[Info-vax] Some questions on software for VMS 7.3 VAX

[David Froble]

Kerry Main wrote:
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Info-vax [mailto:info-vax-bounces at info-vax.com] On Behalf Of
>> lists--- via Info-vax
>> Sent: 31-Dec-15 5:27 AM
>> To: info-vax at info-vax.com
>> Cc: lists at openmailbox.org
>> Subject: [New Info-vax] Some questions on software for VMS 7.3 VAX
>>
>> Hi,
>>
>> I wanted to use VMS's editors but I have a tenkeyless keyboard and no
>> obvious easy way to get the edit keys working with telnet or Putty. So I
>> have been using MicroEmacs because I'm familiar with Emacs. It's still
>> pretty hard to use and doesn't have many of the features I use in regular
>> Emacs. I have looked around and there was supposed to have been
>> Emacs
>> 21.something ported to VMS in the past but I can't find any executable.
>> Does anybody know where I can get a copy of a full (non Micro) Emacs
>> implementation?
>>
>> Also, I would like to have an Ada 95 compiler. The Ada that comes with
>> the
>> hobbyist distribution is supposed to be very good but it's ancient Ada 83.
>> There were a lot of upgrades in 95. Although Ada 2012 is already out Ada
>> 95
>> is good enough for writing new apps. Ada 83, not so much.
>>
>> Lastly (maybe) is there a recent Lisp compiler for VAX/VMS? I have found
>> doc but no code for that.
>>
>> Thanks if anybody can help out with this.
>>
> 
> Just curious, but is there a reason why you want to use an 80's HW platform 
> for developing new applications?
> 
> While I am sure you have a good reason (pure interest?) not to use current 
> versions of LP's on current versions of OpenVMS on current free emulators, 
> one needs to keep in mind that what you are asking is analogous to asking 
> Microsoft & their support newsgroups for availability of current Win NT4 
> compilers to run on a PC 386 HW platform.

With exceptions, you can use VAX/VMS V7.3 for most of what you can do on Alpha, 
itanic, and hopefully soon x86-64.

Then there are some things that are available only on VAX, and not on the newer 
platforms.

One of the really good things about VMS is that it's more "timeless" than many 
other environments.  Also, you've been a bit extreme with "80s HW paltform". 
VAXs were being sold well into the late 1990s, I believe.

For some games where I have only executables, VAX is a requirement.