[Info-vax] OSes

[Bill Cunningham]

"Stephen Hoffman" <seaohveh at hoffmanlabs.invalid> wrote in message 
news:n78ap5$39a$1 at dont-email.me...
> On 2016-01-13 22:01:54 +0000, Bill Cunningham said:
>
>> "Stephen Hoffman" <seaohveh at hoffmanlabs.invalid> wrote in message 
>> news:n76gt6$kgs$1 at dont-email.me...
>>
>>> For most folks, the simplest DEC system is probably the VAXmate or 
>>> equivalent - one of the older DEC x86 boxes running Microsoft Windows or 
>>> Linux, or whatever you're familiar with.
>>
>>     Definately *nixs. unix or linux. But I like console mode too.
>
> So scrounge an old DEC PC or a VAXmate (confusingly, a DEC VAXmate is a 
> Windows PC system, not a VAX), and use that.   You'll have then acquired 
> and used DEC gear, and can boot an old Windows or Linux distro on DEC 
> hardware.  Which is one interpretation of what you had asked for back in 
> the OP.
>
>>     So then using simh you can get online through the MAC address 
>> interface but simh can't handle windows.
>
> That sentence is gibberish.   That reads rather like something from a 
> Markov chain text-generating bot.   Are you a bot, Bill?

    I hope not. I am still not getting how to setup simh to allow X. Would 
it involve a set console command? As you have said simh doesn't do windows. 
X or decwindows that is. Others are appearing to say ssh can't be used here. 
I was understanding it could. I'm rather confused here now. But then again 
I'm sarting with the users manual from a previous post you said to read. 
Maybe I should check elsewhere as you say infra.

> Since you're not a bot, here's why that sentence is gibberish, with some 
> classic Internet pedantry included, and probably even with a few mistakes 
> here...
>
> The SIMH package is a software package that emulates computing hardware. 
> SIMH can emulate various computing hardware systems and architectures, 
> including VAX.
>
> MAC is an acronym for Media Access Control - part of IEEE 802 networking, 
> among other uses.   MAC is also an acronym for Message Authentication 
> Code, which is a component of most (all?) recent cryptographic algorithms. 
> And MAC is an acronym for Mandatory Access Controls, a particular type of 
> software security found on some systems, including (via SELinux or 
> otherwise) Linux.   Older OpenVMS and VMS versions also had add-on support 
> for MAC-based security, via a package known as SEVMS.   There are some 
> other uses of MAC around, but these are among the most common encountered 
> within systems and software.
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Media_access_control
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Message_authentication_code
>
> Mac - which is not an acronym - is a product name used for various Apple 
> computer systems, with all current Mac systems capable of running the OS X 
> software from Apple, Microsoft Windows, Linux or some other operating 
> systems.  Mac is derived from an earlier Apple product name Macintosh, a 
> type of apple.
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macintosh
>
> SIMH does not emulate x86 or Alpha, two of the computer architectures that 
> can are necessary for and that can boot Microsoft Windows operating 
> system.  There have been versions of Microsoft Windows for x86-32, x86-64, 
> ARM, Itanium, PowerPC, Alpha and MIPS.   Other than x86-32 and x86-64, 
> none of the other architectures have been particularly successful 
> platforms for Microsoft Windows.   None of these platforms boot Microsoft 
> Windows, which means that Windows cannot boot on SIMH.
>
> SIMH can be built for OS X, OpenVMS, Windows, Linux, BSD and various other 
> operating systems, being that it is written as portable C code.
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SIMH
>
> Which in aggregate is why what you wrote... makes very little sense.
>
>> Ok right. So there is a way though to get windows with openvms?
>
> Nope.   There is a way to get X Windows with OpenVMS, which is very 
> different from Microsoft Windows.  X Windows is the user interface for 
> most Linux distros, there's an X Windows server for OS X, and the 
> DECwindows product for OpenVMS is based on X Windows, and can communicate 
> with X Windows Servers running on other systems including on (via add-on 
> software) with Microsoft Windows and OS X, and via the X Windows Server 
> that's an integrated part of most Linux and BSD distributions.
>
>> I am using simh and openvms on a linux.
>
> Okay.   Then do you have particular questions about OpenVMS or related 
> packages including DECwindows, or VAX, Alpha or Itanium servers?   If you 
> should have SIMH questions, I'd suggest using the SIMH mailing list.  If 
> you have Linux questions, well, there are many places for those to be 
> asked, including the Stack sites.   If you have PDP-11 questions, there's 
> another newsgroup for those.
>
>
> -- 
> Pure Personal Opinion | HoffmanLabs LLC
>