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@amoroso@fosstodon.org In John Mashey posts, he also pointed out the curious fact that while x86 and VAX are both technically CISC, but x86's crude and restrictive ISA ironically made it easier to speed up in a modernized OoO + pipelined CPU. Not as easy as RISC, but easier than VAX. Meanwhile, VAX's powerful orthogonal ISA meant the instructions and addressing modes can be combined in far too many ways, which gave DEC engineers serious headaches. Combined with the smaller R&D budget due to the low minicomputers volume, it basically ruled out any possibility of a fast and modernized VAX CPU.