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The first VAX model sold was the 11-780 which became available in 1978. Many different models with different prices, performance levels, and capacities were made. VAX superminis were very popular in the early 1980s. In 2001 there were still VAXen doing useful work, and Compaq was reportedly manufacturing and selling a tiny number of new ones.
For a while the VAX 11-780 was used as a baseline in CPU benchmarks because its speed was about one MIPS. Ironically enough, though, the actual number of instructions executed in 1 second was about 500,000. One VAX MIPS was the speed of a VAX 11-780; a computer performing at 27 VAX MIPS would run the same program roughly 27 times faster than the VAX 11-780. Within the Digital community the term VUP (VAX Unit of Processing) was the more common term, because MIPS do not compare well across different architectures.
The VAX went through many different implementations. The original VAX was implemented in TTL and filled more than one rack for a single CPU. CPU implementations that consisted of multiple ECL gate array chips included the 8600, 8800 superminis and finally the 9000 mainframe class machines. CPU implementations that consisted of multiple MOSFET custom chips included the 8100 and 8200 class machines. There were also microprocessor implementations which included the microvax I, microvax II, cvax and rigel chips. The VAX microprocessors extended the architecture to inexpensive workstations. This wide range of platforms (mainframe to workstation) using one architecture was unique in the computer industry at that time.
The VAX processor was superseded in 1992 by the DEC Alpha (originally named AXP), a high performance 64-bit RISC architecture that could run VMS, Tru64 (DEC's UNIX), Windows NT, FreeBSD/ NetBSD/ OpenBSD and Linux.
Working titles in parentheses.
Non- LSI VAXen:
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