Re:OpenVMS on x86
by skissane on Friday May 06, 2022 @10:20PM
(#31291629)
Older versions of z/OS and OS/390 are easy to come by online [0], and from what I've heard run well under Hercules–although I myself have never tried (I have run the public domain MVS 3.8J in the past, in particular the TK4- distribution of it.) Of course, downloading and running those online versions violates IBM's license agreements and quite likely violates copyright laws – but you can make your own judgement about the legal risk and ethics of that.
I think getting your hands on the most recent versions – such as the latest z/OS 2.5 – is a lot harder, unless you work for IBM or an IBM customer, or you know someone who does (and who is willing to help you out, an action which may involve some risk for them). In recent years IBM has added hurdles to make unauthorised distribution harder (such as encrypting the ADCD distributions), although those hurdles are not insurmountable, they just add more work (usual story with DRM). And I think you'll find Hercules will barf on the latest versions of z/OS anyway.
If you want to latest versions from IBM totally legitimately – IBM will sell you a development environment (zPDT) for US$5,540 a year. If you need it for work, could be a totally reasonable investment. If you are just doing it to muck around – well, that's an expensive hobby, although certainly there are people out there who spend more than US$5,000 a year on their hobby, and many people here earn enough they can afford it – but you'd have to really enjoy it for it to be worth it. I doubt there are many people out there who enjoy z/OS that much – although there is one retired IBM guy in Orkney, Scotland (Colin Paice), who does, and he's actually blogged about how he forked the money out and bought it [1].
[0] I think it is better not to say where publicly, in part because doing so draws attention to those places and attention might result in IBM issuing takedown notices. If you know the right search terms it is easy to find.
I think getting your hands on the most recent versions – such as the latest z/OS 2.5 – is a lot harder, unless you work for IBM or an IBM customer, or you know someone who does (and who is willing to help you out, an action which may involve some risk for them). In recent years IBM has added hurdles to make unauthorised distribution harder (such as encrypting the ADCD distributions), although those hurdles are not insurmountable, they just add more work (usual story with DRM). And I think you'll find Hercules will barf on the latest versions of z/OS anyway.
If you want to latest versions from IBM totally legitimately – IBM will sell you a development environment (zPDT) for US$5,540 a year. If you need it for work, could be a totally reasonable investment. If you are just doing it to muck around – well, that's an expensive hobby, although certainly there are people out there who spend more than US$5,000 a year on their hobby, and many people here earn enough they can afford it – but you'd have to really enjoy it for it to be worth it. I doubt there are many people out there who enjoy z/OS that much – although there is one retired IBM guy in Orkney, Scotland (Colin Paice), who does, and he's actually blogged about how he forked the money out and bought it [1].
[0] I think it is better not to say where publicly, in part because doing so draws attention to those places and attention might result in IBM issuing takedown notices. If you know the right search terms it is easy to find.
[1] https://colinpaice.blog/2020/06/29/getting-z-os-installed-on...