OPENVMS SIMULATOR

[RAVI KISHORE_1]

I AM NEW TO VAX/VMS AND I AM CURRENTLY WORKING IN VAX/VMS AS A COBOL DEVELOPER I WANT TO KNOW ARE THERE ANY VAX/VMS SIMULATORS AVAILABLE SO THAT I CAN PRACTICE DCL,DECFORMS,COBOL,PROGRAMMING AT HOME ALSO
PLEASE PROVIDE SUGGESTIONS IT WILL BE OF GREAT HELP.
I WOULD LIKE TO LEARN THE LANGUAGE IS THERE ANY GOOD DOCUMENTATIONS AVAILABLE WITH ANY ONE PLEASE PROVIDE THEM.

[Ian Miller. · Accepted solution]

(less upper case next time :-)

There is a commerically supported VAX emulator
http://www.stromasys.ch/products/charon-vax/

and they also do a alpaserver emulator
http://www.stromasys.ch/products/charon-axp/
including a free one
http://www.stromasys.ch/downloads/alpha-virtualization/personalalpha/

There is also a freeware VAX emulator SIMH/VAX
http://simh.trailing-edge.com/

[RAVI KISHORE_1]

Thank for posting Ian
I just want to know is there any difference between the simulator and emulator my friend told emulators are used to connect to a vax vms mainframs where as simulators can compile and run programs in your own pc with out any mainframe connection.Please let me know the difference.

[Hoff]

Emulator? Simulator? Virtualization? Application stacking? Translation? IBM terminology? Other buzz phrases? The terminology espoused by your friend? Doesn't matter.

Ian gave you the correct advice in his reply.

The simh "emulator" (or the commercial alternatives) provides what you asked for in your question.

The simh "emulator" (or the commercial options) allows you to boot and to use the full OpenVMS VAX environment including DCL and the COBOL compilers and your application programs that you are familiar with.

I'm guessing you're a Microsoft Windows user when you're not using OpenVMS VAX at your development job. If so, then download the pre-built simh pieces.

If you are planning to build and using simh on Mac OS X, Unix or Linux (building the emulator from source code using gcc), here's an example:

http://labs.hoffmanlabs.com/node/922

Typical terminology for simh and similar packages provide within the OpenVMS domain? "Emulation."

Some more reading on emulation, virtualization and translation:

http://labs.hoffmanlabs.com/node/70
http://labs.hoffmanlabs.com/node/641
http://labs.hoffmanlabs.com/node/409

Stephen Hoffman
HoffmanLabs LLC

[Steven Schweda]

> my friend told emulators are used to
> connect to a vax vms mainframs [...]

_Terminal_ emulators (or real terminals) can
be used to communicate with a VMS system.

A VAX (or Alpha) emulator (or a real VAX or
Alpha) can be used to run VMS. A VAX (or
Alpha) emulator is normally used on a
computer which VMS doesn't support natively.

Get a smarter friend.

> Please let me know the difference.

Did you try anything obvious, like, say, a
Google search for
emulator simulator
?

[Graham Burley]

I have you have internet access at home and an ssh or telnet client then there are a couple of public VMS systems you could use for learning, both have the COBOL compiler available:

DECUServe - http://www.decuserve.org/
Deathrow - http://deathrow.vistech.net/

Documentation for COBOL, DECforms and much more can be found at http://h71000.www7.hp.com/doc/index.html

[Willem Grooters]

Basic VMS training (for free) is available at http://plato.ccsscorp.com/index.html

In most cases, you won't have to bother about the underlying hardware; only if you refer to explicit hardware-related functionality, it matters. That means is makes no difference what hardware (real or emulated) you run run VSM on: VAX, Alpha or Itanium.

[John Abbott_2]

RE: ... SO THAT I CAN PRACTICE DCL,DECFORMS,COBOL,PROGRAMMING AT HOME ..

Why not take a look at the Deathrow cluster...

http://deathrow.vistech.net/deathrow.shtml

[Wim Van den Wyngaert]

Nice link John. I hoped it was an 8.x but it's 7.3, just like I had in my last job.
And no privs. I must get used to that.

I downloaded putty and could connect within a few minutes.

Wim

[Hoff]

The Eisner / Encomasserve / DECUServe host

http://www.decuserve.org/

is running OpenVMS V8.3.

"To register for DECUServe just Telnet to decuserve.org, use username REGISTRATION, and follow the bouncing ball..."