[Info-vax] VMS port to x86

[JohnF]

Richard B. Gilbert <rgilbert88 at comcast.net> wrote:
> JohnF wrote:
>> onedbguru<onedbguru at yahoo.com>  wrote:
>>> Richard B. Gilbert wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> 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.
>>
>> Literally hit by a bus??? If ever there was a metaphor...
> 
> Metaphor or not, it's a good warning.  If you don't have a copy of
> the source for critical applications, and the tools needed to build them 
> or a viable vendor to support them you may be "hanging by a thread".
> 
> It is not wise to allow the lessons of 9/11/2001 to be forgotten.
> The sky is full of aircraft and the supply of idiots never seems to run 
> short!
> 
> Can YOU do the Merrill-Lynch trick?  They were off line for a whole four 
> minutes and did not lose a single transaction or a byte of data!
> I hate to think what it must have cost but not spending that money would 
> have cost far more.
> 
> One company lost seventy percent of its staff!  Think "corporate 
> lobotomy"!  Could YOUR company survive a loss like that?

That was Cantor-Fitzgerald, where I had a contract from 1995-1997,
see http://www.forkosh.com/resume.html?cf1195 for details.
They had vms (on vax) at that time. Managers (and many traders)
were on high floors, where we had meetings every morning on 104.
But us peon computer contractors were generally cubicled on 30-33.
Everyone there (that I knew of) made it out on 9/11. I called a few weeks
later to volunteer some free time if they needed help picking up pieces.
But they had transferred much of the NY work to their London offices.
-- 
John Forkosh  ( mailto:  j at f.com  where j=john and f=forkosh )