next</a></td></tr></table><hr/></div><dt><a id="Mars"/><dt xmlns="" id="Mars"><b>Mars</b>: <span xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" class="grammar">n.</span></dt></dt><dd><p> A legendary tragic failure, the archetypal Hacker Dream Gone Wrong.
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Mars was the code name for a family of PDP-10-compatible computers built by
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Systems Concepts (now, The SC Group): the multi-processor SC-30M, the small
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uniprocessor SC-25, and the never-built superprocessor SC-40. These
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machines were marvels of engineering design; although not much slower than
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the unique <a href="../F/Foonly.html"><i class="glossterm">Foonly</i></a> F-1, they were physically smaller
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and consumed less power than the much slower <a href="../D/DEC.html"><i class="glossterm">DEC</i></a>
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KS10 or Foonly F-2, F-3, or F-4 machines. They were also completely
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compatible with the DEC KL10, and ran all KL10 binaries (including the
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operating system) with no modifications at about 2--3 times faster than a
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KL10.</p><p>When DEC cancelled the Jupiter project in 1983 (their followup to the
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PDP-10), Systems Concepts should have made a bundle selling their machine
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into shops with a lot of software investment in PDP-10s, and in fact their
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spring 1984 announcement generated a great deal of excitement in the PDP-10
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world. TOPS-10 was running on the Mars by the summer of 1984, and TOPS-20
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by early fall. Unfortunately, the hackers running Systems Concepts were
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much better at designing machines than at mass producing or selling them;
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the company allowed itself to be sidetracked by a bout of perfectionism
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into continually improving the design, and lost credibility as delivery
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dates continued to slip. They also overpriced the product ridiculously;
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they believed they were competing with the KL10 and
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<a href="../V/VAX.html"><i class="glossterm">VAX</i></a> 8600 and failed to reckon with the likes of Sun
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Microsystems and other hungry startups building workstations with power
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comparable to the KL10 at a fraction of the price. By the time SC shipped
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the first SC-30M to Stanford in late 1985, most customers had already made
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the traumatic decision to abandon the PDP-10, usually for VMS or Unix
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boxes. Most of the Mars computers built ended up being purchased by
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CompuServe.</p><p>This tale and the related saga of <a href="../F/Foonly.html"><i class="glossterm">Foonly</i></a> hold
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a lesson for hackers: if you want to play in the
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<a href="../R/Real-World.html"><i class="glossterm">Real World</i></a>, you need to learn Real World moves.</p></dd><div class="navfooter"><hr/><table width="100%" summary="Navigation footer"><tr><td width="40%" align="left"><a accesskey="p" href="marketroid.html">Prev</a> </td><td width="20%" align="center"><a accesskey="u" href="../M.html">Up</a></td><td width="40%" align="right"> <a accesskey="n" href="martian.html">Next</a></td></tr><tr><td width="40%" align="left" valign="top">marketroid </td><td width="20%" align="center"><a accesskey="h" href="../index.html">Home</a></td><td width="40%" align="right" valign="top"> martian</td></tr></table></div></body></html>
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