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тАО05-01-2003 10:42 PM
тАО05-01-2003 10:42 PM
Firstly, I am sure many of you might be surprised. VMS 5.1.1? Well, I know this has become a "dinosaur" but the fact is...I guess if you can help me on this, that could save our company :)
I just joined my company recently only to know that they have a machine running on VMS 5.1.1 for the past 14 years! There is a very critical application (very important to the business of our company) running in it. So my task is to try to "port" this apps to a new machine before that "fossil" dies out.
To be frank, I don't know anything about VMS. It doesn't seem to be a UNIX to me. I know HP has a new OpenVMS, but before I actually break my company's budget (we are just a small company) to get any replacement for it, I really wish to have a few questions solved:
1. Well, is VMS a UNIX?
2. If it is a UNIX, can I port that old apps to any UNIX clones? e.g. Linux?
3. If it is not, is HP's OpenVMS the saviour?
4. After browsing through many websites, I still don't have a clue about this VMS 5.1.1...so can anyone teach me some basic commands that I can use to "dig out" the contents of that old machine? Currently, I can use HyperTerminal in Win98 to dial in, but that OS doesn't seem to like my UNIX commands...
Thank you. Hope anyone out there can help me.
Lim,
Malaysia.
Solved! Go to Solution.
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тАО05-02-2003 12:32 AM
тАО05-02-2003 12:32 AM
SolutionA quick answer is that no, (Open)VMS is not a Unix variant. As a starting point I'd recommend you check out the FAQ at (urls may wrap)http://h71000.www7.hp.com/wizard/openvms_faq.html
This forum is very new, and I would also suggest you may get more response if you post this to the comp.os.vms newsgroup (http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&group=comp.os.vms)
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тАО05-02-2003 03:57 AM
тАО05-02-2003 03:57 AM
Re: VMS 5.1.1 - Porting the existing application to a new OS
After browsing through many websites, I still don't have a clue about this VMS 5.1.1...so can anyone teach me some basic commands that I can use to "dig out" the contents of that old machine? Currently, I can use HyperTerminal in Win98 to dial in, but that OS doesn't seem to like my UNIX commands...
Hi Lim,
This site contains a quick primer for System Management of VMS systems:
http://h71000.www7.hp.com/training.html
The User's Guide also contains valuable information:
http://h71000.www7.hp.com/doc/731FINAL/6489/6489PRO.HTML
Please note that both resources are keyed to the current version of VMS (V7.3-1), but there are enough similarities between V5.5-1 and V7.3-1 to make the resources useful.
One other thing - VMS and OpenVMS are the same thing, just revised nomenclature. Most veterans of VMS consider the "Open" to be silent.
:-)
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тАО05-02-2003 05:00 AM
тАО05-02-2003 05:00 AM
Re: VMS 5.1.1 - Porting the existing application to a new OS
Others have already made excellent pointers to web solutions.
For that version of OpenVMS (then simply VMS) there used to be what was affectionately called the "Gray Wall." This was a set of loose leaf gray binders that can fill a tall bookshelf. See if you can find this set of documentation at your site.
In the gray wall there were two sizes of binders. The larger binders were mostly reference material in the format similar to a dictionary. The smaller size binders were "User Guides..." that were more like an encyclopedia. I'd suggest that you start with those.
Todd
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тАО05-02-2003 05:19 AM
тАО05-02-2003 05:19 AM
Re: VMS 5.1.1 - Porting the existing application to a new OS
I suggest you look at:
www.stanq.com/charon-vax.html
(And, yes, I happen to sell VAX emulators and services. If you fill out the attachment and email to stan@stanq.com, I can get you a quote on mirating your system.)
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тАО05-02-2003 06:28 AM
тАО05-02-2003 06:28 AM
Re: VMS 5.1.1 - Porting the existing application to a new OS
Whether or not you can "port" this application depends on whether you have the source code and what environment you want to port to.
Porting to later versions of OpenVMS (6.x, 7.x) should be no problem - just backup and restore. The same for other VAX hardware.
OpenVMS is not Unix. While it supports Posix standards, they are not enforced. So porting to Unix may incur some problems. For example, if the developer made heavy use of system service calls, you may be doing a rewrite as opposed to a port.
Using a OpenVMS emulator will incur addition resource overhead, particularly CPU. If performance is an issue, this may not be a viable alternative. If you do not have the source, this is the only way you can port to non-OpenVMS.
If you are attempting to OpenVMS/alpha you will need the source. Once ported to OpenVMS/alpha you will be in position to port to OpenVMS/intel, which is the future of OpenVMS.
HTH
Marty
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тАО05-02-2003 06:52 AM
тАО05-02-2003 06:52 AM
Re: VMS 5.1.1 - Porting the existing application to a new OS
After reading through the faq and some documentation, I started to get to know VMS, and just a bit more time, I think I will be able to find a solution to my company.
Thanks again!
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тАО05-02-2003 07:34 AM
тАО05-02-2003 07:34 AM
Re: VMS 5.1.1 - Porting the existing application to a new OS
which as a number of pointers, some already given here but others like the 20th anniversary book have some insight.
also you might want to look at http://h71000.www7.hp.com/openvms-release-history.html which will let you know what 5.1.1 was released in June 1989
as for your unix commands that won't work. but of key importance is the HELP command (man in unix).
DIR (directory) command is the same as ls
VMS uses 'switches' the way unix uses command line options
ie
$dir/size=all/date/prot is fairly close to
ls -l
and
copy file.ext newfile.ext
is the same as
cp
etc.
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тАО05-02-2003 10:11 AM
тАО05-02-2003 10:11 AM
Re: VMS 5.1.1 - Porting the existing application to a new OS
> Using a OpenVMS emulator will incur addition resource overhead, particularly CPU. If performance is an issue, this may not be a viable alternative.
Actually, current versions of CHARON-VAX running on a 2 GHZ dual-processor PC are faster than any single-processor VAX ever built.
And they're working on creating multiple-processor versions...
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тАО05-02-2003 10:46 AM
тАО05-02-2003 10:46 AM
Re: VMS 5.1.1 - Porting the existing application to a new OS
You are right, the hardware has come a long way since they stopped producing VAXes. I was thinking about my experiences with emulaors back when they were still producing VAXes.
Marty