[Info-vax] Orphaned processes on OpenVMS

[Johnny Billquist]

On 2011-05-24 08.37, Paul Sture wrote:
> In article<irer0b$lou$1 at Iltempo.Update.UU.SE>,
>   Johnny Billquist<bqt at softjar.se>  wrote:
>
>> On 2011-05-23 06.08, Bob Koehler wrote:
>
>>>      The only thing I've heard substantially influenced by UNIX, and also
>>>      attempted various ways in earlier DEC operating systems, was the
>>>      now ubiquitous nesting of directories inside directories in a file
>>>      hierarchy.  Even then, there were influences that lead VMS to a
>>>      per-disk hierarchy, rather than UNIX style mount points.
>>
>> All DEC OSes (that I know of) have had per-disk hierarchies. Nesting
>> directories inside directories is an old concept, for which Unix can't
>> really take any credit. RSX do the same thing, and I'm sure lots of more
>> examples can be brought out.
>
> Rt-11 didn't have directories, as far as I can remember, though as far
> as I got with that was V3.

Well, how do you think you find files on an RT-11 disk then, eh? :-)
But on RT-11, it's a single directory. But it's also per-disk.

>>>      So VMS users can be glad that user names and directory names are
>>>      strings, that subdirectories are part of the file system, but were not
>>>      done in the TOPS-10 nor TOPS-20 style.
>>
>> What do you mean "strings"? Directory names in VMS are normal file
>> names. Until VMS V4, this meant the same things as in RSX, ie. 9+3
>> character filenames with only radix 50 character set used.
>
> I think that Bob is referring to the numeric UIC style directory names,
> which were a leftover from RSX and compatibility mode.  The one relic of
> that which is still in VMS is [000000] for top level directory.

Ah. Yes, it's nicer to have names instead of just UICs.

>> TOPS-20 style filenames and directories were much more free form, but as
>> far as I remember, usernames and directories were sortof related, and
>> kept separate from the file system. But they are certainly strings.
>>
>
> ISTR logging onto RSX and RSTS systems with UICs rather than usernames.

For RSTS/E, that was definitely true all the way to V9, which came out 
in the late 80s. For RSX, you could log in with UIC or your name, and 
that was already present in V3, and probably before that, so that would 
stretch back to the 70s. However, once logged in, directory names stayed 
as UICs until V4 of M+ (and P/OS), when named directories became 
possible. That would place us around 1983 or so. After VMS in other words.

	Johnny