[Info-vax] Oracle-RDB seminar notes

[Bob Koehler]

In article <kj5lrl$bcf$1 at solani.org>, Michael Kraemer <M.Kraemer at gsi.de> writes:
> 
> My memory may not serve me well after all these years,
> but I (and all people I knew back then) never associated
> "open" with a particular company. This would have been
> a contradiction in terms anyway. Of course Sun might
> have played that card more often than others,
> since "open systems" translated into "Unix",
> and Sun was a leading supplier. The best thing
> to counter that was to offer Unix systems as well.
> DEC did it, quite successfully initially, but then
> chose to run it into the ground.

   We had a cutomer for whom "real" UNIX was Sun or HP.  Our use of
   ULTRIX was condsidered not "real" UNIX.

   Then they ended up moving to Windows anyhow.
 
> Did you ever try to rebuild a complex software grown on a
> "non-open" 1980s OS (for example MVS), to another "non-open"
> OS of the same time frame (for example VMS)?
> Or vice versa? I think there's more than just a few percent
> to care about.

   Yep.  Ported 300K lines from IBM OS/360 Fortran H Extended Enchanced
   with some IBM assembly code to VAX-11 Fortran 77 with some VAX
   assembly code.

   Most of the IBM assembly code was there to do things the IBM Fortran
   wouldn't do but VAX Fortran would.  Most of the VAX assembly was to
   deal with variable-length arguments to some of the IBM support code,
   then called FOrtran routines to do the actual work.

   It was the first time the customer ever saw anything done ahead of
   schedule and under budget.