[Info-vax] VMS port to x86

[onedbguru]

On Wednesday, March 21, 2012 5:23:06 PM UTC-4, Richard B. Gilbert wrote:
> On 3/19/2012 10:20 PM, JF Mezei wrote:
> > Was thinking about the Oracle allegations against HP.
> >
> > HP did have plans to port HP-UX to x86 and started the work.
> > And I have been told that porting of VMS to x86 had also been started.
> >
> > Neither of which would have been official projects since they couldn't
> > appear in any books since HP wanted very much to hide the fact that
> > IA64'S EOL was aready planned.
> >
> >
> > At some point, HP decided to not port to x86.
> >
> > Then, VMS experienced engineering team is fired and replaced by newbie
> > programmers given 2 weeks of training.
> >
> > Looks to me that once HP decided to end of line its proprietary OS at
> > same time as IA64, there was no point in keeping the experienced
> > engineering teams since they wouldn't be needed for the port.
> >
> > I fear it may be too late to save VMS.
> 
> VMS has been dead, in some sense, for about thirteen years now!
> 
> I still have a couple of systems running VMS and I'll hang on to them.
> I don't know that I'll DO anything with them, there seems to be very
> little demand!
> 
> Face it.  If VMS is not dead, it's on "life support".


Sadly, I am not sure I would be that generous... Even though it still runs my home web server and offsite backups for a long-time customer who uses it daily - I am not sure what I will do when their DS10 dies as it has been running 24x7 since 1999 when it replaced a MVII that ran for equally as long. The custom app was "migrated" via VEST because the developer did not appear to keep the entire app source code on the customer system and subsequently was hit by a bus and there was no good backup before the old system died - except for the executables and some of the source code.