[Info-vax] OpenVMS.Org quick pool

[David Froble]

Keith Parris wrote:
> On 8/16/2012 1:21 PM, John Wallace wrote:
>> On Aug 16, 2:37 pm, Ian Miller <g... at uk2.net> wrote:
>>> OpenVMS.Org are looking to collect and confirm some information about 
>>> OpenVMS users and usage. Please take a few minutes to complete this 
>>> 13 question poll. Your input is 
>>> valuable.http://www.openvms.org/pages.php?page=Quick-Poll
>>
>> "would you use OpenVMS I64 running on x86 using an Integrity Virtual
>> Machine in a production environment"
>>
>> ?
>>
>> If that is intended to read as it is written, then it might be helpful
>> to expand on the concept a bit (a linked page? or is the Wikipedia
>> article sufficient?), for the benefit of those VMS folk who until now
>> have had no interest in what's been available on IA64.
> 
> A number of folks today run OpenVMS VAX under a VAX emulator or OpenVMS 
> Alpha under an Alpha emulator, running on top of an x86 platform.
> 
> I read this question as: Would you be willing to run the Itanium version 
> of OpenVMS under an Itanium emulator (using a hypothetical example of HP 
> VM ported to x86) on top of an x86 platform, and do so for your 
> Production work?
> 

That then would raise the question, which hardware is "easiest", "fastest", 
"best" to emulate ?

I'd be highly surprised if there is any software running on VMS on IA-64 for 
which there is no sources.  The painful lessons were first learned going from 
VAX to Alpha.  If there is, well, the "hindmost" is usually the first to get caught.

Other than speed, how many users really needed Alpha?  Ok, availability too.  I 
wonder what percentage of those still using VMS actually need the capabilities 
of Alpha.  There is also those things implemented on Alpha, but never 
implemented on VAX.  Even so, that is software, not hardware.

A good question is, "is an emulated Alpha surperior to an emulated VAX?", all 
else being equal?  I'd be interested to know.

I'd also be interested to know if any emulators have performance similar to or 
greater than my AS800 and DS20?  Wonder if such information is available?