[Info-vax] Whither VMS?

[ChrisQ]

JF Mezei wrote:
> re Unix used as command line.
> 
> Note that Apple has sold about 50 million Iphone and IpodTouch. Both are
> based on Unix (freebsd), and neither offer a command line and are 100%
> GUI. Add to that the millions of OS-X machines Apple has sold which are,
> in the majority of cases, used exclusively as a GUI, and I would say
> that today, the majority of Unix users don't even know they are on Unix
> because they are sheltered from stuff like "ls" and "vi" because of a
> well developped GUI.
> 
> And think about all of the routers and industrial devices which are
> based on unix/linux and offer no "unix command line" access.
> 
> And for those who do use command line, while there may be significant
> kernel differences, various brands of Unix offer a pretty common command
> line shells. And in the end, that is what defines what Unix is, just
> like the $ prompt and the command syntax and argument parsing define how
> you interface with VMS.

You could argue that unix like os's are the most ubiquitous on the 
planet. All from the same root set of ideas, though widely variant in 
internals and user interfaces. Despite the differences, usefull code 
written to run on one, invariably gets ported to run on the rest, often 
with few changes.

Before X, unix was command line only and it's still the best way to get 
some work done. The gui is worth its weight in gold though. For example, 
I can have a box of 10 fc drives, and run 10 shells and instances of 
format to format and bad block all the drives at once. All this while 
editing source, reading mail, browsing the web, writing to newsgroups etc.

It's come a long way since Ultrix and 4.3 bsd...

Regards,

Chris