[Info-vax] Unix on A DEC Vax?

[Jan-Erik Soderholm]

Jan-Erik Soderholm wrote 2013-01-20 16:22:
> Wilm Boerhout wrote 2013-01-20 15:43:
>> Stephen Hoffman mentioned  on 19-1-2013 21:16:
>>> On 2013-01-19 18:46:43 +0000, Wilm Boerhout said:
>>>
>>>> Stephen Hoffman mentioned  on 19-1-2013 16:25:
>>>>>
>>>>> You're probably not going to do significant new development work on this
>>>>> target, right?
>>>>> Likely incremental enhancements and updates as needed, but probably not
>>>>> significant new work.
>>>>> Which means this gear will age out, as was mentioned up-thread.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>> Well, the "gear" will not age out, assuming you mean hardware. I've
>>>> seen emulated VAXes go through several generations of increasingly
>>>> newer and faster host platforms.
>>>
>>> The crane.  The warehouse.  The production line.  Whatever the VMS
>>> software was embedded within.  That will age out.
>>>
>>>> The software, as I think I mentioned, is relatively stable, because it
>>>> is tied to the layout and functionality of the warehouse.
>>>
>>> So no significant new work.
>>>
>>> When the new crane, new warehouse or new factory floor line — the next
>>> generation or replacement — is contemplated, that probably won't target
>>> an emulated environment.
>>>
>>> Which means the emulated gear will age out, too.
>>
>> Yes, this is what's happening. Lifetime of a typical warehouse layout (book
>> logistics, auto spare parts) is like an airplane, 20 to 30 years or so. So
>> emulation is almost mandatory, because the functionality has to have the
>> same lifetime, and even the old DEC hardware gives in finally...
>>
>> And yes, this is maintenance mode mostly. Add a few picking stations, a new
>> logistics manager wants to implement a scheme she learned in school, that
>> sort of thing.
>>
>> So once or twice a year we do a few weeks of the old CMS/MMS/COBOL stuff.
>> This can go on forever, or at least until the present crisis runs its
>> course, and real investment and innovation will return.
>>
>> /Wilm
>
> I'm right now in the middle of a project where my customer is going to
> take a new crane warehouse in production and we have some integration
> tasks to their production (mainly assembly and packing support) system.
>
> We do not run the warehouse directly but send transport orders and
> receives movements reports back. This involves VMS/Rdb/RMS/Cobol/MQ/XML.
>
> Jan-Erik.
>

Forgot to mention... :-)

The crane/warehouse system *today* runs on a AIX box, but 10-15 years
ago it was a PDP-11 solution. Our sources on the VMS system still has a
lot of comments like "send to PDP", "create PDP-transaction" and so on.

Jan-Erik