First new VAX in 30 years? (2021)

Original Article ↗ Hacker News Discussion ↗

A hobbyist project to build a new VAX-compatible system in 2021 prompts nostalgia for DEC hardware and NetBSD, along with frustration that such technically ambitious work now happens with minimal institutional support. Commenters reflect on the appeal and drawbacks of VAX’s extremely CISC-heavy instruction set, contrasting it with modern RISC architectures like ARM and RISC‑V and noting how RISC underpins today’s performance‑per‑watt gains. The thread also branches into critiques of modern software complexity—especially in C++—and appreciation for old-school, minimalist web interfaces that foreground content over UI.

Project & Context

  • Thread discusses a 2021 effort to build a new VAX-compatible system, with follow‑up technical posts linked in NetBSD’s port-vax mailing list.
  • Commenters note this was also covered on HN in 2021 and praise the NetBSD community for producing unusually “cool” retro‑hardware projects.
  • One highlight: this VAX has a built-in, panel‑mounted joystick, which some initially overlooked in the photos.

Website Design & Usability

  • Many like the minimalist, old‑school HTML 4.01 / Mailman archive layout: no JS, tiny pages, very fast navigation.
  • Others criticize lack of responsiveness on some mobile devices, very small text, and incompatibility with browser Reader Modes.
  • Workarounds mentioned: browser zoom, per‑site CSS overrides, and mobile font/zoom controls.
  • Some find the typography fine; others see an ugly monospaced font on iOS and blame either browser defaults or OS font choices.

VAX / DEC / VMS History & Branding

  • Clarification that the topic is about a VAX CPU, not vaccines, and not new DEC‑built hardware.
  • Discussion of VAX’s demise: vendors stopped selling new systems in the 1990s; OpenVMS was successively ported from VAX to Alpha, then Itanium, and now x86‑64 via VMS Software Inc.
  • Hobbyists are frustrated that VAX VMS licenses are hard or impossible to obtain cheaply, even though HP/HPE and VMS Software retain various rights.
  • Some nostalgia that a revived “Digital Equipment Corporation” brand might be more appealing than current HP/HPE branding.

CISC vs RISC and Instruction-Set Complexity

  • VAX is portrayed as the archetypal CISC: many complex instructions and extremely rich addressing modes; individual instructions can be huge, even larger than a memory page.
  • Examples cited include queue operations, polynomial evaluation, CRC, and sophisticated bit‑field and character handling.
  • Discussion emphasizes that “CISC vs RISC” is less about raw instruction count and more about addressing modes and instruction complexity.
  • Comparisons are drawn to ARM, RISC‑V, 68k, and m88k; ARM is seen as relatively pleasant to hand‑code, RISC‑V as cleaner than x86 but less ergonomic, and 68k as a classic “fun CISC.”
  • Linked material (within the thread) is referenced as a well‑known retrospective on why simpler RISC designs ultimately won in practice.

Assembly vs High‑Level Languages

  • One commenter finds modern C++ (C++17–20) harder than x86 assembly.
  • Others argue:
    • Individual assembly instructions are simple, but large programs become tedious and hard to maintain.
    • High‑level languages add complexity to enable abstraction, structure, and maintainability.
    • Using a disciplined “subset” of C++ (e.g., “C‑flavored C++”) can keep things manageable, although legacy code may still use the full feature set.

Modern RISC Hardware & Parallelism

  • RISC architectures are credited with reshaping performance per watt, with Apple Silicon and inexpensive ARM SoCs cited as strong real‑world examples.
  • A low‑cost ARM SBC is reported to achieve a substantial fraction of a high‑end x86 laptop’s performance at much lower cost and power.
  • However, commenters note persistent difficulty in effectively using many cores, GPUs, or distributed nodes; scalable, general‑purpose programming models are still seen as lacking.

Abstraction Layers & Control

  • Some lament the long chain of abstraction layers, claiming it distances users from hardware and control.
  • Others point out that understanding lower layers remains critical, for example in building exploit chains from sandboxed environments down to kernel‑mode code.

Retro Anecdotes

  • Stories are shared of basements full of washing‑machine‑sized VAX systems and the idea that their form factor was influenced by the need to fit through submarine hatches.