what's wrong with microVax II?

[Avadis Tevanian]

>According to Electronics, DEC has stopped shipping microVax IIs
>with Ultrix because of an unspecified problem with the operating
>system.  Are there any of you out there who know what the problem
>is?

As far as I know (and I may be completely wrong), there is no problem with
Ultrix.  The problem is the hardware.  It seems that DEC has experienced some
memory problems.  As it turns out, the "bad" addresses usually show up in the
lower ranges... right where Unix lives.  Apparently, VMS runs in high memory,
so the problem only affects poor little user processes (a situation that they
are willing to live with).

Supposedly, a significant number of beta sites have reported this problem.
Our MicroVax II hasn't had this problem, though.  In fact, in several months
use, I've seen only one crash caused by hardware (a machine check).