[Info-vax] Current VMS Usage Survey

[Bill Gunshannon]

OK, in support of my claim that I never said there were no government
VMS systems.....


When I was at West Point, 1980-1988 the only VMS machine I was aware of
was in The Geography & Computer Science Department.  It was an 11/750.
I had an account on it and it was my first taste of VMS.  It supported
the early Ada compiler and EUNICE.  :-)

In doing some research I have found an article that states that in 1990
they had a VAX-8300 in The Department of Geography and VAX-8530 in The
Department of Systems Engineering. 

I sent off an email to the head of CS there today.  he has a background
with the Academy going back to this period.  I have asked him if there
are any VMS systems still there and if not when they went away.

I will report what I hear.

For those who wonder what it would mean, other than giving an idea of
when Department of the Army (and in general, DOD) moved away from VMS,
on another note, think of it along the lines of VMS in Academia.
Unix is where it is today primarily because of all the students who
became familiar with it thru academia.  the same was true, to a lesser
extent, I think, for VMS.  We already know about when VMS lost its
foothold in academia and the effect that probably had.  But in the
case of VMS usage at USMA it was not only future businessmen who
stopped being exposed to it but future planners and managers for
the DOD, by far the largest single piece of the budget in the US
government.

And for those who think making this contact isn't important, MS has a
TWI (Training With Industry) program with DOD.  Senior NCOes and Junior
and mid-term Officers get to go and spend a year working on projects
in Redmond.  There are similar programs with people like Cisco. I never
heard of any such program for VMS.


bill

-- 
Bill Gunshannon          |  de-moc-ra-cy (di mok' ra see) n.  Three wolves
billg999 at cs.scranton.edu |  and a sheep voting on what's for dinner.
University of Scranton   |
Scranton, Pennsylvania   |         #include <std.disclaimer.h>