[Info-vax] What is VMS?

[abrsvc]

On Dec 14, 9:58 am, koeh... at eisner.nospam.encompasserve.org (Bob
Koehler) wrote:
> In article <7d941$4ee88cda$82a13c9d$10... at news1.tudelft.nl>, joukj <jo... at hrem.nano.tudelft.nl> writes:
>
> > Connor Cooper wrote:
> >> What is VMS? What is it good for? How come it has the prefix 'Open',
> >> yet it is not open source? what are some good guides for using it? I
> >> have already registered for a hobbyist VAX license, but I am not sure
> >> how I should install it on SIMH. Anyone have anything good to say?
> > The name was changed from VMS to OpenVMS when the sourcecode was made
> > available for paying customers.
>
>    Bull.  The fiche shipped with all the early H kits.  Later on
>    only customers who paid a token amount for it got it.  Then it
>    got converted to CD.  None of this was coincident with the name
>    change to OpenVMS.  Last time I heard, it was still pretty damn
>    cheap for what you get.
>
>    Open was the popular buzzword for UNIX at a time when UNIX wasn't
>    open source, either.  You could only get UNIX source for a big price.
>    But all UNIX are different, and one of the attemtps to address this was
>    the POSIX standard.  A few non-UNIX systems, such as VMS, MVS, and
>    MPE, also met the POSIX standard, which the POSIX standard writers
>    hadn't expected.
>
>    VMS no longer meets this standard, but the name change never went away.

FWIW:  The sources were last shipped on fiche for V5.4-2 on VAX.  No
listings were shipped on fiche for Alpha. At that time, there were
hundreds of fiche sheets for the VMS listings and an almost equivalent
number of sheets for DECWindows listings.  (I still have them.)  From
there, the source listings were available on CD.  Source listings were
also available on magtape.  Actual sources were also available for a
price for local VMS modifications. These sources did NOT include any
of the password code or its handling code.  These parts were shipped
as executables only.

Dan