[Info-vax] Whither VMS?

[Rich Alderson]

rf10 at cl.cam.ac.uk (Robin Fairbairns) writes:

>  billg999 at cs.uofs.edu (Bill Gunshannon) writes:
>>	Michael Kraemer <M.Kraemer at gsi.de> writes:
>>> 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),

> multics was another interesting system, hampered far more than vms by
> being based on a special design of hardware.  (i don't actually know
> of any port of multics to a different architecture; when i re-read
> organick's book a little while back, i was amazed that they achieved
> anything as a multi-user service on such limited hardware.)

Although some features of Multics did inspire other operating systems, no
one ever ported the entirety of Multics to any hardware not descended from
the original GE645.  Honeywell dubbed the family "the 6000 series" when they
bought GE's computer business, and moved Multics to the 6180, followed by
the Level 66, Level 68, and DPS-8M.

The only remaining Multics-capable hardware is the Dockmaster system, now
at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California, but even this
system can no longer run because the HDAs were removed from the disk drives
when it was de-installed from its home at the NSA.

>>> which is insignificant in hindsight of 30* years.

>> Unix 1969
>> VMS 1975

Umm, 1975 seems about 4 years too early.  The 780 shipped with RSX-11M at
first ship, with VMS 1.0 coming along a bit later.  Call it ten years
between original Unix (on a PDP-7!) and VMS.

>> That's 6 years.  A lifetime in this industry.

> so people programming vms today are great-great-great-great-
> grandchildren of those of us who started on v1.6?

If you want to get TeXnical, I suppose so.

(I do remember you from c.t.t, don't I?)

-- 
Rich Alderson                  "You get what anybody gets. You get a lifetime."
news at alderson.users.panix.com                           --Death, of the Endless