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

[Nomen Nescio]

Johnny Billquist <bqt at softjar.se> wrote:

> > 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.
> 
> There were lots of much better time sharing systems around already then...

Depends on whether you think a computer system is, a GUI like Microsoft says
it is, or a platform for actually getting work done, which is what IBM is. I
see you're a GUI-uberalles kind of guy.

You seem to be trying to sidestep the question which wasn't addressed to you
anyway, by saying wow, TSO came out in 1971. So what? It was still better
than flipping switches on not-yet-invented DEC machines or using TECO.

The biggest baddest machine DEC ever made couldn't get out of its own
way. All the DEC stuff was fun for single users but it couldn't make it in
real life.

> > 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 ;-)
> 
> Happy to. Ever used TOPS-10? It was based on Monitor, which came about 
> around 1967, and was renamed to TOPS-10 in 1970.

I used it and it was fine for academic use for 2 or three users. If you need
to actually run a company bigger than 2 or 3 people you needed a real box.

> I'm sure others can come up with plenty of other examples... Unix was 
> ported to the PDP-11 around 1971.

Yeah but UNIX was still single user for most of the early days and even now
it's so far behind System Z in RAS, performance, security, stability,
throughput etc etc etc that it really doesn't matter. The point, again, was
all the great stuff you could do then and now with OS/360 and all the
compilers I mentioned. It actually runs. It has real documentation, and real
error messages you can look up in books. It's stuff the biggest companies
actually paid money for, not overweight claptraps DEC had to give away to
colleges.

> TSO was a dinosaur even when it was new. And it didn't improve much with 
> time. I remember people using it in the 80s, with little amusement.

You remembering people using it in the 80s with little amusement sure shoots
down everything I said. I defer to you, since you know what you're talking
about ;-)

Hey Duke, you ever work on a Japanese transmission?

Nope, but I watched a guy fix a German transmission once...