[Info-vax] VAX/VMS V1, V1.5 or anything older than V5

[Hans Vlems]

On 28 mei, 16:06, MG <marcog... at SPAMxs4all.nl> wrote:
> Is VAX/VMS V1 still available, does someone have it backed up?
> Secondly, will it work under SimH?
>
> I'd love to try a really old version of VMS, for the sake of
> comparison.  I've recently been reading the V1.5 documents,
> which I found in the excellent bitsavers.org archive.  I'm
> very impressed with how complete and fully-featured VMS
> already was back then, at such an early stage.
>
>   - MG

V4.6 and V4.7 are not uncommon. Perhaps older versions lurk on the
Internet somewhere.
Older versions will run on  simh VAX 11/780, even V1.x if you can find
it. These kits came on media
that are difficult to read these days: magtapes, movable disks even.
Before V5.0 thare was no license utility. That doesn't make it legal
to run old products if you haven't got a paper license
even though the system will not enforce it, like LMF does.
It also means that system integrated products, like clustering,
multiprocessing and DECnet will only work if you
have the appropriate key, disguised as a VMSINSTAL kit.
For DECnet it is available on the freeware cd's IIRC, no clue about
the others.
VMS grew significantly over the years and when you're used to V6 and
later then V4.6 and older migth prove a hefty shock...
And you know that pre V5.0 VMS came in savesets called OPTIONAL.
LIBRARY. etc. ?
Good luck!
Hans