[Info-vax] Opportunity for VSI?

[Arne Vajhøj]

On 12/14/2018 8:10 AM, johnson.eric at gmail.com wrote:
> On Thursday, December 13, 2018 at 10:18:13 PM UTC-5, Bill Gunshannon wrote:
>> Wishful thinking.  The machines used in University level courses do
>> not jump around from one OS to another at the whim of some professor.
>> I had boxes running Windows, boxes running Linux, boxes running BSD
>> and sometimes boxes running more obscure OSes for special projects.
>> They aren't interested in comparing anything to VMS because there is
>> no one left who knows what VMS is.  There are no textbooks that even
>> mention it.
> 
> I share Bill's general thoughts on the topic.
> 
> I'm probably one of the youngest contributors here. I graduated 25 years
> ago and had never touched or even heard of VMS. Even then - and this
> is 25 years ago! - it was an odd duck. The only thing odder and older than
> VMS (to my young eyes) was IBM's MVS and the 3270 terminal.
> 
> Again to my eyes then and now - it's simply an old man's OS. A curiosity
> at best. A time when data center operators wore shirts and ties like what
> I would see in old black and white photos.
> 
> It would be like expecting the car shop kids to want to learn about steam
> powered cars. Uhm, yeah sure, for an afternoon I guess, but meanwhile
> there is a ton of other _modern_ and _relevant_ things that everyone
> has to learn. The computational world is huge and spending one's most
> precious resource - your time - on something like this just doesn't
> have any payout.
> 
> Unfortunately, VMS has nothing distinctive to offer to the modern
> student that can't be learned easier and faster elsewhere.

The mainstream is Linux, Linux and Linux.

But sometimes people are willing to look at other stuff. Smart
people realize that there are different ways of doing things.

Sometime that requires looking at older stuff.

I know somebody that plan to try 20 different OS on Rasberry Pi.

There are people that are interested in trying things.

I don't know hor many colleges/universities that offer CS
courses worldwide. But let us say 5000. If just 2% aka 100
made VMS available to students then that would be great.

In Danish there is an old saying: "How do you walk to China?
One step at a time!".

If huge progress is not possible then let us go for many
small progresses that when combined may have a significant
impact.

Arne


Arne