[Info-vax] VMS 5.0

[Paul Sture]

On Mon, 14 Nov 2011 00:33:28 -0600, Roger Ivie wrote:

> On 2011-11-11, Hans Vlems <hvlems at freenet.de> wrote:
>> I don't think microVMS was available for the 8200/8300 models Johnny.
>> It was intended for the microVAX I (or II) and the 8200/8300 were
>> considered
>> real VAXes because they had a BI bus. I cannot recall what was missing
>> in
>> microVMS compared to the regular distribution, all device drivers for
>> BI, UNIBUS and
>> and MASSBUS would have been a sensible start, right?
> 
> I ran MicroVMS on a "MicroVAX 8000", a VAXstation 8000 that was missing
> the Evans & Sutherland graphics hardware. Installed it from RX50s. Don't
> recall what version it was; I think it was 4.5. I don't know what DEC
> shipped with the VAXstation 8000s; we used to do work for DEC and things
> would occasionally just kind of show up.

The strangest one I had was a system that had been largely specified by a 
business owner's son.  We didn't actually want anything to do with this 
customer, but he was an associate of the group we were dealing with and 
who were implementing some serious systems.  This particular chap didn't 
want to implement the same software and his son was handy at programming 
his home PC, so the scene was set :-)

The son wanted a VAX that looked like a PC, with 2 floppy drives and no 
tape, plus a BASIC compiler of course.  I forget now whether it was a 730 
or a 750.

We did insist on supplying a tape and "hard disk", but the system disk 
was so small that I had to explore the tailoring facility to jam base VMS 
in and have any working space left.

I installed VAX BASIC from floppies and was immensely glad we didn't have 
other customers like that.

Fortunately I never heard from this customer again :-)

-- 
Paul Sture

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