[Info-vax] OT: Computing Experience, What brought you to VMS?

[Galen]

I attended California State University in Hayward, CA, in the late 1970's. At that time the CSU system made wide use of both DEC PDP-11 and CDC 3000 and Cyber series systems. The system then had one Cyber centrally located at the State University Data Center, shared by all campuses. Each campus also had its own PDP-11 mini and CDC 3000-series mainframe.

I started out my very first quarter programming in Basic-Plus on RSTS/E (late V5, I think) and by my second quarter also worked as an assistant in the Computer Lab. This allowed me a bit more hands-on access to everything than I would have otherwise had.

Working for the Lab also got me and another lab assistant friend free tickets to the exhibit hall at the 1978 DECUS symposium in San Francisco, where we worked making copies of various SIG tapes. The VAX 780 was a popular centerpiece of the exhibits. I was able to read a bit about the VAX and VMS and to spend a little time playing with them. We both came away very impressed. (We also both got very sick afterwards and blamed it on the seafood a la king that was served that for lunch. Did anyone else come away sick that day? :-D )

A couple of years later I was working at Lockheed in Sunnyvale, CA, doing systems programming on some PDP-11 RSX-11M systems, when a chance came up for me to help out in a small way on a secret Navy program that was using VMS. I jumped at the chance. I think all I was doing was copying some files to or from tape for someone, but this small second taste of VMS left me wanting more.

When my main project wound down, I found another in the company doing RSX, in a program where VMS was also being used. (CDC mainframes, too, but that's another story.) I managed to work my way over to mostly doing VMS within a couple of years. I was already saturated in DEC-related knowledge and experience, a lot of it portable from RSX to VMS. The program sent me to DEC system manager and system internals training for both RSX and VMS, and I gradually became the Systems Support team's (as well as the overall program's) acknowledged go-to person for all questions VMS-related.

I stayed working mostly with VMS as a system manager/programmer/consultant until April 1 2007 (yes, April Fools Day), when the program I was then with (at Booz Allen by then, in the DC area) underwent a significant and unexpected contraction. I couldn't find anything suitable locally that was using VMS.

It's hard to believe that seven years have gone by since I last used VMS seriously. I do have a DS10 at home and occasionally boot up VMS there or on a simh VAX, but I can't find the time to really do much with them.

Since 2007 I have tried for between maybe 10 other opportunites involving VMS and actually landed one of them in late 2012, but I wound up backing out after accepting it--as we checked in to relocating, my family and I decided that the family upheaval and financial burden of that move weren't right for us.

Around the same time I had been checking in to another exciting VMS systems support position that just went away. It was a telecommute job for GE Healthcare. That might have been near ideal--working with VMS from home. But GE went in to a hiring freeze while I was interviewing, and the hiring requisition was eventually cancelled.

I almost landed another VMS position a few months ago that involved a migration from Alpha to Integrity. It sounded like a lot of fun and might have been good money (the contract terms were never solidly established).  One recruiting subcontractor had given me to understand that I was the prime contractor's (HP's) preferred candidate. Nevertheless, the recruiting process was moving at a painfully slow pace, with a good deal of confused communications between HP, their client (the US Treasury), and three different "subs". A solid and exciting job offer (non-VMS) turned up elsewhere, and I accepted it, though with a heavy heart that I'd never heard a definite yes or no on the Treasury position.

It doesn't look likely, given the miniscule market presence of VMS these days and the point I'm at in my career, that I'll ever work with VMS again. I still keep my eyes and ears open, though, just in case something interesting turns up.