[Info-vax] Opportunity for VSI?

[Bill Gunshannon]

On 12/14/18 2:32 AM, Dave Froble wrote:
> On 12/13/2018 10:18 PM, Bill Gunshannon wrote:
>> On 12/13/18 9:53 PM, Scott Dorsey wrote:
>>> Stephen Hoffman  <seaohveh at hoffmanlabs.invalid> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> To initiate a vendor-specific degree-granting program or a trade school
>>>> job-training program, most any school is going to want more than media
>>>> and download codes and a rack of free servers.  Servers that'll
>>>> probably quickly be running Linux too, but I digress.  The folks
>>>> responsible for the program are going to want funding for staff, and
>>>> installation and hardware support, and sundries.
>>>
>>> Right.  You're not going to get that, you can't even hope for that.
>>>
>>> What you CAN hope for is for colleges to use VMS in an operating systems
>>> class for comparison purposes... set up a small cluster of generic
>>> hardware
>>> to run VMS one day, Linux the next day, maybe Windows the day after 
>>> that.
>>
>> 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.
>>
>> Like the HP educational program there are too many people who
>> have no experience or understanding of just how an academic
>> CS department works trying to make plans for them.  If I
>> couldn't keep VMS in a department that already had hardware,
>> licenses and operational systems how can you possibly expect
>> people who have never used it, seen it or even heard of it
>> to suddenly decide to put out the expense and effort needed
>> to incorporate it into an Operating Systems Course?
>>
>> bill
>>
>>
> 
> Well Bill, apparently there is someone who is looking to do just that.
> 

Who?  IBM has had an active education program for ages.  It
does not teach IBM OSes.  It offers IBM Mainframe access (and
AIX, but I doubt that sees much use) for teaching User level
access.  Application Development, Use of COBOL, PL/I, DB2 and
CICS.  Don't know how much activity it sees.  The point of
contact has to be a Professor and ours never once talked to
anyone at IBM in all the time I was there even with my constant
nagging.

bill