OpenVMS is still among most reliable OS's & clustering ever created. First high-assurance VM software was done there. The Alpha processors' PALcode let us essentially do microprogramming in assembler code with its atomic execution having implications for concurrency work. Quite a few innovations of lasting importance under Olsen. I'm furious at his ass for not believing in desktops given DEC's accomplishments on other things. We may have been deprived of something awesome because of that.<p>Another thing to take away from DEC is motivation and process. DEC was a company made of engineers who built things engineers wanted to use. Such companies still wow crowds in headlines today and is a niche worth remembering. The other part was the quality-assurance regiment that I heard they used for VMS. They'd code new features for a week with tests, let tests run over weekend, and then spend entire, next week fixing problems rather than developing new features. This alternation made for some really robust code. They similarly payed close attention to design and operations with the collective result being systems that lasted years under load without reboot.<p>So, management failures & desktops aside, Ken Olsen and his company DEC exemplified some good, lasting lessons for creating and marketing high-quality systems. Worth remembering both for this.