[Info-vax] VSI OpenVMS Hobbyist Program Announced.

[Bill Gunshannon]

On 6/14/19 6:40 PM, Arne Vajhøj wrote:
> On 6/14/2019 9:20 AM, John H. Reinhardt wrote:
>> To be blunt, this is a huge step down from the HP program for us that 
>> have our own compatible hardware and want to run it 24/7 or at least 
>> not have to redo the license every 180 days.
>>
>> I really hope this is not the last word on VSI Hobbyist licenses.
> 
> The page clearly state "Student" several times.

Then they should have said it was an EDU Program rather than a
Hobbyist Program.

> 
> That, the form of the download kit and the material clearly indicates
> that this is targeting new VMS users not traditional VMS hobbyists.
> 
> Let me for fun just quote from page 5-6 of the material:
> 
> <quote>
> Default Directory and Directory Listing
> For now, let’s see where we are. In OpenVMS, the current directory is 
> known as the
> default directory because any file specification that doesn’t include 
> the directory name
> references a file in the default directory. So, let’s find out where we 
> are by asking the
> system what the default directory is. The command for this is “SHOW 
> DEFAULT”:
> $ SHOW DEFAULT
> SYS$SYSDEVICE:[STUDENT]
> This shows us that we are in the SYS$SYSDEVICE:[STUDENT] directory.
> • The string SYS$SYSDEVICE: is the device name, which is usually a hard 
> disk.
> SYS$SYSDEVICE: is a logical name which points to the disk from which the
> system has booted, in our case DKA0: Therefore SYS$SYSDEVICE:[STUDENT]
> is the same as DKA0:[STUDENT].
> • The string STUDENT is the directory name. If we were in a 
> subdirectory, it would
> be shown like this:
> $ SHO DEF
> SYS$SYSDEVICE:[STUDENT.SUBDIRECTORY]
> As you can see from the example above, commands can be abbreviated. SHO 
> DEF is
> short for SHOW DEFAULT. In general, a command may be abbreviated as long 
> as the
> abbreviated command has enough letters to be unique. So, the COPY 
> command may be
> abbreviated as COP, but not as CO (since CO could also mean, for 
> example, COBOL).
> The system will warn you if your abbreviation is invalid:
> $ CO
> %DCL-W-ABVERB, ambiguous command verb – supply more characters
> \CO\
> Now, let’s find out what files we have in our directory:
> $ DIRECTORY
> Directory SYS$SYSDEVICE:[STUDENT]
> LOGIN.COM;1
> Total of 1 file.
> So, we have one file in our directory: LOGIN.COM;1. Let’s ignore the ;1 
> for now and call
> this file LOGIN.COM. The .COM extension indicates that this file is a 
> DCL command
> procedure.
> </quote>
> 
> :-)
> 
> It makes perfect sense to me that VSI prioritize making VMS available
> for new users over making VMS available to the classic hobbyist crowd.
> 
> There is simply more business opportunities in getting some 25 yo's to
> try boot and login to VMS than to provide free VMS licenses to
> some people that as a hobby play with 10/20/30/40 yo HW.

This won't cut it.  The largest majority of my students before I
retired were running Macs, not Windows.  That  number has probably
gone up rather than down.  And that was with free Windows licenses
available to any student who wanted one.  All the Professors but
2 had Macs.

> 
> That said then I also hope that VSI will provide a more
> traditional hobbyist license.

I think the non-commercial use of VMS is on its way out.  It does
not bode well.

bill