>>> It does thing that today's desktops can't do.  When is the last
>>> time you got 99.999% uptime out of a PC?
>> Not counting an eight-hour power failure, one of my PC-based servers
>> has had under two minutes of unscheduled downtime in seven years of
>> 24x7 operation.  That's better than 99.9999%.
> But the point is that you cannot count on it.  If PC hardware works
> for seven years without fail, that is definitely the exception and
> not the rule.  PC hardware is generally mediocre.

Quality pc hardware exists.  You just rarely see it because most people
want to heatseek to the _new_ latest within six months, so they aren't
willing to spend the extra bucks to get solid hardware.

> People like VAX because it is kick-ass hardware.  It is engineering
> to an extreme.  VAX are reliable [...]

Indeed.  I've some uV2 CPUs that are still ticking along (or at least
were last time I turned them on, a week or two ago).  The whole thing
is overdesigned by at least 100% - witness the doorbell interrupt bug.

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