[Info-vax] VMS on a PC

[JF Mezei]

faceman28208 at yahoo.com wrote:

> Can I go to Best Buy; pick up a 64-bit...say...HP....PC; and install a
> native version of VMS on it with the same degree of ease as  I could
> Linux?

Considering all the work that was done on VMS to support EFI on that
IA64 thing, I would *speculate* that should VMS be ported natively to
the 8086 architecture, they would want to have some 64 bit 8086s with an
EFI firmware on it.

This way, they could re-use all the EFI code to interface to the
motherboard/devices and thus make the port much easier.


As I understand it, Apple's boxes make use of EFI. So perhaps VMS would
run natively on Mac but not on commodity Dell/HP PCs. (then again, HP
probably has some EFI based PCs in its labs).

I had speculated some time ago that VMS engineers were doing such a port
very secretely in the basement of ZKO. Alas, with the move from ZKO,
such hopes have been dashed.... Unless, the engineers involved now do
their secret work during overnight hours when everyone else is gone so
nobody could see it.  It would remain a secret.

as with many neat things on VMS, they proably already have a runing
product, but HP will never productize and market it. (x-windows FMS
anyone ?)