[Info-vax] Whither VMS?

[Curtis Rempel]

John Reagan wrote:

> 
> "Bob Eager" <rde42 at spamcop.net> wrote in message
> news:7gvj6hF2ricj3U4 at mid.individual.net...
>> On Fri, 11 Sep 2009 17:46:35 +0200, Michael Kraemer wrote:
>>
>>> Paul Anderson schrieb:
>>>
>>>
>>>> Unix is older than VMS but don't confuse me with the facts.  ;-)
>>>
>>> At worst the difference is a few years only (and don't confuse Multics
>>> with Unix), which is insignificant in hindsight of 30* years.
>>
>> Anyway, 32 bit UNIX didn't arrive until *after* VMS. One would have to
>> compare early UNIX (even on the PDP-11) with 16 bit VMS (or RSX-11, as we
>> know it)! :-)
> 
> The Perkin-Elmer 8/32 (a 32-bit computer) ran a flavor of UNIX and was in
> the field before the first VAXen.  My former employer had one.  It was the
> first non-PDP-11 computer to run UNIX.
> 
> John

I remember OS/32 on a PE, didn't seem like UNIX though, maybe it ran both. 
Anyway, as a summer student, I can remember using something like "ME .OP
some text" to message the operator, equivalent to REQUEST in VMS.  One day,
we were getting the op particularly annoyed (there was a window between us
and the operator console) and in her flustered state, she forgot to prefix
her response with "ME" wanting to issue "ME SHUTUP" instead to us.  Unknown
to her, typing SHUTUP at the console invoked a symbol for the shutdown
procedure, an immediate one at that.  The sudden look of horror through the
glass was priceless!

Curtis