[Info-vax] Attn VSI employees: Viable full system Itanium emulator for VMS ?

[Dan Cross]

In article <620ead33$0$703$14726298 at news.sunsite.dk>,
Arne Vajhøj  <arne at vajhoej.dk> wrote:
>On 2/17/2022 3:05 PM, Dan Cross wrote:
>> I really don't understand the point of an HP-UX port
>> to x86_64.  What would be available that wouldn't also
>> be available under, say, Linux?  HP-UX was never a
>> very good or friendly version of Unix.
>
>Maybe not. But if all the code, procedures and
>people skills are for HP-UX then ...

HP-UX isn't that different, even from a sysadmin
perspective, as any other Unix; most of that
know-how translates.  Where it doesn't, there are
many more people in the world who know how to run
Linux than HP-UX at this point.

>> For that matter, I'm not sure I understand the point of
>> a VMS port to x86_64 as a long-term commercial product.
>> I could have seen it with the first Opertons, but not
>> now.  In particular, what market is VSI hoping for except
>> legacy customers who are tied to VMS for specific
>> vertical applications?  Why would someone make the
>> decision to base a new product entry on OpenVMS in 2022?
>> 
>> Don't get me wrong, I *like* VMS, but let's be realistic.
>> I doubt if they'll get much uptake beyond moving legacy
>> applications to modern hardware, and even then, I think
>> their user base will asymptotically shrink to zero as
>> those applications migrate to other systems.
>
>Noone said that it would be easy.
>
>But VMS does not have a chance if there is no HW
>available to run it on.
>
>If it can run on standard servers (especially in
>virtualized environments) then it has a chance.

Sure.  I just don't understand the business model.

For that matter, why not go with something analogous
to QEMU's user emulation?  A "virtual VMS" sandbox
that runs as an application as a process on another
kernel?

Anyway, I certainly hopes VSI succeeds.  I wonder
what their plan is.

	- Dan C.