[Info-vax] VAX Common Lisp

[Robert Carleton]

On Sunday, October 23, 2022 at 8:08:27 PM UTC-5, Robert Carleton wrote:
> On Sunday, October 23, 2022 at 7:50:28 PM UTC-5, Arne Vajhøj wrote: 
> > On 10/23/2022 8:30 PM, Robert Carleton wrote: 
> > > On Sunday, October 23, 2022 at 6:48:49 PM UTC-5, Dave Froble wrote: 
> > >> On 10/23/2022 6:54 PM, Robert Carleton wrote: 
> > >>> This is probably kind of a stretch, has VAX Common Lisp survived 
> > >>> in some form over the years? I'm aware that Lucid picked it up 
> > >>> later on, but it's not clear to me what happened to the VAX 
> > >>> Common Lisp product, when Lucid began to divest their assets in 
> > >>> the 90s. >> Don't know what you are asking. 
> > >> 
> > >> If you're looking for the VAX product: 
> > >> 
> > >> Directory DKA100:[DFE.LISP031.KIT] 
> > ... 
> > >> If you want it, just ask ... 
> > > David, thanks for your reply. I was more curious if the product was 
> > > ever ported to the Alpha/Itanium/x86 architectures. I'm returning to 
> > > VMS so I don't have any existing systems to start with. I suppose I 
> > > could try to run VAX VMS under SimH. Is there any legitimate way to 
> > > get a VMS software load for the VAX architecture under the VSI 
> > > Community License Agreement? From the web site, it seems like they 
> > > are focused on the newer architectures. 
> > No hobbyist/community license for VMS VAX anymore. 
> > 
> > There are other Lisp implementations available. 
> > 
> > I know that ABCL works on VMS Alpha and Itanium. But I 
> > am not enough skilled in Lisp to say whether it is any good. 
> > 
> > Arne
> ABCL is a place to start, but the Java interoperability in ABCL isn't a key requirement. I'm mostly using SBCL on Windows/Linux. VAX Common Lisp had a nice feature list. It would be nice to see it come back to life somehow.

I did notice that the VAX LISP/VMS Installation Guide (Order Number: AA-Y922E-TE) did include some notes about VAX Cluster installs in chapter 2. I suppose the procedure might just keeps the software licensing straight.

Does anyone here know if there was any special support in VAX Common Lisp for VAX clusters? It wasn't clear from the old manuals I could find. The VAX LISP/VMS System Access Guide (Order Number: AA-GH75B-TE) doesn't make any mention of it. It would be particularly interesting if you could move a running Lisp process between cluster nodes without shutting it down. If that kind of thing is also possible with the open source Lisp implementations, that would be good to know.