[Info-vax] IT shops call on HP and Oracle to kiss and make up

[abrsvc]

On Oct 6, 11:28 am, "John Reagan" <johnrrea... at earthlink.net> wrote:
> "SeanOBanion" <s... at obanion.us> wrote in message
>
> news:a0318e69-38dc-4b3c-9914-bab2c73e19eb at q26g2000vby.googlegroups.com...
> On Oct 6, 9:56 am, Keith Cayemberg <keith.cayemb... at arcor.de> wrote:
>
> > IT shops call on HP and Oracle to kiss and make
> > uphttp://tinyurl.com/6docx5r
>
> From TFA:
> "OpenVMS, in particular, would be a messy operating system to port,
> Eunice said. I call it a guts-exposed operating system; it doesn t
> have much of an abstraction layer to simplify the movement to a new
> chipset." Plus, OpenVMS has been ported several times already over the
> course of its 30-plus-year history, he pointed out. It started out
> life on the VAX, then moved to the DEC Alpha chip, and finally to
> Itanium. "The prospect of another port is unpalatable, Eunice said."
>
> Somewhere I remember a comment about the port to Itainum resulting in
> less hardware dependence, though not a flat out HAL (hardware
> abstraction layer).
> Or is that a hopeful fantasy on my part?
>
> I agree.  I don't buy the argument either.  Going from VAX to Alpha, I'd
> guess almost every file in OpenVMS kernel had to be touched in one way or
> the other.  From Alpha to Itanium, less than 10% if I'd have to guess.  Most
> of the architecture specific code is indeed isolated in macros or support
> routines like SWIS.  There would be some very tricky problems to solve with
> regards to calling conventions, memory mgmt, and as we've pounded on lately,
> Macro-32 and register assumptions.  I don't think "guts-exposed" is fair.
>
> John

I would suspect that if any IBM OS were to be "ported" to another
hardware platform, similar issues would arise.  Any mainframe OS is
usually tied somewhat to the hardware architecture upon which it was
initially installed.  It would not make any sense otherwise.

OpenVMS should be praised for the ability to remain consistant in its
behavior spaning hardware platforms rather than be criticised for not
being on yet another.

Dan