INFO-VAX Sat, 11 Aug 2007 Volume 2007 : Issue 438 Contents: Re: Alpha/Integrity Dead Pool Re: Alpha/Integrity Dead Pool Re: Integrity Workstations? Re: Intel marginalizing Itanium even faster than expected? Is this Address really Illegal? Re: Is this Address really Illegal? Re: Is this Address really Illegal? Re: Oldest Alpha for upgrade to Integrity Re: OPA0 messages Re: OT: iWork 08 is unnacceptably slow on my iBook. Was: Re: X Window Servers Re: Rexx for OpenVMS Re: TPU on MAC OS-X ? Re: TPU on MAC OS-X ? Re: TPU on MAC OS-X ? Re: Wonderful things happen to an OS when it has an internal champion Re: Wonderful things happen to an OS when it has an internal champion Re: Wonderful things happen to an OS when it has an internal champion RE: Wonderful things happen to an OS when it has an internal champion Re: Wonderful things happen to an OS when it has an internal champion RE: Wonderful things happen to an OS when it has an internal champion Re: Wonderful things happen to an OS when it has an internal champion Re: Wonderful things happen to an OS when it has an internal champion Re: X Window Servers Re: X Window Servers Re: X Window Servers ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 11 Aug 2007 12:02:55 -0400 From: JF Mezei Subject: Re: Alpha/Integrity Dead Pool Message-ID: <45981$46bdddb2$cef8887a$24700@TEKSAVVY.COM> tadamsmar wrote: > Anyway, if Integrity sales are poor and it gets discontinued, then > Integrity will have a similar slow death. The death of a platform after end-of-sales depends largely on how large an installed base there was. When you look at VAX, one reason it is very easy to find VAXes "for free" today is that there have been so many built. But you don't find as many of the last generation vaxes because there were fewer built since this was not only during the decline of VMS, but also most people ordered Alphas. Also, if you do intend to make a computer a "device" that is integrated into some long term infrastructure, once that device is no longer in production, you can start to stockpile spares that should last for the needed duration. Sales of that IA64 contraption are increasing and will continue to increase because HP is cutting off the blood supply to the prefered platforms (PaRisc and Alpha) forcing customers to buy that unwanted thing. But if the HP-sponsored study is correct and the move to IA64 will cause HP to lose 30% of its installed base, then you also need to worry about HP just ending its business critical division and just having wintel/linux servers for enterprise. If your DS10s are still good for another couple of years, I would then wait 2-3 years before looking at migration to some other platform. By then, the future of IA64 (or lack thereof) will be better defined. ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 11 Aug 2007 12:20:54 -0400 From: JF Mezei Subject: Re: Alpha/Integrity Dead Pool Message-ID: <6b1e6$46bde1e8$cef8887a$8043@TEKSAVVY.COM> Stephen Hoffman wrote: > Itanium?" fear/FUD/concern/worry, this akin to Compaq's announcement > around the end of Alpha some years back.) June 25 2001. Everyone knows that date. No need to hide it and make that massacre look "in the past". It is still very much in everyone's minds and the distrust that was generated because of that is still very much there. No promise of platform longevity is credible when it comes from Compaq/HP. > Regardless, you'll have some warning and some planning time. Yes, this is true. However, the person has to evaluate the following: Stay on DS10s, Migrate to IA64 only to find IA64 is cancelled a few months later. (worse case scenario). In such a scenario, you need to look at the spares situation for both platforms and whether in the very long term, there will be more second hand DS10s available than second hand IA64 equivalents to DS10s. The DS10 is an entry level system. HP and Intel have sent strong signals that IA64 was for large enterprise systems. As the 8086 advances and surpasses IA64, the retrenchement of IA64 will continue with HP pulling out of the small systems. (like it did with "workstations"). So availability issues for small IA64 systems may begin before IA64 is officially put out of its misery. The real beauty of Linux is that it is not at the mercy of some middle managers who have some agendas of their own and who can kill a product lie at their whims. For HP, this is very much a risk because HP doesn't depend on enterprise division anymore. For Solaris, it isn't a problem because Sun very much depends on Solaris as is core primary product. ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 11 Aug 2007 12:57:58 -0400 From: JF Mezei Subject: Re: Integrity Workstations? Message-ID: <61d11$46bdea97$cef8887a$11034@TEKSAVVY.COM> etmsreec@yahoo.co.uk wrote: > Sound cards sound a bit pointless on VMS after all then... Tell that to air traffic controllers, or idustrial machines that use sounds to communicate with the operator whose eyes are focused on the products being produced and not on some LCD display. There are very serious use of sounds, besides playing games or listening to Music. But you are right. Pointless to consider VMS for modern applications, just good enough for the installed base's legacy apps until they are migrated to a more modern platform. In the end, like it or not, that is how HP views VMS, and the lack of support for modern technologies will confirm VMS will be relegated to just old legacy apps. ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 11 Aug 2007 11:22:57 -0500 From: Ron Johnson Subject: Re: Intel marginalizing Itanium even faster than expected? Message-ID: On 08/10/07 14:29, Doug Phillips wrote: > On Aug 10, 8:22 am, Ron Johnson wrote: >> Guess what architecture that /Intel 64/ is... >> >> http://www.intel.com/technology/architecture-silicon/intel64/ >> >> (Conniving bastards take AMD's innovations and call it "Intel 64"! >> That itself is enough to make me buy AMD64 chips.) >> > > It looks like it's Intel architecture. > > There doesn't seem to be anything there that Intel hasn't at least > alluded to before. back in May, here in c.o.v., I noted the > following: > > : The Penryn road map shows 45nm 2007, 32nm 2009 and 22nm 2011. The > : scuttlebutt about the Larrabee many-core project seems to point to > : IA with x86 > > So, it's 2007 and they've announced 45nm and more fully described some > of the evolutionary tweaks. Where's the news? > > I'm not a chip-head, but what I read about the Larrabee makes me think > it'll be Itanium-type technology that can run x86-64 instructions. > Will you be shocked then, too? Kinda. They tried it 6-7 years ago, but it was slow. Making x86-64 run acceptably fast on ia64 would cost a *lot* of transistors, which would either boost the size and cost, or reduce L3 cache and slow down the CPU. Do you have a link to that road map? My reading indicates that Larrabee is an x86-64 multi-core CPU+GPU. One thing I did notice in my reading is that Tukwila (the Itanium after Montvale, which is a tweak of Montecito) will have the same CPU core interconnect (named CSI, Common System Interconnect, and similar to AMD's Hyper-Transport) that Nehalem (a Xeon successor) will have. Maybe that's what you are thinking of. -- Ron Johnson, Jr. Jefferson LA USA Give a man a fish, and he eats for a day. Hit him with a fish, and he goes away for good! ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 11 Aug 2007 10:22:08 -0400 From: "Peter Weaver" Subject: Is this Address really Illegal? Message-ID: <004701c7dc23$007df7d0$2802a8c0@CHARONLAP> One of the machines that attacked my machine using SSH this morning was 61.187.94.171. The script I use to report these attacks uses JF's WHOIS program to get the email addresses for the host then uses VMS Mail to send out the report. This address has two abuse email addresses, one is abuse.yy at 2118.com.cn and the other is abuse.szx at 2118.com.cn. TCPIP V5.6 on VMS 8.3 reports that anything @2118.com.cn is illegal. But I was able to use Google's GMail program to send off the report. Is @2118.com.cn really illegal or is TCPIP V5.6 broken? If the software is broken can someone with a support contract report this as a bug? To: abuse.yy2118.com.cn,abuse.szx2118.com.cn %TCPIP-E-SMTP_BADADDR, recipient address is illegal; unparsed string: parse error Do you want to send anyway (Y/N, default is N)? Peter Weaver www.weaverconsulting.ca CHARON-VAX CHARON-AXP DataStream Reflection PreciseMail HP Commercial Hardware ------------------------------ Date: 11 Aug 2007 15:10:55 GMT From: bill@cs.uofs.edu (Bill Gunshannon) Subject: Re: Is this Address really Illegal? Message-ID: <5i61ruF3l8abiU1@mid.individual.net> In article <004701c7dc23$007df7d0$2802a8c0@charonlap>, "Peter Weaver" writes: > One of the machines that attacked my machine using SSH this morning was > 61.187.94.171. The script I use to report these attacks uses JF's WHOIS > program to get the email addresses for the host then uses VMS Mail to send > out the report. This address has two abuse email addresses, one is abuse.yy > at 2118.com.cn and the other is abuse.szx at 2118.com.cn. TCPIP V5.6 on VMS > 8.3 reports that anything @2118.com.cn is illegal. But I was able to use > Google's GMail program to send off the report. Is @2118.com.cn really > illegal or is TCPIP V5.6 broken? If the software is broken can someone with > a support contract report this as a bug? I suspect it is looking at an address that begins with a numeral and then expects the address to be an IP address. (Just guessing, but I have seen this behavior before.) Enclosing it in quotes sometimes helps, but it depends on how it is implemented. In any event, being as the domain ends in ".cn" complaining is a waste of time and in many cases, for me, has resulted in an increase in the number of attacks from that block rather than a decrease. Nowadays, depending on where and what the attacking block is, I may block them at my firewall, but I never complain as it is totally ineffective and can easily result in bigger problems. bill -- Bill Gunshannon | de-moc-ra-cy (di mok' ra see) n. Three wolves bill@cs.scranton.edu | and a sheep voting on what's for dinner. University of Scranton | Scranton, Pennsylvania | #include ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 11 Aug 2007 13:19:55 -0400 From: JF Mezei Subject: Re: Is this Address really Illegal? Message-ID: <73080$46bdefbe$cef8887a$12427@TEKSAVVY.COM> Peter Weaver wrote: > To: abuse.yy2118.com.cn,abuse.szx2118.com.cn > %TCPIP-E-SMTP_BADADDR, recipient address is illegal; unparsed stri I concur. Happnes on Alpha 8.3 as well. Even with smtp%"abuse@2118.com.cn" HOWEVER, on VMS VMS 7.3 with TCPIP Services 5.3, it accepts the email address. At the stage of foreign transport, it would be the TCPIP shareable image which would be called to validate each email address. I suspect it checks to see if first character for the host name is numeric and then assumed the rest is all dotted decimal. ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 11 Aug 2007 10:32:36 -0700 From: tadamsmar Subject: Re: Oldest Alpha for upgrade to Integrity Message-ID: <1186853556.444594.57880@d55g2000hsg.googlegroups.com> On Aug 10, 3:06 pm, bro...@cuebid.zko.hp.nospam (Rob Brooks) wrote: > tadamsmar writes: > > Does the AlphaStation 400, AlphaServer 800 and the DS10 support VMS > > 8.3 or some version that Integrity also supports? > > Yes > > > I was wondering if I can upgrade my older Alphas to a common version > > with Integrity. > > Is there a web page that shows what hardware will run what versions of > > VMS? > > While there have been a few VAX models that have been dropped along the way, > no Alpha hardware has been dropped from support. In this context, I'm talking > about models that were properly sold with VMS, not oddball things like the > multia, or the early EV3-based systems. Well the 150 was dropped from support of 7.3.2. I surplussed one a while back. > > I think you are making this task seem much harder than it really is. Look, I don't know much about this. I don't want to screw it up. If an issue occurs to me, I check out the facts. > > -- > > Rob Brooks MSL -- Nashua brooks!cuebid.zko.hp.com ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 11 Aug 2007 12:30:07 -0400 From: JF Mezei Subject: Re: OPA0 messages Message-ID: <46323$46bde410$cef8887a$8535@TEKSAVVY.COM> Another issue to consider. At least for an Alpha DS10L, if its OPA0 is hardwired to a VAX TX port, the booting process may halt somewhere once the buffers are full due to an XOFF (or hardware equivalent) situation on the VAX's TX port. (I just experienced this while I was away). So you may wish to add /NOHOSYNC and /NOTTSYNC to the permanent definition so that the hardware will not tell the alpha to stop sending data. ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 11 Aug 2007 09:40:01 +0200 From: "P. Sture" Subject: Re: OT: iWork 08 is unnacceptably slow on my iBook. Was: Re: X Window Servers Message-ID: In article <9N4vi.39$GQ4.14@newsfe12.lga>, VAXman- @SendSpamHere.ORG wrote: > In article <100820072136238160%nospam@yrl.co.uk>, Elliott Roper > writes: > > > > > >In article , < @SendSpamHere.ORG> wrote: > > > >> In article , "P. > >> Sture" > >> writes: > > > >> >A couple of days ago I received the offer of a download of a 30 day demo > >> >of iWork 08. The speculation earlier this year that it would include a > >> >spreadsheet application was indeed correct. > >> > >> I didn't receive such an offer. I'd be happy to check it out to see how > >> it performs on a faster G4. I don't see any download offer on the Apple > >> site though. > >http://www.apple.com/iwork/trial/ > > > >It ain't rocket science VAXman. ;-) > > Well, I went to the /iwork page and did a search for "30 Day". No hit. > I've got Safari sitting there now, and it appears that because I have Javascript switched off, it doesn't do the download. A certain sense of irony here, for those who don't trust Javascript: http://sture.ch/osx/apple_security.jpg > >Goes like *stink* in a Mac Pro. Rather tasty. > > ??? British/Oz English? In this context I believe it means fast. I'm probably stuffed by the amount of memory I can put in my iBook. > > >I spent today getting my grey wall ready to go to the tip. > >It was sad. Sad indeed. > >I have a few vaxstations and alpha 166 workstations plus untold CRT > >monitors in various stages of dereliction. About 25 Km SE of Manchester > >UK. Free to anyone who wants to come and get 'em. > >Philip Helbig was here yesterday. He got the best stuff. > >But be quick. My missus wants the Portakabin for her gym. > > > >If you can't decode the teco in my sig. Somebody else needs 'em more > >than you do. > >;-) Philip is quietly amassing quite a collection :-) > I don't even need a machine for that one! Snap. -- Paul Sture Sue's OpenVMS bookmarks: http://eisner.encompasserve.org/~sture/ovms-bookmarks.html ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 11 Aug 2007 16:33:45 +0200 From: Martin Krischik Subject: Re: Rexx for OpenVMS Message-ID: <17732264.v3PszLAiji@linux1.krischik.com> Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz wrote: > In <8730409.ys5V6uXsJ9@linux1.krischik.com>, on 08/08/2007 > at 07:08 PM, krischik@users.sourceforge.net said: > >>It it worked REXX would have been a cool extension to DCL as Rexx has >>this unique feature of passing on unused strings return values to the >>command prompt or the editor - or whereever Rexx was embedded into. > > Actually, it does something even more useful; it passes the value of > an expression to the current environment, which might not be constant > within the REXX code. I've seen plenty of REXX code that sends > commands to two or more different environments within a few lines. I know! But your wording explains much nicer :-). > I agree that without the ability REXX would be a far weaker language > for scripting. Indeed! I tried Python and Ruby and in both cases I missed that feature. Rexx it just designed to work in a team with some other (usually simpler) specialised language. Martin -- mailto://krischik@users.sourceforge.net Ada programming at: http://ada.krischik.com ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 11 Aug 2007 17:04:03 +0200 From: Martin Krischik Subject: Re: TPU on MAC OS-X ? Message-ID: <2721714.3M88bkd2e5@linux1.krischik.com> Bob Koehler wrote: > In article <46bc198e$1@news.post.ch>, Martin Krischik > writes: >> >> What I find really disturbing, and what shows the sorrow state of VMS, >> is that you thought differently. No user of any other OS would have >> thought that way - users of other OS's would have just expected to be >> able to change the colours they way they like them. At least for an >> editor advanced enough to support syntax highlight. > > I didn't think differently. I don't want my editor to colorize my > code. The first thing I do with Linux is turn off the damn > colorization in ls. I know I can configure both of them, but I want > them off. But you could switch them off. I never got Eve or LsEdit to display Black on Bright White - at least not with the DecWindows interface. Both use some ugly green from the Motif colour scheme. > If you want TPU to colorize your text, you can write the TPU code to > do it. Yes, it can be done on color capable displays. And how may weeks will that take me - after I leared the basics of TPU programming? > The fact that > no one has bothered has to do with the value of using a superior > editor and superior programming languages that don't need such > crutches. As said that elsewhere: Any program or programing language not actively developed will not stay superior for ever. Personlay I think that TPU/EVE/LSEdit has allready been overtaken about 5 to 10 years ago. Apart from that: those in our team who want the named features either use Vim or Ms-Windows UltraEdit (copying the sources back and forth from VMS). Martin -- mailto://krischik@users.sourceforge.net Ada programming at: http://ada.krischik.com ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 11 Aug 2007 17:23:48 +0200 From: Martin Krischik Subject: Re: TPU on MAC OS-X ? Message-ID: <1567602.G7WqN7kkCW@linux1.krischik.com> VAXman- @SendSpamHere.ORG wrote: > In article <46bc198e$1@news.post.ch>, Martin Krischik > writes: >> >> >>Bob Koehler schrieb: >>> In article <46bada06@news.post.ch>, Martin Krischik >>> writes: >>>> Bob Koehler schrieb: >>>> >>>>> If you don't have the TPU code to do your favourite editor trick, >>>>> that's not TPU's fault. >> >>>> Then do tell me how to implement syntax highlight in an editor language >>>> without colour support. >> >>> DON'T! I hate it when editors change the colors to illegible. >> >>The editor does not decide on any colour at all. I decide: >> >>http://www.vim.org/scripts/script.php?script_id=1538 >> >>What I find really disturbing, and what shows the sorrow state of VMS, >>is that you thought differently. No user of any other OS would have > > You are reading into Bob's statement. He said he doesn't like the > editor changing colors to illegible; he didn't say anything that I > read as implying that the color scheme could not be varied. I have > used editor that change colors of text and I do not like it. It's > turned off if I have a choice. Ok I missunderstood him. But still: turning off a feature you don't like is usually easier then turning on a feature which is not even implemented and you will need to program it yourself in a programming language you have not used before. Well, learning a new language has never stopped me - but it helps if the I can first use the tool comfortably and then learn the scripting language behind. > This is the same thing I find with web sites. People go and look > at a web site and are impressed by the color but where is the con- > tent? The most annoying thing lately is the "flash" animations I > must witness before I enter a site for information. Is there ANY > value in these 'flash' welcomes? In general, I would conclude no! Strangely enough I hate flash animations as well. But just a much I hate an editor which won't allow me to use an simple bright white as background. See my answer to Bob. >>thought that way - users of other OS's would have just expected to be >>able to change the colours they way they like them. At least for an >>editor advanced enough to support syntax highlight. > > You're complaining about an editor in a discussion of an OS. If > you want to complain about editors, complain about all of the 'vi' > variants in linux to edit various files... like crontab. What I did not mentioned is that but - before posting - I checked both LSEdit and Eve to see if - at least - the used foreground and background colour can be easily changed. For the test I used the DecWindows interface - and no: neither fonts nor the colours can be easily changed. You will have to change the Motif colour scheme or do some advanced DecW$XDefaults.Dat tweakting. "advanced" - because I already did all the simple DecW$XDefaults.Dat tweakting, which changed the font but not the colours used. Martin -- mailto://krischik@users.sourceforge.net Ada programming at: http://ada.krischik.com ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 11 Aug 2007 13:11:42 -0400 From: JF Mezei Subject: Re: TPU on MAC OS-X ? Message-ID: <40a32$46bdedd1$cef8887a$12094@TEKSAVVY.COM> Jim Duff wrote: > And perhaps I should have said "trivial for a programmer that can spend > 20 minutes reading the manual". Having never programmed in TPU before > today, that's about how long it took me to figure out how to do this. Thanks for your code. 1- If it is so trivial, how come they never included it in TPU ? 2- Because it is closed source, and because they have decided to no longer do any improvements to TPU, such small programs cannot be made an "official" part of TPU. Compare this to healthy operating systems where much development happens where the vendor wants to find reaons to justify adding new features to their product (as opposed to VMS where management/engineers find reasons to NOT add new features). Compare this to even Linux where good tidbits get integrated into the main distributions and become part of an EVOLVING product. VMS is DEAD in the sense that it is no longer evolving its user facing applications. ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 11 Aug 2007 11:02:57 +0200 From: "P. Sture" Subject: Re: Wonderful things happen to an OS when it has an internal champion Message-ID: In article , Kilgallen@SpamCop.net (Larry Kilgallen) wrote: > In article <009001c7db10$23d108d0$6b731a70$@com>, "Paul Raulerson" > writes: > > >> The only obscurity VMS depnds on is your password. > > > > Riiiight... that's why the bookstore shelves are loaded with books on VMS, > > there are 7 or 8 magazines out there dedicated to OpenVMS > > I have seen very little need for additional books about VMS beyond > what is in the documentation set. One needs the older (archived) > documents for writing to DECwindows XUI and DECnet Phase IV, but > those are specialized needs that would not be met by any third party > documentation either. I experienced a culture shock when first trying out Linux (in 1999), in that I couldn't find any good books which covered much more than the initial installation and setup of a particular flavour (Red Hat, SuSE, etc). My conclusion was that without Internet access, you were pretty much up the creek without a paddle. I had got so used to having full VMS (and before that IBM) documentation that it hadn't occurred to me until then that for other OSes one needs to source extra literature. -- Paul Sture Sue's OpenVMS bookmarks: http://eisner.encompasserve.org/~sture/ovms-bookmarks.html ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 11 Aug 2007 11:28:08 -0500 From: Ron Johnson Subject: Re: Wonderful things happen to an OS when it has an internal champion Message-ID: On 08/11/07 04:02, P. Sture wrote: > In article , > Kilgallen@SpamCop.net (Larry Kilgallen) wrote: > >> In article <009001c7db10$23d108d0$6b731a70$@com>, "Paul Raulerson" >> writes: >> >>>> The only obscurity VMS depnds on is your password. >>> Riiiight... that's why the bookstore shelves are loaded with books on VMS, >>> there are 7 or 8 magazines out there dedicated to OpenVMS >> I have seen very little need for additional books about VMS beyond >> what is in the documentation set. One needs the older (archived) >> documents for writing to DECwindows XUI and DECnet Phase IV, but >> those are specialized needs that would not be met by any third party >> documentation either. > > I experienced a culture shock when first trying out Linux (in 1999), in > that I couldn't find any good books which covered much more than the > initial installation and setup of a particular flavour (Red Hat, SuSE, > etc). My conclusion was that without Internet access, you were pretty > much up the creek without a paddle. > > I had got so used to having full VMS (and before that IBM) documentation > that it hadn't occurred to me until then that for other OSes one needs > to source extra literature. That's very true. Making good and extensive documentation is pretty expensive, though. I bet Sun and Apollo didn't have adequate documentation back in the 80s. One of the things that helped them keep their prices down. -- Ron Johnson, Jr. Jefferson LA USA Give a man a fish, and he eats for a day. Hit him with a fish, and he goes away for good! ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 11 Aug 2007 11:01:06 +0200 From: "Dr. Dweeb" Subject: Re: Wonderful things happen to an OS when it has an internal champion Message-ID: <46bd7acd$0$7609$157c6196@dreader2.cybercity.dk> VAXman- @SendSpamHere.ORG wrote: > In article <46bcdf63$0$7606$157c6196@dreader2.cybercity.dk>, "Dr. > Dweeb" writes: >> >> >> yyyc186 wrote: >>> On Aug 10, 11:19 am, "Paul Raulerson" wrote: >>>> No, I do not mean replicated, as you would have to do under VMS. >>>> The data for each location resides in whatever geographic location >>>> it has been assigned to, and is not replicated to each other >>>> location. (It is replicated via storage systems for DR and such, >>>> but that has *nothing* to do with what we are talking about.) >>>> >>> >>> It is what you mean because the "modern" feature you are talking >>> about is ancient when implemented on a great OS. OpenVMS clusters >>> mounted all of the DASD cluster wide (with very few exceptions). >>> When you laid out your RDB storage and tables you placed the >>> whatever tables needed to be in whatever location for access speed. >>> We've been geo- locating relational database pieces since the early >>> 1980's. Of course, when your OS never managed to actually cluster, >>> being able to do that must seem like a gift from God. >>> >>> >>> What actually got implemented for the "Federated Database" products >>> is a rash of cheap and dirty data replication. It is truly >>> pathetic when you look under the hood. >> >> 6 months or torture with SQLServer under my belt - when I ask myself >> why I bother, I remind myself why there are no jobs in the Rdb/VMS >> world, and why the world is ignorant of just how much better Rdb+VMS >> is compared to other solutions. > > Dweeb, do not dwell on it for too long lest you wind up in some > catatonic > state of blithering idiocy never to be awakened. Too late :) ------------------------------ Date: 11 Aug 2007 05:46:00 -0500 From: Kilgallen@SpamCop.net (Larry Kilgallen) Subject: RE: Wonderful things happen to an OS when it has an internal champion Message-ID: In article <000001c7dbb4$1956bea0$4c043be0$@com>, "Paul Raulerson" writes: > VMS systems still tend to think of DASD as belonging to a particular system, > while > the more mainstream world has not gone down that path for several years. In > fact, > when I first started working with VMS (oh- 8 weeks ago now? :) I was rather > startled > but the aggressive insistence that shadowing volumes was a great idea. Well, > it is a > good idea - but I was surprised that in the VMS world, that kind of stuff is > handled > by - well - VMS. On a *host*. That is, on other platforms, considered > distinctly > low end. I have a little BA array here configured as RAID-5, and people, > whose > opinions I respect, tell me it should be shadowed. :) The rest of the world will promote host-independent shadowing done on independent hardware devices, because that is all they have. VMS can work with host-independent shadowing hardware, but also can do host based shadowing. Many of us have more faith in the host based shadowing of VMS, in some cases because we have met the developers, in some cases because of stability over the years, in some cases because we know it has not been polluted by the needs of some other operating system, and no doubt in some cases because of other reasons that do not occur to me. > I understand there are VMS systems with that kind of reliability too. What > impresses me is that the reliability is not so much because of the hardware, > but because of the OS. The reliability is also due to the fact that the OS only runs on certain hardware rather than anything-you-throw-together-as-a-PC. That is the reason those people calling for porting VMS to X86 architecture don't have a universal appeal. ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 11 Aug 2007 13:32:22 +0200 From: "P. Sture" Subject: Re: Wonderful things happen to an OS when it has an internal champion Message-ID: In article , Kilgallen@SpamCop.net (Larry Kilgallen) wrote: > Many of us have more faith in the host based shadowing of VMS, in some > cases because we have met the developers, in some cases because of > stability over the years, in some cases because we know it has not > been polluted by the needs of some other operating system, and no > doubt in some cases because of other reasons that do not occur to me. One major reason that occurs to me is the ability to see the status of a shadow set member from VMS, without resorting to unsupported utilities to interrogate the disk controller (*bad* memories of SWCC becoming the only officially supported way to do that). HBVS can also be used to clone disks and as part of your backup strategy, for example backup up one shadow member to the other to defragment it, following that with a shadow copy from the "new" to the "old". > > I understand there are VMS systems with that kind of reliability too. What > > impresses me is that the reliability is not so much because of the > > hardware, > > but because of the OS. > > The reliability is also due to the fact that the OS only runs on > certain hardware rather than anything-you-throw-together-as-a-PC. > That is the reason those people calling for porting VMS to X86 > architecture don't have a universal appeal. Having tried in the past to order PCs which are *exactly* the same, you often don't get that when you are talking large numbers. -- Paul Sture Sue's OpenVMS bookmarks: http://eisner.encompasserve.org/~sture/ovms-bookmarks.html ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 11 Aug 2007 13:20:53 GMT From: VAXman- @SendSpamHere.ORG Subject: RE: Wonderful things happen to an OS when it has an internal champion Message-ID: In article , Kilgallen@SpamCop.net (Larry Kilgallen) writes: > > >In article <000001c7dbb4$1956bea0$4c043be0$@com>, "Paul Raulerson" writes: > >> VMS systems still tend to think of DASD as belonging to a particular system, >> while >> the more mainstream world has not gone down that path for several years. In >> fact, >> when I first started working with VMS (oh- 8 weeks ago now? :) I was rather >> startled >> but the aggressive insistence that shadowing volumes was a great idea. Well, >> it is a >> good idea - but I was surprised that in the VMS world, that kind of stuff is >> handled >> by - well - VMS. On a *host*. That is, on other platforms, considered >> distinctly >> low end. I have a little BA array here configured as RAID-5, and people, >> whose >> opinions I respect, tell me it should be shadowed. :) > >The rest of the world will promote host-independent shadowing done on >independent hardware devices, because that is all they have. > >VMS can work with host-independent shadowing hardware, but also can >do host based shadowing. > >Many of us have more faith in the host based shadowing of VMS, in some >cases because we have met the developers, in some cases because of >stability over the years, in some cases because we know it has not >been polluted by the needs of some other operating system, and no >doubt in some cases because of other reasons that do not occur to me. HBVS also provides some features which are perferred to those of hardware based RAID-1 solutions. One being no need for additional hardware. -- VAXman- A Bored Certified VMS Kernel Mode Hacker VAXman(at)TMESIS(dot)COM "Well my son, life is like a beanstalk, isn't it?" http://tmesis.com/drat.html ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 11 Aug 2007 12:35:01 -0400 From: JF Mezei Subject: Re: Wonderful things happen to an OS when it has an internal champion Message-ID: Bill Gunshannon wrote: > This concept has come up before but never really been asnwered. Why > would IBM want to see anything other than the final death of VMS? Until a couple years ago, IBM would have seen value in VMS for its intellectual property (notably the clustering code), and more importantly for its talented and serious and experienced engineering group. Once HP started to breakup engineering and hire windows weenies in india, the "purchase" value of VMS engineering has probaly gone down. I think that Process and/or Bruden are probably the only logical parties with an interest in buying VMS. ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 11 Aug 2007 13:05:02 -0400 From: JF Mezei Subject: Re: Wonderful things happen to an OS when it has an internal champion Message-ID: <1ee44$46bdec43$cef8887a$11803@TEKSAVVY.COM> Paul Raulerson wrote: > CICS distributed transactions have been around since the 1970's, > with mainframes connected over all sorts (by today's standards) > ridiculously low bandwidth connections. Is that really the case ? As of the early 1990s, you could still not copy files on SNA networks between nodes. You needed to do the equivalent of MIME a file then submit it as a batch job with 80 column cards being RJE submitted to the remote node which would then run a job to rebuild the dataset. I now that terminals could connect to a number of different machines through the network. But I do not think that CICS itself was distributed. When your terminal was connected to CICS on node-A, it ran transactions only via CICS on node A. I.E. CICS wasn't distributed. But the terminal infrastructure allowed finctionality similar to a decserver (connect to different services, but once connected to you talk to that service). ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 11 Aug 2007 13:16:58 +0200 From: "P. Sture" Subject: Re: X Window Servers Message-ID: In article , koehler@eisner.nospam.encompasserve.org (Bob Koehler) wrote: > In article , "Brian Tillman" > writes: > > wrote in message > > news:zdJui.54$AR7.9@newsfe12.lga... > > > >> Buy a Mac? > > > > How is that free? > > It saves you lots of money on MS TCO. Over lunch the other day, a "Computer Expert" was telling someone (and the world at large) what they needed to acquire as add-ons for a PC. o - Antivirus package o - Ad pop-up blocker o - Firefox o - CD/DVD burning software o - Norton Tools or similar (I've been told to steer clear of Norton, for both Mac and Windows). o - Office or OpenOffice o - various applications with which I'm not familiar for photo editing, music etc. Plus, I know that when I was using Windows at home, I seemed to be buying that odd extra bit of software every other month. My purchases in the 5 years I've had my iBook are: o - Quicktime Pro (should have been available as an option with the system IMHO). o - iLife - worth it for me just for iPhoto o - Keynote - Apple's Presentation tool. Does a reasonably good job of reading Powerpoint files. although often doesn't get bullets right. Since that purchase, OpenOffice has come along. Between them I have yet to come across a Powerpoint file which I can't make some sense of (content excluded from that comment :-)) ** o - Toast - for burning CDs. It's nice, but for really *important* stuff like burning ODS-2 disk images with VMS patches for friends, and doing backups I use cdrecord. and apart from upgrades to OS X itself, that's it. Having said that, I do fancy the new iWork package ($79, or $99 for a 5 user "Family Pack" - way cheaper than Office), but a faster system comes first. The iBook was an expensive purchase at the time, but a couple of colleagues went for Compaq laptops at the same time, and they only lasted 2-3 years. If you are in the market for a server solution, Hoff has recently been commenting that he was very pleasantly surprised by the pricing of the OS X Server offerings. At the end of the day for me, going the OS X route was also a good introduction to the Unix world. A *lot* of freeware packages are simply a source download and compile away. ** Some fun for the weekend:- The Gettysburg Address, done as a Powerpoint presentation: http://www.norvig.com/Gettysburg/ Also follow the link to a Powerpoint version of the Declaration of Independence, -- Paul Sture Sue's OpenVMS bookmarks: http://eisner.encompasserve.org/~sture/ovms-bookmarks.html ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 11 Aug 2007 13:32:30 GMT From: VAXman- @SendSpamHere.ORG Subject: Re: X Window Servers Message-ID: In article , "P. Sture" writes: {...snip...} >At the end of the day for me, going the OS X route was also a good >introduction to the Unix world. A *lot* of freeware packages are simply >a source download and compile away. ;) >** Some fun for the weekend:- The Gettysburg Address, done as a >Powerpoint presentation: > >http://www.norvig.com/Gettysburg/ I came across this some time ago reading an article about how PowerPuke presentations were dumbing us down. It's quite funny. One of the last DECUS events I did a presentation like at DECUS of olde. I had code and overheards... nothing PowerPuke. When people came into my session they remarks, "Wow, a real presentation". Afterwards, come fellow came and asked me for the session notes so I handed him the set of transparencies. He said, "No, I'm looking for your Power(Puke) on a floppy or a CD." I said, "This is it, love it or leave it." He did not take the transparencies. -- VAXman- A Bored Certified VMS Kernel Mode Hacker VAXman(at)TMESIS(dot)COM "Well my son, life is like a beanstalk, isn't it?" http://tmesis.com/drat.html ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 11 Aug 2007 16:23:07 GMT From: "John E. Malmberg" Subject: Re: X Window Servers Message-ID: Brian Tillman wrote: > "John E. Malmberg" wrote in message > news:3JNui.55873$Fc.11363@attbi_s21... > >> Microsoft Services For Unix, a free download now includes an X-11 >> server. I have not located the documentation on how to start it up. > > No mention of an included X server on the Windows Services for Unix web > pages > (http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/interopmigration/bb380242.aspx) that > I can see. In fact, the web pages explicitly mention using ReflectionX, > eXceed, XVision, or XFree86 on the PC side. What WSfU allows, > apparently is the writing of X client applications for display on other > systems with X servers. Yes, I finally found that reference And Interix has a X-11 server for sale for local use. So far it looks like Cygwin and the other one Mingw? mentioned are the only two free ones found so far, and I think that the second one is just a minimum Cygwin package. -John wb8tyw@qsl.network Personal Opinion Only ------------------------------ End of INFO-VAX 2007.438 ************************