[Info-vax] Alternative _legal_ operating systems for VAX ?

[chris]

On 01/03/22 12:18, Bill Gunshannon wrote:
> On 1/3/22 4:22 AM, Bob Eager wrote:
>> On Sun, 02 Jan 2022 16:53:55 -0500, Bill Gunshannon wrote:
>>
>>> Sadly, language has little to do with it. Too much of the DEC stuff is
>>> still proprietary and trade secret locked. Last I heard that was the
>>> reason why neither NetBSD or OpenBSD ever had a functioning X11.
>>
>> I find that hard to believe. I am using X11 on FreeBSD right now, and the
>> projects overlap quite a bit.
>>
>>
>>
>
> FreeeBSD does not run on a VAX so that really has nothing to do with
> the discussion. It is the VAX video hardware that is not supported
> under NetBSD and, especially at this point, probably never will be.
>
> bill
>

If you look at some early X11 sources, there is code to drive dec
frame buffer hardware, so there is info out there and probably more
if you have access to VMS or Ultrix 32 sources. Not impossible to
reverse engineer from that.

Some of the very earliest work on X11 was done on a VS100 (aka, Vax 725)
with E&S frame buffer...

Chris