Whatever happened to MENTEC and the PDP-11?

[Zane H. Healy]

At 9:31 PM -0800 3/1/09, Don North wrote:
>Rod Smallwood wrote:
>>The last I heard of them was a takeover by Calyx. in 2006
>>  I can't see any reference to PDP-11 on the Calyx Website.
>>  So what happened ?
>>   Rod  (Renovates Old  Dec)
>
>There was a whole discussion on this last year, search the 
>classiccmp archives from
>summer 2008 for references to 'mentec'. My conclusion from that 
>discussion was that
>Mentec-Inc of PDP-11 fame no longer exists as a business, at least 
>on paper, and the
>ownership/rights to the PDP-11 s/w have simply evaporated into the ozone.
>
>Others have maintained that they are still in contact with 
>Mentec-Inc and are able to
>buy PDP-11 licenses if they so desired. Mentec's phone, email, and 
>website have all
>disappeared, so I believe you either need their Stargate address or 
>possibly an Ouija
>board to place an order. Sadly I have neither....

It is still possible to legally buy licenses.  I put someone in 
contact with one of the people that handles licensing last week.  The 
decision has been made to not advertise who to talk to, and I respect 
this decision.  I don't know why this is the case, however, I tend to 
suspect it has something to do with some of the hobbyist community.

Zane


-- 
| Zane H. Healy                    | UNIX Systems Administrator |
| healyzh at aracnet.com (primary)    | OpenVMS Enthusiast         |
| MONK::HEALYZH (DECnet)           | Classic Computer Collector |
+----------------------------------+----------------------------+
|     Empire of the Petal Throne and Traveller Role Playing,    |
|          PDP-10 Emulation and Zane's Computer Museum.         |
|                http://www.aracnet.com/~healyzh/               |