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

[Fritz Wuehler]

MG <marcogbNO at SPAMxs4all.nl> wrote:

> On 30-5-2012 5:50, Fritz Wuehler wrote:
> > If you like old stuff that was good way back when, why not run
> > OS/360 on Hercules? It took everybody else another twenty years
> > to catch up on their compilers (to be as good as they were 20
> > years ago) and nobody ever caught up to the OS.
> 
> No, I don't necessarily like things because they're "old," but,

I said (and you quoted) "If you like old stuff that was good"

So I don't know about anyone else but I did not suggest you liked old for
the sake of old.

> I am indeed fairly interested in IBM's mainframe (both old and
> new).  I have made rather quick attempts, months ago, to set up
> Hercules.  I didn't get far, it's quite complicated for someone
> (like myself) without prior IBM mainframe experience.

Hmmm. I don't know why that should be. What platform(s) do you want to run
Hercules on?

Hercules itself is the emulator component. The OS and program products are
other components. Setting up Hercules isn't any different from compiling any
other Linux app. On Windows I think it's even easier, as they have an
installer. If you have any interest, the guys on the yahoo groups are super
helpful and almost never say RTFM.

> I know it's something 'totally different,' but I do from time to time log
> onto a public access AS/400.  To this day I haven't found any document,
> let alone from IBM, comparing the differences and similarities between the
> IBM "System z" and "System i" platforms. 

That is because there are no similarities between them.

> All I know is that "z" is descended from S/360, S/370, S/380,
> S/390 and so forth and considered the true 'mainframe,' based on
> its own processor/-architecture (instead of POWER, like "i" is
> nowadays).

You got it and you know much more than average! Except, there was never
S/380. There is an open source MVS/380 project but it is not affiliated with
IBM. 

> This isn't the right thread, or Usenet for that matter, group to
> discuss this though.  

Ok.

> VMS still interests me a lot more, I have to admit, as it's more general
> purpose than the IBM "z" and "i" offerings.

I don't know much about System i so I can't dispute that but I think you're
wrong. Depends on what you mean by general purpose. True, System Z doesn't
make a very good desktop. But it's a great development platform and there
hasn't ever been a better server architecture or OS.