[Info-vax] Decwindows Motif V1.1 kit

[Paul Hardy]

Stephen Hoffman <seaohveh at hoffmanlabs.invalid> wrote:

> If you really want to preserve the software, update it to something 
> approaching current Motif. That'll keep it around for a few more years.
> 
You are missing the point of the overall project, which is to preserve for
posterity, not just for a few years. I’ve been extracting the source code
to deposit for long-term archiving with eg bitsavers. I’d like an
equivalent set of working binaries to show under SimH what it looked like
when running. Updating the source code defeats the object. 

I assert that 50 or a hundred years from now, people will look back and
berate us for not preserving the software from the early days of computing
to let future historians understand the evolution of modern computer
applications. 

> 
> Yeah, I know there are folks that want to experience the era—an era of 
> constrained and unstable hardware and software—and this is entirely 
> your project.

I think you are unnecessarily hard on that era. The hardware was adequate
for the job, and the DEC workstations from the MicroVAX 3100 era were very
robust. The software environment was sufficient to support productive
applications that were an order of magnitude faster than the manual era
that preceded it. This software was deployed at major governmental and
commercial sites worldwide.

VMS 5.5 was a pretty stable environment and I absolutely know that the
mapping applications ran well on V5.5 with Motif 1.1. So it is a
configuration problem I’m chasing.

> 
> And as mentioned earlier, protections, process quotas, and outright 
> DECwindows bugs were common back then. It's easy to get into trouble 
> using the SYSTEM user, too.  This due to file ownerships and 
> protections and access on created files. And variously, some of these 
> created files are then shared by non-privileged users.  Users which can 
> then encounter access errors, and from which DECwindows sometimes just 
> tips over.

I agree that it’s easy for a system user to create files that cause
problems for non-privileged users. If it had been the mapping application
failing, then mea culpa. However the mapping applications run fine under
either user, as do the utilities like Decterm and Fileview.  It’s only the
Motif Window Manager which is failing to start, and that works fine if
started by hand. 

I’ve just enabled image and process accounting, and note that there is only
one process ending with an error status. It’s terminal is MBA3192 so
presumably a detached process, and running Loginout. It fails with status
00018272, which accounting/full translates as %RMS-E-DNR, device not ready.
Not really very helpful - I’ll continue to delve, although further ideas
welcomed. 

> 
> Welcome to experiencing that era. 

I lived and worked through that era (I started with VMS 0.6 in 1979, and
system managed VAX-11/780 number 47, which I believe was the first
non-military VAX in the UK. I was an active VAX user and programmer for 20
years, and an intermittent one until 2003. However I’ve had 16 years of
human memory degradation since!

> Just as can result from various 
> "enterprise computing" efforts seeking to avoid the benefits of those 
> same fixes and updates.

This mapping software was made obsolescent in the early 1990s (by the
development of new product suite based round an active object database). 
The original suite made the transition to Alpha, and had maintenance
updates up to the end of the century, including a couple of minor year 2000
fixes. We always made sure that it ran on the latest VMS, until the new
suite replaced it.

Regards (and thanks for your long term contributions to VMS).

-- 
Paul at the paulhardy.net domain