[Info-vax] PC/VT Keyboarrd Mapping

[John Reagan]

On Monday, June 27, 2016 at 10:07:59 AM UTC-4, Stephen Hoffman wrote:
> On 2016-06-27 01:21:58 +0000, John Reagan said:
> 
> > The trouble with two RTLs is that they will never be separate.  People 
> > will demand that you can fopen() with one RTL but fprintf() with the 
> > other.  Same for setenv()/getenv().  The two RTLs would have to have a 
> > private channel between each other.
> 
> Ayup.  Particularly if some app is exposing RTL constructs directly 
> through its API, and that the caller is then using.   But how common is 
> that?

Common enough that there was work to make sure the native RTLs and translated RTLs cooperated.  The Fortran RTLs share LUN information for example.

> 
> Announce the new RTL and preferably with all of the core VSI apps and 
> tools migrated and with most of the rest migrating, announce that 
> mixing RTLs won't work and isn't supported, announce the public 
> schedule for the deprecation of the old RTL first through the removal 
> and relocation of old RTL into a separate and extra-cost license and 
> installation, and then through copying the RTL and the compatibility 
> kit to NLA0:.
> 
> This deprecation might well be fodder for using the multi-version 
> approach, if y'all start to make that into a supportable and 
> sustainable design for OpenVMS itself and for applications.
> 
> Getting rid of specific and targeted and problematic old code and 
> redesigning or replacing inadequate or broken or insecure APIs is a 
> complete shift from past practice.   But it's also the only way you're 
> going to make more than token forward progress with OpenVMS.
> 
> Make the folks that don't want to move and don't want to migrate pay 
> for that, if they are even upgrading.   Make the folks that are moving 
> and are updating their apps have an easier time, and with better 
> capabilities.
> 

I'm guessing that most folks really don't want to toss ALL the baggage.  Go and do

$ DEFINE/SYSTEM/EXEC DECC$UNIX_LEVEL 90

and sit back and wait for the phone calls to start. I don't think even the C compiler will work with that turned on.