State of the OpenVMS Port to x86_64 [pdf]

Re:State of the OpenVMS Port to x86_64 [pdf] by laurentdc on Wednesday October 12, 2016 @11:27AM (#12693722)

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 a complete software rewrite for Linux/AIX/whatever) - provided they can market it well enough to the old users.

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Re:State of the OpenVMS Port to x86_64 [pdf] by chx on Wednesday October 12, 2016 @11:31AM (#12693760)

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

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Re:State of the OpenVMS Port to x86_64 [pdf] by dboreham on Wednesday October 12, 2016 @12:03PM (#12694041)

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.

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Re:State of the OpenVMS Port to x86_64 [pdf] by _kst_ on Wednesday October 12, 2016 @11:51AM (#12693930)

It's not entirely clear from the article, but I don't believe the PDP-11s are running VMS. As far as I know VMS has never been ported to the PDP-11.

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Re:State of the OpenVMS Port to x86_64 [pdf] by laurentdc on Wednesday October 12, 2016 @11:58AM (#12693992)

Yeah, they're likely running RT-11 or RSX-11.

I wonder if the hardware is original and they simply have plenty of spares, or if boards are rebuilt with discrete logic or FPGAs/CPLDs as they break down.

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Re:State of the OpenVMS Port to x86_64 [pdf] by akg_67 on Wednesday October 12, 2016 @03:42PM (#12695880)

I personally worked with VMS/VAX/Alpha based systems for nuclear power plant simulators, process control for petrochemical, plastics, chemicals oil & gas, semiconductor facilities till 2002. Still get requests for consulting primarily on system/program conversion projects from VMS/Fortran variants to Windows/Unix/C variants.

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Re:State of the OpenVMS Port to x86_64 [pdf] by djsumdog on Wednesday October 12, 2016 @02:49PM (#12695511)

I remember learning about nuclear power plants and VMS back when I was in university. I was told they were used for the nuclear sensor networks though.

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Re:State of the OpenVMS Port to x86_64 [pdf] by kjs3 on Wednesday October 12, 2016 @12:06PM (#12694073)

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

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Re:State of the OpenVMS Port to x86_64 [pdf] by SixSigma on Sunday October 16, 2016 @06:38PM (#12721451)

Hard to find a comment by you not in oblivion but I'm trolling for nobody :

Former NSA staffer and famous whistleblower, William Binney, says the DNC hack was not done by Russia but by US Intelligence.

http://investmentwatchblog.com/nsa-whistleblower-says-dnc-ha...

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Re:State of the OpenVMS Port to x86_64 [pdf] by SixSigma on Monday October 17, 2016 @07:09AM (#12724018)

what ?

make youself clear

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Re:State of the OpenVMS Port to x86_64 [pdf] by tkinom on Wednesday October 12, 2016 @04:07PM (#12696046)

No stuxnet, less worry about someone's USB key from home might infect the computer. :-)

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Re:State of the OpenVMS Port to x86_64 [pdf] by pvg on Wednesday October 12, 2016 @03:59PM (#12695997)

Nerdnit, I don't think DECstatations were (or were ever called) VAX. They were MIPS-based machines and I don't think they ever ran VMS. There was VAXStations, though, which did.

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