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

[Bill Gunshannon]

On 1/4/22 5:59 PM, chris wrote:
> 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.

If you have Ultrix32 and VMS sources and you work from them you
are not reverse-engineering and anything you use those sources
for would still be encumbered,

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

It has nothing to do with the availability of X-11 sources.  It is the
information regarding the DEC hardware that is not publicly available.

I am sure some people have fudged around and made some of it work.  But
until it is free (which will never happen) you will never see a any
serious development of X-11 for the remaining legal free VAX OSes.

Too bad they never did a port of Plan9 for the VAX.  :-)

bill