[Info-vax] New CEO of VMS Software

[Arne Vajhøj]

On 1/4/2024 10:09 PM, Dan Cross wrote:
> In article <un7ren$3s7nl$1 at dont-email.me>,
> Lawrence D'Oliveiro  <ldo at nz.invalid> wrote:
>> On Thu, 4 Jan 2024 21:11:49 -0500, Arne Vajhøj wrote:
>>> MS tried WSL1 and changed to to a VM model with WSL2.
>>>
>>> 2 x commercial failure.
>>
>> On the part of Windows, not on the part of Linux.
> 
> 2024 will be the year of the Linux desktop.  I can feel it!

:-)

>>>>>> Remember, it took less time (and resources) than that to move Linux
>>>>>> from 32-bit x86 to 64-bit Alpha.
>>>>>
>>>>> Very different task.
>>>>
>>>> How different? It’s exactly the same sort of thing: port an OS to a new
>>>> architecture.
>>>
>>> If you call both a CPU and an underlying foreign OS kernel for "a new
>>> architecture" then yes.
>>>
>>> But the reality is that it is very different.
>>
>> New CPU -- check
>> “underlying foreign OS kernel” -- this was about porting the same kernel
>> onto a different CPU. In both cases.
>>
>> So tell me again: “very different” how?
> 
> I think, again, you are talking at cross-purposes: my suspicion
> is that Arne is referring to a VMS compatibility layer built on
> top of Linux, not the effort of porting VMS to x86_64.

Yes.

I was being unclear in my response, so I think that one is on me.

> That said, VMS was not originally written for portability and
> wasn't ported to anything other than successive version of the
> VAX for the first 10 or so years it existed; Linux was ported
> to the Alpha pretty early on (sponsored by DEC; thanks Mad Dog).
> So Linux filed off a lot of portability sharp edges for the
> machines at the time pretty early on, when it was still pretty
> small; VMS not so much.

Yes.

But there is also the difference that Linux was implemented
(first and later) for existing architecture. They had to live
with what they got. When VMS was first created the VMS software
people could walk over to the VAX HW people and say "we want
this nifty instruction to make our work easier". An Alpha got
the PAL code mechanism.

I believe one of the VSI people has told that one of issues
in the x86-64 port is probing memory. VAX got PROBEx instructions.
Alpha got CALL_PAL PROBER and PROBEW.

Arne