[Info-vax] VMS device drivers, was: Re: The best VMS features, was: Re: openvms renaming file

[Simon Clubley]

On 2018-05-31, Bill Gunshannon <bill.gunshannon at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> My point was that there is little difference between desktop
> and server systems today and writing either off is a bad
> decision.  Can it really be that hard  to write a device
> driver for a limited set of graphics cards?

It's harder on VMS than it is on Linux.

You can't reload device drivers on VMS so you need to reboot your
test system every single time you change something and want to load
a new version of the driver.

Also, what functionality is required ? Is a framebuffer driver
sufficient or would you need a driver with acceleration support ?

It's also a pity VMS doesn't have user mode device drivers.

Yes, VMS has ACPs which can be used in some situations but how
to write one is totally undocumented.

Simon.

-- 
Simon Clubley, clubley at remove_me.eisner.decus.org-Earth.UFP
Microsoft: Bringing you 1980s technology to a 21st century world