[HN Gopher] OpenVMS on x86
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OpenVMS on x86
Author : gcardozo
Score : 81 points
Date : 2022-05-06 12:27 UTC (10 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (vmssoftware.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (vmssoftware.com)
| ch_123 wrote:
| According to a recent announcement, they expect to have their
| first production release in July:
| https://vmssoftware.com/about/news/2022-05-05-vsi-announces-...
| cosmiccatnap wrote:
| I'm really confused, it doesn't seem like there is anything open
| about openVMS. Which in turn means I have little excitement for
| this announcement.
| sidpatil wrote:
| The "Open" in OpenVMS is referring to open standards like
| POSIX, not to Open Source.
| memetomancer wrote:
| I am an enthusiastic fan of VMS - my first job was tending to a
| small VAX cluster. I sat down and read the entire hardcopy
| documentation, which was maybe as many as twenty 3" binders.
|
| After learning about the OpenVMS community license I got excited
| and applied for a license. Bought myself a
| [PiDP-11](https://obsolescence.wixsite.com/obsolescence/pidp-11)
| and got ready to party.
|
| OpenVMS got back to me, asking me to clarify just why I wanted
| this software. I has already explained my background and intent.
| They said it was insufficient justification and pointed me to a
| (windows based) student package :( Very discouraging.
|
| I just can't understand why they would make this ancient OS so
| inaccessible. It is genuinely great stuff, and with an active
| community it would probably re-emerge as a legitimate contender.
|
| So, all that being said, I followed the link and read the FAQ,
| and found this: >"You can participate in the field test if you
| are a customer or partner of VSI with a valid support contract."
|
| What gives, VSI. what the heck even gives?!
| phendrenad2 wrote:
| Maybe security through obscurity? They can legitimately tell
| their customers "not just anyone can get a copy of VMS" and
| then they can imply that that means that hackers can't hack it
| or something. I'm sure big government customers go for that
| sort of thing.
| chasil wrote:
| Older versions of VMS have a showstopper login bug that can
| be used to obtain the full privilege of the kernel.
|
| There are many older VMS installations where this cannot be
| fixed, and more still where it is not worth the trouble of
| engaging a support contract to obtain the patches.
|
| https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/02/06/openvms_vulnerabili.
| ..
| jasomill wrote:
| Anyone _can_ get a copy of VMS, just not this closed beta.
|
| VSI plans to add the x86 version to the free community
| license program [1] at a later date.
|
| In the mean time, the Alpha version runs very well under
| emulation, and is available both under the CLP (free,
| registration required[1]; also includes Itanium, though AFAIK
| no emulators capable of running it exist), and as a freely
| downloadable (no registration required), preinstalled student
| kit bundled with a preconfigured Windows emulator[2].
|
| Note that the "student" license is unrestricted for non-
| commercial use; you don't have to be an actual student to use
| it.
|
| [1] https://vmssoftware.com/community/community-license/
| (note "x86 (planned)")
|
| [2] https://training.vmssoftware.com/student-license/
| ch_123 wrote:
| That's strange, I've been able to get access to their license
| and I did not have to give a particularly elaborate
| story/justification for them.
|
| I do own a real Alpha system and pointed this fact out in my
| request, so maybe that helped?
| jasomill wrote:
| I had no problem getting both Alpha and Itanium kits from
| VSI, after explaining that I planned to run on an Alpha
| emulator and a hypothetical Itanium box that I didn't
| actually own yet, but may someday acquire. So they're clearly
| not too picky about hardware ownership.
|
| They did initially suggest the student package to me as well,
| but after replying that I had prior VMS experience and would
| prefer to install and configure the system myself, they
| promptly issued my licenses.
| memetomancer wrote:
| Thanks, I gave up after the student package referral...
| which I guess worked as designed! Maybe now I will get some
| genuine hardware and take another shot.
| flenserboy wrote:
| The documentation was amazing. I did campus backups in the
| white room back in college, and for some reason that was the
| place they had shelf after shelf of these binders; while the
| Vaxen hummed, I read through them. It was something of a
| letdown to move to MAN pages when we got some UNIX boxen.
| inejge wrote:
| _I just can 't understand why they would make this ancient OS
| so inaccessible._
|
| The OS is used by a limited and probably dwindling number of
| vendors of specialized, complex and long-lived software
| originally developed for VAX/VMS. I was tangentially related to
| users of such software for a while; the vendor made the
| VAX->Alpha and Alpha->Itanium transitions, but saw the writing
| on the wall and ported the software away from VMS. VSI is not a
| large outfit, and they're a business. They don't need the
| hassle of dealing with hobbyists.
|
| _It is genuinely great stuff, and with an active community it
| would probably re-emerge as a legitimate contender._
|
| It's a fascinating and superbly documented system, agreed. But
| a contender? Far too late for that, IMO, if it was ever in the
| cards (I don't think so.)
| Aloha wrote:
| I dont understand - did you have an Integrity or Alpha you
| wanted to run it on?
| memetomancer wrote:
| I was considering getting a Vax station 3100, but otherwise
| planned to run it on SIMH (emulator).
| jasomill wrote:
| Last I heard, VSI's agreement with HP only permits them to
| issue licenses for VSI OpenVMS releases, and they've never
| released a VAX build. So at this point, any VAX license
| would have to come from HP (who, AFAIK, is no longer
| issuing them, at least not to hobbyists).
| icedchai wrote:
| If you google "VMS Liberation Front", your licensing
| problems will be solved.
| huslage wrote:
| Next we need a z/OS Liberation Front
| kotaKat wrote:
| ^ This. The amount of hoops for an aspiring mainframer
| that just wants to poke at z/PDT and throw money at IBM
| is silly. They ghosted me after trying to sign up for it.
| Koshkin wrote:
| OS/370 is all we will ever need.
| the_only_law wrote:
| I don't think modern OpenVMS runs on VAX anymore. But hey
| if you have the ever popular Itanium architecture, it will
| run.
| sehro wrote:
| Yeh, the last OpenVMS release for VAX was 7.sommat, and
| hasn't been updated since. Alpha and Itanium still have
| active releases with mostly feature parity, tho.
| classichasclass wrote:
| I've actually got a VAXstation 3100 M76. It's fun to run it
| on the hardware, but most of these little VAXen have
| performance most charitably described as pedestrian.
| the_only_law wrote:
| Yeah they later ones aren't priced to bad on eBay. You
| can occasionally find some minicomputers and some of the
| larger VAXStations but they tend to be a lot more
| especially considering it would have to ship freight.
| dhosek wrote:
| I was tempted (but fortunately didn't succumb) to buy the
| IBM 4000-series minicomputer my college was
| decommissioning in the 90s. It would have been both cool
| and an overwhelming burden to have this thing.
| pjmlp wrote:
| Ah, VMS Basic and VMS Pascal, compiled and already quite good
| versus what was happening at Bell Labs.
|
| And naturally BLISS as well.
| smackeyacky wrote:
| The main memory I have of VMS was that there was an occam
| compiler on it we used to learn multi processing.
|
| Our lecturer waxed lyrical about the future of computing while
| we struggled with debugging on the flickery vt100 terminals in
| the late eighties.
| phendrenad2 wrote:
| Open-source OpenVMS clone: http://www.pvv.org/~roart/freevms.html
| larsbrinkhoff wrote:
| You know how VMS systematically kills off its host architectures,
| right?
| yjftsjthsd-h wrote:
| Here's to the ARM+RISC-V future, then:)
| pmlnr wrote:
| Lol. It only took openvms to get on x86 what, 25 years?
| cbm-vic-20 wrote:
| Now if we can only get HP to reinstate the VAX hobbyist
| license... The VMS Software team can't do that, they never got
| the rights to the VAX implementation.
| 34534536347 wrote:
| Why VAX over Alpha (a pure 64-bit RISC ISA)? Do you
| specifically have VAX boxes to use this on? Regardless, I wish
| the Deathrow Cluster project was still around (thanks to Da
| Beave for running it for years).
| chasil wrote:
| The SimH emulator has long been able to run OpenVMS VAX.
|
| There are probably free Alpha emulators by now, but the VAX
| version has been running on PCs for a long, long time, and
| it's what people know.
|
| http://simh.trailing-edge.com/
| sehro wrote:
| For open-source Alpha emulation, there is AXPbox, which is
| a fork of the somewhat ancient es40, with some new fixes.
| It even runs on m1 macs now.
| chasil wrote:
| DEC would have been profoundly wise if they had
| recognized and adopted ARM, porting VMS to it.
|
| Maybe Cutler would have stayed in that early fait-
| accomplis. They also never would have spent the money on
| Alpha, or wasted time selling MIPS workstations.
| ch_123 wrote:
| One thing is that there is a much larger array of interesting
| old software for the VAX rather than Alpha. The same will be
| true for Alpa compared with x86, but at least it will be
| easier to run more modern software on x86.
|
| (I own both VAX and Alpha hardware and run VMS on both)
| 34534536347 wrote:
| > (I own both VAX and Alpha hardware and run VMS on both)
|
| Lucky you!
| nickt wrote:
| You can get a community licence from VMS Software:
|
| https://vmssoftware.com/community/community-license/
| Aloha wrote:
| "Please note that in accordance with the license agreement
| between VMS Software Inc. and HPE, VMS Software Inc. are not
| able to distribute VAX licenses."
| boricj wrote:
| Is it because they can't distribute licenses for non-VSI
| versions of OpenVMS? Depending on their license agreement
| maybe VSI can do new VAX releases, but since OpenVMS VAX
| system still kicking are running at best a 20 years old
| release that's been out of support for a decade, even if
| that's the case they probably think it's not worth the
| hassle.
| protomyth wrote:
| I would assume VAX licenses refers to the VAX not x86
| version.
| icedchai wrote:
| Why would they bother? It's a dead platform and hobbyists
| aren't going to pay big bucks. All the VMS licenses you need
| are a couple of google searches away, anyway. It was
| "liberated" years ago.
| yjftsjthsd-h wrote:
| I would have naively assumed that they didn't like being a
| dead platform, in which case getting some sort of hobbyist
| interest is a prudent move.
| mrpippy wrote:
| OP is asking about OpenVMS *on VAX*, 3 CPU architectures
| ago, which is definitely a dead platform
| yjftsjthsd-h wrote:
| I think the logic applies for as long as they have
| customers using the platform. If there are paying
| customers on ancient hardware, or emulators thereof, then
| I would expect it to be in their interests to have a way
| to get new blood to support that.
| icedchai wrote:
| There was a large VMS software shop in the area. They had
| moved from VAX to Alpha in the mid 90's. I remember some
| dude there, back in the mid 90's, showing me a 4 CPU
| system with a gigabyte of RAM. That was _unheard of_
| then. DEC did some amazing stuff. When Compaq acquired
| it, it was a sad day indeed. They made PC clones, while
| DEC had their own CPUs and operating systems.
|
| After the Alpha was canceled, the local shop gave up on
| VMS, ported everything to Linux and IBM AIX, and moved
| on. Seems like a wise move.
|
| VMS has been dying for decades. I suspect any serious
| business has ported their app to another platform.
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(page generated 2022-05-06 23:01 UTC)