User reference for OpenVMS Newbee

[Nicolas Dumeige]

Hello,

HP Provide a 502 pages "OpenVMS User's Manual". It looks good but not very handy to read it in the subway. Does anyone know another source of information for beginers, maybe something shorter ? It will be even nicer if it was intended for a Unix user audience.

Thanks

Nicolas

[Antoniov.]

Hi Nicolas,
this may help you
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1555582796/ref%3Dase%5Ftru64org/104-7091688-9811952

Antonio Vigliotti

[Nicolas Dumeige]

OK. free document are most welcome.

[labadie_1]

There is a VMS to Unix
Migration document at

http://www.unh.edu/cis/docs/vms-to-unix/Articles/

regards

Gerard

[Keith Cayemberg]

Hello Nicolas,

I have attached a HTML file with links to several online OpenVMS tutorials.

They are generally free, as in "Frei Bier!"

Cheers!

Keith Cayemberg

[labadie_1]

If you want to search something in the Vms doc, this link is good

http://pi-net.dyndns.org/cgiplus-bin/search

you select only Vms documentation or others (Rdb, Java...), according to what you want.

Of course, the Vms docs are available at
http://h71000.www7.hp.com/doc/

but the search offered doesn't work.

[Andy Bustamante]

See http://www.bh.com/digitalpress and run a keyword search for "OpenVMS"

There are several excellent references here, including "Unix for OpenVMS Users"

"The OpenVMS User's Guide " and "Writing Real Programs in DCL" make excellent starting points.

Take time to learn the Help system. One of the reasons there's a shortage of third party documentation (not knocking anyone here) is that the system documention is so detailed.

[Keith Cayemberg]

How about the following document as an OpenVMS for Unix experts manual:

OpenVMS and Digital UNIX
Interoperability and Migration Guide
http://www.hmi.de/it/software/unix/vmsunix.pdf

For some reason I'm not able to display this large PDF in Mozila as an inline PDF with Adobe's plugin. I had to Save the Link Target to disk, and then double click on the file to display it in Adobe Reader directly.

Unfortunately, even when zipped the PDF was too big to be included here as an attachment.

Cheers!

Keith Cayemberg

[Dave Gudewicz]

The Amazon link mentioned above took you to the Getting Started with OpenVMS Guide for New Users, a good catch imo.

Noticed the jaded review which prompted this note. Perhaps those who own this book should contribute their review to provide some balance.

[Nicolas Dumeige]

Dave,

I read the "A Dead End" by reviewer Wes Boudville.

a- A friend has given me an Alpha station.
b- I'm always curious to explore alternative way of doing things and I'm still amazed to see how much intelligence has been deployed to build these machines.
For these two reasons, I want to install OpenVMS ; I don't plan to use VMS professionnally but who knows ...

I don't really know how is the OpenVMS market, I belive it has been better few year ago but I've read with interest and suprise that it will be ported to Superdome with Itanium2. For me VMS is a fling, I'll give it a shot.

Cheers

Nicolas

[Antoniov.]

Nicolas,
if you will use vms as hobbyst you can:
1) Download hobbyst license form here http://www.openvmshobbyist.org/
2) Install vms (it's very simple for your needing)
3) Use it and read help.

Vms is some different from unix: have a unique shell called CLI and unique script language called DCL; scripting language is very powerful (more then cshell).
In vms there doesn't exist path to run program; you can simply create new command.
Vms has device and qualifier of command use slash (as windows).
File system is case insensitive.

Now you could discover other characteristics using vms and when you'll post here, you'll find always someone can help you.

Welcome to vms world :-)
Antonio Vigliotti

[Willem Grooters]

Noticed the jaded review which prompted this note. Perhaps those who own this book should contribute their review to provide some balance.


I read this, and some of his reviews (said to be one of the top-500? Given the number of reviews, just barely...) and I'm not impressed. He may know a lot but not in IT, for what I've seen.



He doesn't, and given his remark, he never did. So he doesn't knwo what he's taking about.

HE's the dead end. Not VMS

[Nicolas Dumeige]

Antonio,

Thanks you for you offer of assistance.
Always nice to know you can count on ITRC members :)

Cheers

Nicolas

[Dave Gudewicz]

Nicolas,

Continue on your VMS journey.

And now that I've thought about the "dead end" on Amazon, was this a book review? I think not.

I once again suggest to others here that have the book, please write a review.

Dave...