[Info-vax] The dangers of being too emotionally involved, was: Re: How about RdB for x86 VMS?

[Keith Parris]

On 9/3/2014 10:44 PM, JF Mezei wrote:
> Lets not forget that a lot of VMS software is abandonware with vendors
> having stopped working on VMS long ago. That software may have made it
> to IA64 but if it was abandoned after that, it may not make it to x86.
> Lots more software on Alpha became abandonware before it was ported to IA64.

That makes even more important the following item from the VMS Software, 
Inc. Roadmap, page 4, at 
http://vmssoftware.com/news/VMS_Software_Roadmap.pdf :

   "VAX/Alpha/Itanium to X86 Dynamic/Static Translator"

The ability to run VAX, Alpha, or Itanium executable images, unmodified, 
under OpenVMS on x86, is theoretically possible, and would solve a lot 
of thorny issues.