[Info-vax] RSTS/E and VMS connection

[Dave Froble]

On 4/7/2023 5:22 PM, Johnny Billquist wrote:
> On 2023-04-07 01:02, bill wrote:
>>
>> WE have often heard that VMS on the VAX was the logical procession
>> from RS11 on the PDP.  I was looking around at my bookshelf and saw
>> my 1983-84 RSTS/E PDP-11 Operating System book and it kinda piqued
>> my interest so I picked it up and did a  little lite reading.
>
> Well. Internally, VMS is like a scaled up RSX in many (most?) corners. Most data
> structures and designs were (are) more or less the same as in RSX, but scaled up
> for 32-bits and whatever logically came out from there. A lot of system calls is
> the same story. And initial release of VMS mostly used all RSX cusps, running in
> compatibility mode, and slowly getting replaced with native things. Early
> versions of VMS I seem to remember even might still have used ODS-1, or some
> hybrid between ODS-1 and -2. I clearly remember the 9+3 character filename
> limitation in my earliest memories of VMS.
>
> However, at the user interface level, VMS was clearly taking it's queues from
> RSTS/E. Including having the BASIC+ SYS() calls compatibly working in VMS. And
> things like ^C actually stopping the program, unlike under RSX, where it just
> gives you the CLI prompt.
>
>> And there is another note about "The RSTS/E and VAX/VMS Compatbility
>> Manual".  I would love to see a copy of that.
>
> There was also a manual/book about moving from RSX to VMS published. I think DEC
> tried to address both crowds, and convince them both to migrate to VMS. However,
> I think they were much more successful in convincing the RSTS/E guys.
>
>   Johnny
>

Well, virtual address space was sort of a rather large hammer ...

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David Froble                       Tel: 724-529-0450
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