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

[glen herrmannsfeldt]

Nomen Nescio <nobody at dizum.com> wrote:

(snip on old VAX systems)

>> And you can even run TSO and see what IBM thinks of time-sharing.

> To be fair, TSO was no worse than what was available elsewhere 
> *at the time* and in many cases, considerably better. 
> Are you really going to tell me TSO edit is worse than 
> flipping load switches on a PDP box (that wasn't built for 
> another decade or so) or even using TECO (even though it 
> hadn't been developed and wouldn't be for a decade?) 
> Look at all the compilers that OS/360 had available, 
> 2 versions of FORTRAN, PL/I, COBOL, RPG, and even things 
> like ALGOL68, SNOBOL4, etc. There's a lot of fun stuff 
> you can do. Show me another system from the late 1960s 
> that's even half as capable or productive.

Hmm. My first time with DEC timesharing was TOPS-10 in 1976.

I was using OS/360 batch with WYLBUR from 1972.
I didn't use TSO until 1979.

I might have known which years different DEC systems became
available, but mostly not. I believe TSO came late in the OS/360
years, but again I am not sure when.

> What was the state of UNIX in 1970? VMS? Let's compare apples 
> to apples if you want to make smartass remarks about OS/360 ;-)

It wasn't supposed to be a smartass remark. Most of the time, 
I liked OS/360 batch. I never complained about JCL, which I know
many people didn't like. 

Most of the time when I was using TSO, it was for submitting
batch jobs, where I think WYLBUR does a much better job.

In 1975, I was using Call/OS running on an IBM S/370 as a
time-share system, which was also fine. The compilers aren't
as good as the OS/360 compilers, though. I was mostly using PL/I,
but only had the OS/360 PL/I (F) manuals. Many features were
not supported by the Call/OS compiler.

>> Though VM/370 also runs on Hercules and isn't so bad 
>> a time-sharing system.

> VM/370 with CMS and XEDIT and REXX is a combination that's 
> hard to beat for productivity and stability even today.

Yes.

-- glen