[Info-vax] Kermit on Itanium VMS

[Bill Gunshannon]

In article <CkTD8HhjfW7c at eisner.encompasserve.org>,
	koehler at eisner.nospam.encompasserve.org (Bob Koehler) writes:
> In article <Qrmdnbi9nf6YIabWnZ2dnUVZ_jxi4p2d at giganews.com>, "Richard B. Gilbert" <rgilbert88 at comcast.net> writes:
>> 
>> Err. . .  How about RSX images in compatibility mode on a VAX 11/780 or 
>> 11/750?
>> 
>> After all these years I have a little difficulty imagining why anyone 
>> would want to but given sufficient incentives it's possible to do it.
> 
>    Is the RSX AME still supported under 7.3?
> 
>    If so, then, yes, it may be possible to run a 40 year old binary
>    on the latest VMS for VAX.
> 
>    But that depends on the definition of "run".  The AME added
>    compatability mode emulation when the first VAXen without
>    compatability mode shipped.  I'm fairly sure you could also get
>    40 year old images to run on SIMH on just about any platform.
> 
>    So if I have SIMH simulating a PDP-11 on an Itanium, am I "running"
>    40 year old images on the latest VMS for Itanium?
> 
>    Or do we require hardware execution of the instructions to at least
>    the extent that VAX-11 series microcode implemented compatability
>    mode instructions?

And, once again, people here have completely missed the point.  IBM
(and I am pretty sure UNISYS) have maintained that compatability from
the very beginning with no breaks in between.  We are not talking about
someone coming along after the fact and writting an emulator but the
original company thinking that backwards compatability was necesary
enough to build it into their products even after the original
hardware ceased to exist.  We are not talking about "VESTING", we
are talking about just plain running old programs.

VMS has a lot in its favor, but its owners can't hold a candle to
some others in the business.

bill
 

-- 
Bill Gunshannon          |  de-moc-ra-cy (di mok' ra see) n.  Three wolves
billg999 at cs.scranton.edu |  and a sheep voting on what's for dinner.
University of Scranton   |
Scranton, Pennsylvania   |         #include <std.disclaimer.h>