[HN Gopher] VM/370 Community Edition V1R1.2 released
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       VM/370 Community Edition V1R1.2 released
        
       Author : nix23
       Score  : 54 points
       Date   : 2022-07-26 09:28 UTC (13 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.vm370.org)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.vm370.org)
        
       | protomyth wrote:
       | Now if I can get XEDIT, 370 Assembler, and a Modula 2 compiler, I
       | could recreate my college experience.
        
         | rbanffy wrote:
         | You'll need a beam spring keyboard. ;-)
        
           | protomyth wrote:
           | I actually have one (or close to it) since we have an old
           | AS/400 terminal in the backroom. We bought a new iSeries and
           | that, sadly, uses a PC as a console terminal.
        
         | Koshkin wrote:
         | Going back to where you lived before is the best (if not the
         | only) way to cure yourself of nostalgia. (You may or may not
         | want to do that.)
        
           | rbanffy wrote:
           | Not sure I agree completely with that. These were simpler OSs
           | for a simpler time. A lot of what I do today I accomplished
           | in the 80s with an Apple II, a phone line, and a modem. I
           | read emails (we didn't call them that back then), wrote
           | software, built databases, discussed esoteric topics in
           | BBSs... Even met my first wife online over a Minitel-like
           | system.
        
             | digitalsankhara wrote:
             | Similar for me but on BBC-B Micro. Rose tinted memories
             | perhaps. And replication of that experience now would be a
             | very interesting exercise in patience and acceptance for
             | me. Indeed simpler times.
             | 
             | Could I personally go back? As much as technology has given
             | us super fast hardware, very complex and flexible operating
             | systems, GUIs and complex software am I any better off for
             | it? Outside of my professional work where I have to deliver
             | my work within a defined technology stack, I wonder how
             | much I could do without and go back in time.
             | 
             | And even then a lot of what I produce professionally
             | resides in text files, so I could originate them on an
             | older system - the key to this is, of course,
             | interconnectivity or a bridging technology. SCSI to USB
             | stick anyone!
             | 
             | As much as there is an alternative lifestyle to be had
             | rooted in minimalism and contentment in simpler things
             | (which I aspire to) I am tempted to stop the hyper-driven
             | tech world and get off!
             | 
             | Reading the work and enthusiasm of retro-computing people
             | is actually quite inspiring.
        
               | rbanffy wrote:
               | > And even then a lot of what I produce professionally
               | resides in text files, so I could originate them on an
               | older system - the key to this is, of course,
               | interconnectivity or a bridging technology. SCSI to USB
               | stick anyone!
               | 
               | One think I did a lot, which is kind of cheating, is to
               | use X to run the heavy lifting on my Linux box while
               | sitting in front of a Sun.
               | 
               | A lot of what we do is just larger versions of what we
               | did before. We call batch processing ETL and use tables
               | instead of tapes, but the ideas are there.
               | 
               | And, unlike some MacBooks, a BBC has an ESC key ;-)
        
             | Koshkin wrote:
             | Sure, but you might lose some of the fondness of those
             | memories if you tried and repeat the same experience today.
        
               | rbanffy wrote:
               | I routinely do. I have a number of old computers that are
               | still functional. Won't be writing anything to network
               | drives from the Apple II, but DOS PCs (yuck!) and Macs
               | are fair game.
        
           | protomyth wrote:
           | I gotta admit XEDIT was kind of interesting for the left side
           | command area.
           | 
           | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XEDIT
        
       | notorandit wrote:
       | Really?
        
         | Koshkin wrote:
         | Historia vero testis temporum, lux veritatis, vita memoriae,
         | _magistra vitae_ , nuntia vetustatis, qua voce alia nisi
         | oratoris immortalitati commendatur?
        
           | notorandit wrote:
           | Historia docet historiam numquam docere.
        
       | TomMasz wrote:
       | This is the OS I started out on. It's been a long time since I
       | typed #CP IPL CMS PARM AUTOCR on a 3270.
        
         | rbanffy wrote:
         | I still remember starting the Mantis IDE (we didn't call them
         | IDEs at the time) with a                 //EXEC PGM=MANTIS
        
       | cbm-vic-20 wrote:
       | HP needs to do this with VAX/VMS.
        
         | Zenst wrote:
         | Indeed, the irony that they call it OpenVMS now when you can
         | only get an evaluation for comercial use and they explicitly
         | bar hobbiests is a shame.
        
           | Dracophoenix wrote:
           | Unless things have changed recently, hobbyists can sign up
           | for a license for OpenVMS. However a condition of the license
           | is that you can't use a hobbyist license for commercial
           | purposes.
        
             | dboreham wrote:
             | Things changed.
        
             | dfox wrote:
             | HPE has divested VMS Software Inc., so if you want hobbyist
             | license you have to go to VSI and not to HPE. And under VSI
             | the process of getting the hobyist license is simpler (ie.
             | you don't have to be member of anything) and IIRC you can
             | even get images of installation media directly from VSI.
        
               | cbm-vic-20 wrote:
               | VSI does not have the rights to VMS on VAX, and so it's
               | not included in their hobbyist license program.
        
               | Dracophoenix wrote:
               | Thank you for the information. Do you know if hobbyist
               | licenses acquired before the divesture will still be
               | honored?
        
               | Zenst wrote:
               | Interesting, do you have a link?
               | 
               | I went via https://vmssoftware.com/ and the get Get
               | OpenVMS link which yeilds a form that has:
               | 
               | "To help us qualify your application for this evaluation
               | release kit, please fill out the following survey. Please
               | be advised that community (hobbyist) licenses are not
               | currently available, evaluation licenses are provided to
               | commercial customers only."
        
               | dfox wrote:
               | https://vmssoftware.com/community/community-license/
        
           | nix23 wrote:
           | Open has nothing todo with opensource but with "open" abi.
           | 
           | Same with OpenServer from SCO
        
             | selfhoster11 wrote:
             | What else are we going to congratulate them for, not
             | requiring licensing to open a new TCP socket?
        
               | nix23 wrote:
               | >congratulate
               | 
               | Why? Did you do that toward's SCO?
               | 
               | But later you found out about BSD's?
        
             | Zenst wrote:
             | True but then it was somewhat a fashion of the time to add
             | Open to things (marketing trying to capitalise upon the
             | Opensource movement heh). For VMS the history is:
             | 
             | "In July 1992, DEC renamed VAX/VMS to OpenVMS as an
             | indication for its support of open systems industry
             | standards such as POSIX and Unix compatibility, and to drop
             | the VAX connection since a migration to a different
             | architecture was underway."
        
               | michaelhoffman wrote:
               | It definitely was a fashion then to add "open" to names
               | but this predates the wide use of the term "open source".
               | 
               | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_source#Open_source_as_
               | a_t...
        
               | pjmlp wrote:
               | Likewise there is very few Open in POSIX and UNIX
               | standards, for a long time, just like with ISO C and C++,
               | one really needed to buy them in paper form to read them.
        
               | pdw wrote:
               | It's referring to the "Open Systems" hype of the 80s /
               | early 90s. The term "open source" became popular only
               | much later.
               | 
               | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_system_(computing)
        
         | rbanffy wrote:
         | If you look at Windows from very, very close, you'll see the
         | VMS inside it.
        
           | nix23 wrote:
           | No idea why that could be
           | 
           | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dave_Cutler
        
       | rbanffy wrote:
       | I need to update my Docker images with this. In reality, someone
       | needs to write a Hitchhiker's Guide to VM/370, CP and CMS. I
       | haven't been able to do much beyond seeing what's on the disks
       | and running some sample programs.
        
         | nix23 wrote:
         | True,
         | 
         | But Moshix has pretty good videos:
         | 
         | https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCR1ajTWGiUtiAv8X-hpBY7w
        
           | ngcc_hk wrote:
           | Vm?
           | 
           | I saw his mvs and that is good. But that assume I alright
           | have the mvs3.8 installed and running.
           | 
           | For starter vm not sure any good starting point by him or
           | otherwise.
        
             | nix23 wrote:
             | https://www.youtube.com/c/moshix/search?query=vm
        
       | rwmj wrote:
       | License is "interesting":
       | 
       |  _The base operating system is IBM 's VM/370 Release 6 operating
       | system, the last unlicensed version of VM/370._
       | 
       | Wikipedia has a bit more history about this:
       | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VM_(operating_system)#History
       | 
       | I'm guessing because they didn't have attached copyright notices
       | as required in US law at the time they fell into public domain,
       | like happened to _It 's a Wonderful Life_ (https://en.wikipedia.o
       | rg/wiki/It%27s_a_Wonderful_Life#Owners...).
        
         | skissane wrote:
         | > I'm guessing because they didn't have attached copyright
         | notices as required in US law at the time they fell into public
         | domain
         | 
         | In IBM's case, it wasn't an oversight, it was an intentional
         | decision. They intentionally put their core mainframe operating
         | systems into the public domain, but they still copyrighted
         | certain applications and add-ons. In later versions (like this
         | one and its immediate predecessors), most new OS features went
         | into copyrighted add-ons only, and the core OS by itself became
         | more and more backward and limited. Then eventually, they came
         | out with new versions of their operating systems where even the
         | core was copyrighted.
         | 
         | They did use other methods of "closing" software than copyright
         | - much of MVS was written in a proprietary dialect of PL/I for
         | which no compiler was publicly available. So even though they
         | shipped the source code to customers, and the source code was
         | public domain, nobody could compile it (unless you wrote your
         | own compiler). VM/CMS (especially at this stage) was still
         | mostly assembler though, so it was easier to modify than MVS
         | was.
        
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       (page generated 2022-07-26 23:02 UTC)