<I've run VMS 5 with DECwindows on a VAXstation 2000 with 6MB of RAM
<and a 70MB (RD53) disk.  Not a speed daemon, certainly, but worked.

I have such a beast here running 5.4 and 6mb.  The MVII was around for 
years with 9mb two or three rd54s running 5.4 while at dec and still!
Plenty of room if I can find space for the physical tube that goes on it.

Ram in a vax, a little goes far.  PCs suffer code bloat, RISC uses ram and 
instructions differently so it's harder to compare.  Also RISC (alpha) 
suffers from, hey ram is no problem don't worry we can add more.

Allison