[Info-vax] VMS x86 performance ?

[Henry Crun]

On 03/11/2020 9:00, Phillip Helbig (undress to reply) wrote:
> In article <rnp19d$al7$1 at dont-email.me>, Simon Clubley
> <clubley at remove_me.eisner.decus.org-Earth.UFP> writes:
> 
>> On 2020-10-31, Dave Froble <davef at tsoft-inc.com> wrote:
>>> About 2 months after I started on VMS, RSTS was forgotten ....
>>
>> This times a million. The only thing I missed from RSTS/E was the
>> ability to detach an interactive job and there were ways around
>> that problem.
> 
> That and command completion are the only two things on unix which I
> don't have on VMS, though there are various workarounds.  Having said
> that, these two things aren't as important on VMS as on unix.
> 

Things I miss on VMS that I remember from RSTS/E

1. The SYSTAT cusp, which showed details of running jobs
(Took a while, but I have a VMS equivalent. Linux has top and htop)
2. The UTILTY program which had an option to force input to another process
(Useful for saving stuck users, or changing batch jobs mid-stream)
3.An undocumented, unsupported SYS call (IIRC SYS(chr(10...) ) which allowed
a suitably privileged System Manager to see anaother process' or user's input buffers.
(Not used often, but an occasional lifesaver!)

OTOH what I don't miss:
ACCT.SYS -- all the passwords readable, and using the KED editor (pre-EDT) left it readable on disk.
Having to jump through hoops to use the equivalent of a batch queue
TKB runs taking hours (The first time I ran LINK on VMS it completed so fast I was sure something was wrong!)

-- 
Mike R.
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