State of the OpenVMS Port to x86_64 [pdf] • Hacker News Board

Re: State of the OpenVMS Port to x86_64 [pdf]

#11

Post by laurentdc » Wed, Oct 12, 2016, 4:03 PM UTC

auvi wrote: post #10

laurentdc wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why? Not everything is free and open source. In fact, most of the operating systems used outside the "general-purpose" Linux realm are not (e.g. OS400, z/OS, z/TPF, AIX, Solaris, NonStop, QNX, vxWorks... even Windows Server). That said, if you're really interested, HP offers free hobbyist licenses for non-commercial use of OpenVMS, with access to the OS and compilers and usable on real hardware or SIMH.

Could you please send me the link where it says that I can get the hobbyist license. I want to give it a try.

Sure: https://www.hpe.com/h41268/live/index_e.aspx?qid=24548

Last time I tried (few years ago) I was contacted via email by an HP guy who asked me what architectures I needed licenses for, and then sent me a private FTP login to download all the files.

Some links to get you started:

http://labs.hoffmanlabs.com/node/23

https://www.wherry.com/gadgets/retrocomputing/vax-simh.html

If you want to emulate on SIMH I suggest you compile the latest from source (it's on GitHub).

Re: State of the OpenVMS Port to x86_64 [pdf]

#12

Post by dboreham » Wed, Oct 12, 2016, 4:03 PM UTC

chx wrote: post #4

laurentdc wrote: post #3

As an old time OpenVMS user (on VAX DECstations first and on AlphaServer later) I'm looking forward to this. I doubt it will ever come even remotely close to a "mainstream" OS, but Alpha to x86 is a much better migration path than Alpha to Itanium. And yes, there are still many OpenVMS installs out there in the wild, from airport logistics to assembly lines, so this may make sense from a financial standpoint (versus…

Don't forget nuclear plants running PDP-11/VMS until 2050. http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/06/19/nuke_plants_to_keep_...

The article is about PDP-11 computers (16-bit, 1M max memory, from the 1970s) which never ran VMS (runs on 32-bit VAXes with 4M+ memory from the 1980s). I don't know why the author mentions OpenVMS in the Updates section because it isn't mentioned anywhere in the article body.

Re: State of the OpenVMS Port to x86_64 [pdf]

#13

Post by dboreham » Wed, Oct 12, 2016, 4:05 PM UTC

auvi wrote: post #10

laurentdc wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why? Not everything is free and open source. In fact, most of the operating systems used outside the "general-purpose" Linux realm are not (e.g. OS400, z/OS, z/TPF, AIX, Solaris, NonStop, QNX, vxWorks... even Windows Server). That said, if you're really interested, HP offers free hobbyist licenses for non-commercial use of OpenVMS, with access to the OS and compilers and usable on real hardware or SIMH.

Could you please send me the link where it says that I can get the hobbyist license. I want to give it a try.

I got licenses for my MicroVAXen some years ago. I haven't powered either of them on in a long time though...

Re: State of the OpenVMS Port to x86_64 [pdf]

#14

Post by kjs3 » Wed, Oct 12, 2016, 4:06 PM UTC

chx wrote: post #4

laurentdc wrote: post #3

As an old time OpenVMS user (on VAX DECstations first and on AlphaServer later) I'm looking forward to this. I doubt it will ever come even remotely close to a "mainstream" OS, but Alpha to x86 is a much better migration path than Alpha to Itanium. And yes, there are still many OpenVMS installs out there in the wild, from airport logistics to assembly lines, so this may make sense from a financial standpoint (versus…

Don't forget nuclear plants running PDP-11/VMS until 2050. http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/06/19/nuke_plants_to_keep_...

VMS never ran on the PDP-11. That article is talking about 2 different things (running PDP-11s and HPs stance on VMS).

Re: State of the OpenVMS Port to x86_64 [pdf]

#15

Post by dmm » Wed, Oct 12, 2016, 4:07 PM UTC

I have a bad habit where instead of doing something relevant I play with old stuff I read about but didn't have access to as a kid.

VMS always interested me since I first read about it in the jargon file. I recently found an alphaserver on craigslist and I just requested an openvms hobbyist license so I could play with it.

An octane running irix is another expression of this problem.

Re: State of the OpenVMS Port to x86_64 [pdf]

#16

Post by laurentdc » Wed, Oct 12, 2016, 4:11 PM UTC

dmm wrote: post #15

I have a bad habit where instead of doing something relevant I play with old stuff I read about but didn't have access to as a kid. VMS always interested me since I first read about it in the jargon file. I recently found an alphaserver on craigslist and I just requested an openvms hobbyist license so I could play with it. An octane running irix is another expression of this problem.

Nothing wrong with that, you simply suffer from retrocomputing.

Careful about the power bill though. Large SGI stuff (e.g. Onyx) can go in the kilowatt range under load, and an AlphaServer idles at around 200W last time I checked.

IT was no green back then :)

Re: State of the OpenVMS Port to x86_64 [pdf]

#17

Post by ch_123 » Wed, Oct 12, 2016, 4:21 PM UTC

WallWextra wrote: post #2

I do believe that MACRO in the slides refers to MACRO-11, a PDP assembler. Or maybe MACRO-32, for VAX. In either case, they have been compiling this "assembly" language for Alpha (and now I guess Itanium) since VMS has run on that architecture.

That would be MACRO-32, the VAX assembler/assembly language dialect. As a considerable part of the VMS kernel is written in VAX assembly, they treat it as a high level language and compile it to Alpha, IA64 and now x86-64.

Other parts of the kernel are written in C (newer code) and BLISS (older code). See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BLISS

Re: State of the OpenVMS Port to x86_64 [pdf]

#18

Post by gaius » Wed, Oct 12, 2016, 4:24 PM UTC

dekhn wrote: post #8

ugh. i switched from vms to unix in '88 because the telnet in vms was crappy. other than the wonderful help system, I never found VMS attractive.

VMScluster still blows away anything else. 20 years ago it was doing what you can only now do with vMotion now... And being able to set a working set per job... And a coherent story for cross-language libraries... I could go on. VMS was a technological tour de force that has yet to be rivalled.

Re: State of the OpenVMS Port to x86_64 [pdf]

#19

Post by krylon » Wed, Oct 12, 2016, 4:33 PM UTC

leandrod wrote: post #5

Call me when they free it.

There was a project to reimplement OpenVMS under the GPL, http://www.freevms.net/ - I think the project has stagnated, though, the last commit in their git tree seems to have happened about two years ago.

Re: State of the OpenVMS Port to x86_64 [pdf]

#20

Post by pklausler » Wed, Oct 12, 2016, 4:41 PM UTC

Why not translate the PDP-11 or VAX binaries to x86-64 and emulate the memory-mapped device interfaces? Seems like less work, and more likely to produce a cheap solution for legacy installations worrying about how to run an ancient critical application on old gear.