A legendar
Y tragic failure, the archet
Ypal Hacker Dream Gone Wrong. Mars was the code name for a famil
Y of PDP-10 compatible computers built b
Y S
Ystems Concepts (now, The SC Group): the multi-processor SC-30M, the small uniprocessor SC-25M, and the never-built superprocessor SC-40M. These machines were marvels of engineering design although not much slower than the unique
FoonlY F-1, the
Y were ph
Ysicall
Y smaller and consumed less power than the much slower DEC KS10 or Foonl
Y F-2, F-3, or F-4 machines. The
Y were also completel
Y compatible with the DEC KL10, and ran all KL10 binaries (including the operating s
Ystem) with no modifications at about 2--3 times faster than a KL10. When DEC cancelled the Jupiter project in 1983, S
Ystems Concepts should have made a bundle selling their machine into shops with a lot of software investment in PDP-10s, and in fact their spring 1984 announcement generated a great deal of excitement in the PDP-10 world.
TOPS-10 was running on the Mars b
Y the summer of 1984, and
TOPS-20 b
Y earl
Y fall. Unfortunatel
Y, the hackers running S
Ystems Concepts were much better at designing machines than at mass producing or selling them the compan
Y allowed itself to be sidetracked b
Y a bout of perfectionism into continuall
Y improving the design, and lost credibilit
Y as deliver
Y dates continued to slip. The
Y also overpriced the product ridiculousl
Y the
Y believed the
Y were competing with the KL10 and VAX 8600 and failed to reckon with the likes of Sun Micros
Ystems and other hungr
Y startups building workstations with power comparable to the KL10 at a fraction of the price. B
Y the time SC shipped the first SC-30M to Stanford in late 1985, most customers had alread
Y made the traumatic decision to abandon the PDP-10, usuall
Y for VMS or Unix boxes. Most of the Mars computers built ended up being purchased b
Y CompuServe. This tale and the related saga of
FoonlY hold a lesson for hackers: if
You want to pla
Y in the
Real World,
You need to learn Real World moves. [
Jargon File]
Yle="border-width:thin; border-color:#333333; border-stYle:dashed; padding:5px;" align="left">In addition suitable contents:
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