[Info-vax] Running OpenVMS native on x86 . . .

[Keith Parris]

On 12/9/2011 10:20 AM, BillPedersen wrote:
> But the real issue of any port to any platform is whether you
> will get the VARs and ISVs to follow.  OpenVMS does not have a good
> track record here.  Each time it has been ported it has lost 30% or
> more of its applications.

With the port from VAX to Alpha, and then again from Alpha to Itanium, 
the OS was ported along with compilers and layered software products, 
and a tool (VEST, then AEST) for translating (at least most) binary 
images to native code was provided. Then ISVs, VARs, and customers were 
left to their own devices to port their code to the platform, given the 
tools provided.

It might be possible to learn from the way architectural transitions 
were handled in other cases in our industry. For example, when Apple 
went from PowerPC to Intel x86 CPUs for the Mac, from what I've read, 
the transition was made fairly seamless for users; they could run 
PowerPC applications on the new platform without modification. One might 
imagine a capability where a VAX, Alpha, or Itanium image might run, 
unmodified, on an x86 platform, if a similar capability were implemented 
for an x86 architectural transition for VMS.

To me, this would probably solve most of the problems previously 
experienced with 3rd-party applications which never get ported, programs 
which didn't happen to work with VEST/AEST, or where the software vendor 
went out of business.