[Info-vax] VSI licencing policy (again), was: Re: VSI has a new CEO

[Arne Vajhøj]

On 8/9/2021 8:14 AM, Simon Clubley wrote:
> On 2021-08-09, Lawrence D?Oliveiro <lawrencedo99 at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Alpha is an interesting case. In spite of it being a 64-bit architecture, Windows NT only ever ran on it in 32-bit ?TASO? mode. OpenVMS got as far as a hybrid 32/64-bit port, but I don?t think it ever managed to go full 64-bit.
> 
> The lack of pure 64-bit mode for VMS on Alpha

As states before there is no 32 bit mode in VMS.

But VMS compilers and API's support both 32 and 64 bit pointers.

>                                                    was nothing to do with
> Alpha, but was to do with the VMS architecture and choice of implementation
> languages.
> 
> Unlike with other operating systems where the lowest supported language
> is C (with a bit of assembly thrown in for architecture-specific things),
> _way_ too much would have broken in VMS code if they had tried to make
> it a pure 64-bit environment.

I suspect that DEC could have rewritten VMS itself to all
64 bit pointers.

VMS applications out at customers would be a a bigger problem.

Arne