5 ms·

I'm genuinely looking forward to this. I used VMS back in the 90's and loved it as an OS. Clustering, versioned file systems, reasonably well formed error messa

I'm genuinely looking forward to this. I used VMS back in the 90's and loved it as an OS. Clustering, versioned file systems, reasonably well formed error messages; it seemed very civilised. It'd be nice to be able to run it in a VM and see how much I've forgotten. I've got an old workstation in my loft, but haven't really got the room to have it setup.

netrap 7y ago
They do have a free hobbyist VM on their website. https://training.vmssoftware.com/hobbyist/ https://training.vmssoftware.com/hobbyist/
- stunthamsterio 7y ago
  Oh nice tip, I didn't know that - Now I'll have to see if I can run a VMS VM inside my Windows VM... Turtles all the way down.
  - snuxoll 7y ago
    Would be humorous considering the NT platform was heavily inspired by VMS.
    - pjmlp 7y ago
      To the point that one can find similar APIs when reading VMS documentation.
- ngcc_hk 7y ago
  128 MB memory. The alpha emulator. Suddenly wake up. Still remember for old time sake do some 360 assemble on an emulator. Suddenly I aware that is 16 MB not GB ... and I use a 24 MB one to support thousands of users in 1980s. Those really were the days.
CaptainZapp 7y ago
HELP is your friend. The VMS help system, while far less verbose than Unix man pages was, thanks to its hierarchical organisation really, well, helpful.
- LinuxBender 7y ago
  Remember the bug / update that shortened (H)elp to Halt? :-) Some here for sure have to remember that one.
- dekhn 7y ago
  the VMS HELP system was my introduction to "learn a system by using depth-first HELP". I also recall eventually coming across the page which explained dynamic linking (I couldn't even link hello world with my 2 block disk quota).
  - CaptainZapp 7y ago
    Same here. My basic introduction was that my boss sat me in front of a VT220 terminal and told me about the HELP command. Later I discovered the absolute awesomeness that was VMS (at that time, OpenVMS came later) documentation. For me and to this day it's the benchmark how documentation should be written an organized.
dekhn 7y ago
I used TruCluster (late 90s thru 2006) which was Tru64 UNIX (from DEC UNIX), I think it shared a lot of tech with VMS clustering. Many interesting ideas, such as being able to write to the filesystem with a guaranteed IO rate from any cluster node (100MB/s at a tiime when that was a lot) and many other things that are less interesting after you rewrite your software around not needing clustering.
icedchai 7y ago
VMS Clustering was very interesting. It was basically baked in to all layers of the OS, if I remember. You could access devices, file systems, users, batch queues, processes, etc. across the cluster. It felt very well designed.
- stunthamsterio 7y ago
  That's one of my enduring memories of VMS, and something that came as a shock when I came to different OS - the lack of clustering. We had (As far as I remember) two vast servers called Alpha and Beta (With Gamma as a dev server). They were the size of a full-size rack for a single server. But from a developer perspective, my processes would run seamlessly across both of them and see a single FS, a single set of processors and RAM. That and developing in Vista4GL. I'd kill to get hold of some manuals for that to remind myself what my first professional language was like.
  - icedchai 7y ago
    DEC had some innovative ideas with VMS, for sure... 40 years later, we still don't see anything quite like its clustering with Unix / Linux. I'm happy VMS Software is keeping it alive.
    - bitwize 7y ago
      You do see something like it with Plan 9.
    - turk73 7y ago
      Because it didn't matter.
  - jakeogh 7y ago
    Anyone familiar enough with plan9 resource sharing to compare the two?
EricE 7y ago
Yup - having started with early Mac's and PC's in the late 80's and 90's, running into VMS in the 90's and experiencing a "real" operating system was an eye opener. The versioned file system was so cool and obvious I can't believe it never caught on with other platforms. Much nicer than snapshots since it was at the file level (different solutions for different problems!) I bet VMS's versioning could have been the foundation for a fast, powerful and reliable de-dupe too. Hmm...

netrap 7y ago

They do have a free hobbyist VM on their website. https://training.vmssoftware.com/hobbyist/ https://training.vmssoftware.com/hobbyist/

stunthamsterio 7y ago
Oh nice tip, I didn't know that - Now I'll have to see if I can run a VMS VM inside my Windows VM... Turtles all the way down.
- snuxoll 7y ago
  Would be humorous considering the NT platform was heavily inspired by VMS.
  - pjmlp 7y ago
    To the point that one can find similar APIs when reading VMS documentation.
ngcc_hk 7y ago
128 MB memory. The alpha emulator. Suddenly wake up. Still remember for old time sake do some 360 assemble on an emulator. Suddenly I aware that is 16 MB not GB ... and I use a 24 MB one to support thousands of users in 1980s. Those really were the days.

CaptainZapp 7y ago

HELP is your friend. The VMS help system, while far less verbose than Unix man pages was, thanks to its hierarchical organisation really, well, helpful.

LinuxBender 7y ago
Remember the bug / update that shortened (H)elp to Halt? :-) Some here for sure have to remember that one.
dekhn 7y ago
the VMS HELP system was my introduction to "learn a system by using depth-first HELP". I also recall eventually coming across the page which explained dynamic linking (I couldn't even link hello world with my 2 block disk quota).
- CaptainZapp 7y ago
  Same here. My basic introduction was that my boss sat me in front of a VT220 terminal and told me about the HELP command. Later I discovered the absolute awesomeness that was VMS (at that time, OpenVMS came later) documentation. For me and to this day it's the benchmark how documentation should be written an organized.

dekhn 7y ago

I used TruCluster (late 90s thru 2006) which was Tru64 UNIX (from DEC UNIX), I think it shared a lot of tech with VMS clustering. Many interesting ideas, such as being able to write to the filesystem with a guaranteed IO rate from any cluster node (100MB/s at a tiime when that was a lot) and many other things that are less interesting after you rewrite your software around not needing clustering.

icedchai 7y ago

VMS Clustering was very interesting. It was basically baked in to all layers of the OS, if I remember. You could access devices, file systems, users, batch queues, processes, etc. across the cluster. It felt very well designed.

stunthamsterio 7y ago
That's one of my enduring memories of VMS, and something that came as a shock when I came to different OS - the lack of clustering. We had (As far as I remember) two vast servers called Alpha and Beta (With Gamma as a dev server). They were the size of a full-size rack for a single server. But from a developer perspective, my processes would run seamlessly across both of them and see a single FS, a single set of processors and RAM. That and developing in Vista4GL. I'd kill to get hold of some manuals for that to remind myself what my first professional language was like.
- icedchai 7y ago
  DEC had some innovative ideas with VMS, for sure... 40 years later, we still don't see anything quite like its clustering with Unix / Linux. I'm happy VMS Software is keeping it alive.
  - bitwize 7y ago
    You do see something like it with Plan 9.
  - turk73 7y ago
    Because it didn't matter.
- jakeogh 7y ago
  Anyone familiar enough with plan9 resource sharing to compare the two?

EricE 7y ago

Yup - having started with early Mac's and PC's in the late 80's and 90's, running into VMS in the 90's and experiencing a "real" operating system was an eye opener. The versioned file system was so cool and obvious I can't believe it never caught on with other platforms. Much nicer than snapshots since it was at the file level (different solutions for different problems!) I bet VMS's versioning could have been the foundation for a fast, powerful and reliable de-dupe too. Hmm...