[Info-vax] relaunch or legacy

[John Dallman]

In article <j5i0m8Fs463U1 at mid.individual.net>,
gerard.calliet at pia-sofer.fr (Gérard Calliet) wrote:

> I apologize for the probably pretentiousness of this presentation. 
> If it can be an excuse, I consider that the respect due to an 
> audience as learned and experienced as c.o.v. implies to entrust 
> them with complex things.

Here we seem to have a difference in national etiquette. To Americans,
and other English-speakers, especially engineers, a crisis is best
explained in a few blunt words. Lengthy speeches remove the sense of
urgency. 

However, I don't think the situation is as bad as you do. VSI have not
made an elaborate plan to address all of the things you're worried about,
but that is almost certainly because they've been concentrating on the
issue of the x86 port. Without that working, they are sunk. Now they know
it will work, they should be making the plans for distribution and
marketing. 

Remember that we're viewing this process partly from the inside. It is
not surprising that it does not look smooth; these things never do from
within. 

> I come back to the "Digital is dead, long live DEC" reference. I 
> always have this reference in mind, following two ways of thinking: 

I'm afraid that to me it does not convey anything meaningful. 

I can, however, see a possible approach that would assist French
customers and intermediaries. Let me explain:

A transition to x86 is excellent for VMS end-users who are willing and
able to move their applications to x86 swiftly. But not all of them are
in that position. 

A transition to x86 means that some parts of intermediaries' expertise
becomes far less useful: expertise on DEC and the older HP hardware will
no longer be required by end-users who are no longer using old kit. The
intermediaries need something else to sell. 

These two problems may have the same solution. 

I mentioned the idea of emulating Alpha and IPF yesterday. Emulating
64-bit VMS on VMS is rather easier than emulating it on a non-VMS
operating system. The x86 VMS has, I think, all the system calls of Alpha
and IPF versions, and thanks to the DEC calling standard, they're called
in the same way. 

So reviving the free and open-source IPF emulator I posted a link to
today, porting it to x86 VMS, and equipping it with a system call
translation facility would seem to be a route to running IPF VMS
applications on x86 VMS. 

That gives a transition route to running on x86 for IPF customers who
can't or won't port their applications, and gives intermediaries
something to provide expertise on. This will require a fair amount of
open-source software development work, but that will benefit everyone
involved, and probably prompt improvements to x86 VMS development tools. 

John