[Info-vax] OT: Computing Experience, What brought you to VMS?
Rich Alderson
news at alderson.users.panix.com
Thu Feb 6 16:03:44 EST 2014
bill at server3.cs.scranton.edu (Bill Gunshannon) writes:
> Well, after these last two claiming to be oldtimers, I felt I had to
> chime in.
> I have always been considered a dinosaur what with my working on
> the 1401 in 1971 but I guess I qualify for VMS as well as my first
> use of VMS was an 11/780 starting in 1980. Of course that was the
> same year I got my start in Unix so I guess they both had an equal
> chance to win me over. I think we all know which one won. :-)
I'm a relative newcomer to VMS, but I got into computing on a 1401 in 1969,
moving quickly to the IBM 360 in the same semester. I heard of a computer
called the DECsystem-10 in the summer of 1970 (a systems programmer at the CAI
lab at UTexas showed me an advert in Datamation IIRC), at the same time as I
was exposed to the IBM 1800, but I remained firmly convinced of the superiority
of the 360--and the brand new 370!--for several years. (I met the DG Nova
briefly in college at Ohio State, in the context of an easy-A 370 assembler
class, and the Honeywell 6000 family in a marketing pamphlet I was given about
the same time.)
I met the DEC-20 at UChicago in 1977, began programming on it in 1978, really
began using it in 1979, became a systems programmer on the pair at UofC in
1982, and made the full-time switch to it in 1984 with the move to Stanford.
My first exposure to the VAX and VMS (other than literature) came in 1989 when
I was founding chair of the Legacy Systems Working Group in the Site,
Management & Training SIG (SiteSIG) at DECUS, because of the NOTES system.
My real exposure to VMS came about 5 years ago, when we got a 780-5 up and
running and installed 6.2. (We try for historical accuracy on older systems.)
With the recent departure of my colleague who did the restoration, I'm now the
VMS chief cook and bottlewasher (along with multiple PDP-10s, a Unisys, a Xerox
Sigma, and a CDC 6500 for which I'll be the software lead in a couple of years
when it's restored).
So museum work is what brought *me* to VMS. Sometimes I think I'm one of the
museum pieces myself. :-)
--
Rich Alderson news at alderson.users.panix.com
the russet leaves of an autumn oak/inspire once again the failed poet/
to take up his pen/and essay to place his meagre words upon the page...
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