[Info-vax] Anyone interested in another public access system

[Bob Koehler]

 Bill Gunshannon wrote:
> 
> In article <BZhjsJkqzq4v at spock.koehler.athome.net>,
>         koehler at eisner.nospam.encompasserve.org writes:
> > In article <72pgbbFrckbiU1 at mid.individual.net>, billg999 at cs.uofs.edu (Bill Gunshannon) writes:
> >>
> >> U*mmmm....  No, not really.  Active development (well, at least as active as
> >> VMS seems to be) for three of the PDP-11 OSes just ended last year.  So, if
> >> you take when they first started and compare that to when VMS first started
> >> VMS will need a few more real good years to match them.
> >
> >    Hm.  Although possibly not as important as the Berkley port to VAXen,
> >    I seem to recall the development of UNIX including a port to PDP-11
> >    early on.
> >
> >    Sadly, I think continued development of that '60s technology will
> >    continue for a bit longer.
> 
> Unix is no more 60's technology than VMS (which traces it's roots back
> to RSX on the PDP-11 as I recall) or zOS which can trace it's roots all
> the way back to the IBM 360.
> 
> It never ceases to amaze me that Unix, which has seen constant development
> and considerably more attention from Computer Scientists and Engineers
> than VMS is seen as stagnant while VMS which, as frequently stated here,
> has seen little in the way of anything beyond the minimal bug fixing, is
> seen as the epitome of modern computing.
 
   UNIX is still a two-mode system which forks new processes every time
   it turns around, and has no concept of files beyond stream of bytes.
   That approach was typical of late 1960's OS design, and can be seen
   in other OS, such as TOPS-10 and TOPS-20, which on the outside look
   very different.

   Nothing that has happened to UNIX over all the years has changed that
   basic late-1960's design.