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Re: Anyone a VAX/VMS administrator in a former life?
Old 04-02-2006, 06:37 PM   #41
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Re: Anyone a VAX/VMS administrator in a former life?

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OK, but did you use Gopher? How about Veronica or Archie? WAAS?
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Re: Anyone a VAX/VMS administrator in a former life?
Old 04-02-2006, 06:38 PM   #42
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Re: Anyone a VAX/VMS administrator in a former life?

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Originally Posted by Laurence the insignificant
actually, VMS seems more like DOS
Give yourself a nice whap on the back of the head and feel lucky that I'm over 500 miles away from you

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Re: Anyone a VAX/VMS administrator in a former life?
Old 04-02-2006, 07:53 PM   #43
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Re: Anyone a VAX/VMS administrator in a former life?

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Originally Posted by Cute Fuzzy Bunny
Give yourself a nice whap on the back of the head and feel lucky that I'm over 500 miles away from you

I mean, DOS is obviously a failed, shabby, pretender to the elegant, intelligently command-line driven VMS :
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Re: Anyone a VAX/VMS administrator in a former life?
Old 04-02-2006, 09:10 PM   #44
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Re: Anyone a VAX/VMS administrator in a former life?

Thats better.
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Re: Anyone a VAX/VMS administrator in a former life?
Old 04-02-2006, 09:41 PM   #45
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Re: Anyone a VAX/VMS administrator in a former life?

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Originally Posted by Cute Fuzzy Bunny
Give yourself a nice whap on the back of the head and feel lucky that I'm over 500 miles away from you
Are you implying that Bill Gates ripped off prior art to satisfy IBM's deadline-driven technical development?!
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Re: Anyone a VAX/VMS administrator in a former life?
Old 04-02-2006, 09:45 PM   #46
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Re: Anyone a VAX/VMS administrator in a former life?

Like QDOS, which was half ripped CP/M code?

How can you compare a real-time, multi-user, multi-tasking virtual memory operating system written by real New England engineers with a single task, single thread, crappily written and partially stolen piece of crud written by relatively damp Seattle coffee drinkers.

For crying out loud, the vax needed a PDP-11 to cold boot it. A pdp-11 could kick a dozen Altairs asses and not break a sweat.

One cannot compare a piece of art work that still runs a fair number of applications 20 years later with something that would fit on a single 360k floppy disk drive, with room to spare.

Shoot, I may make the drive. You staying up late tonight Laurence?
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Re: Anyone a VAX/VMS administrator in a former life?
Old 04-02-2006, 09:58 PM   #47
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Re: Anyone a VAX/VMS administrator in a former life?

I'm sick, I couldn't put up much of a fight!

Hey, DOS stinks, FAT 16 stinks, I'm no Gates worshiper, I know how he switched A: for C: and called it good! But you must remember, my first real job had a windows 95 box on my desk, all about reference points.
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Re: Anyone a VAX/VMS administrator in a former life?
Old 04-02-2006, 10:08 PM   #48
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Re: Anyone a VAX/VMS administrator in a former life?

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Originally Posted by Cute Fuzzy Bunny
How can you compare a real-time, multi-user, multi-tasking virtual memory operating system written by real New England engineers with a single task, single thread, crappily written and partially stolen piece of crud written by relatively damp Seattle coffee drinkers.
This reminds me of Steve Gibson, the guy who refuses to program in anything but assembly language...
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Re: Anyone a VAX/VMS administrator in a former life?
Old 04-02-2006, 10:30 PM   #49
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Re: Anyone a VAX/VMS administrator in a former life?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Cute Fuzzy Bunny
How can you compare a real-time, multi-user, multi-tasking virtual memory operating system written by real New England engineers with a single task, single thread, crappily written and partially stolen piece of crud written by relatively damp Seattle coffee drinkers.
You're right. You should really compare VMS to Unix, which came out something like 10 years earlier. I *hated* DEC's DCL compared to the elegantly simple Unix command line.

You be the judge.

ls /bin

or

DIR [U1:SYS$SYSTEM.BIN]*.*;*

(or something like that; I've thankfully forgotten the syntax.)
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Re: Anyone a VAX/VMS administrator in a former life?
Old 04-02-2006, 11:08 PM   #50
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Re: Anyone a VAX/VMS administrator in a former life?

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Originally Posted by Cute Fuzzy Bunny
For crying out loud, the vax needed a PDP-11 to cold boot it.
Really? That's cool, I never knew that.

So each VAX had a mini-PDP-11 built in to boot it?
Was this just the 11/780, or did later versions have this too?

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Re: Anyone a VAX/VMS administrator in a former life?
Old 04-02-2006, 11:15 PM   #51
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Re: Anyone a VAX/VMS administrator in a former life?

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Originally Posted by wab
You're right. You should really compare VMS to Unix, which came out something like 10 years earlier. I *hated* DEC's DCL compared to the elegantly simple Unix command line.

You be the judge.

ls /bin

or

DIR [U1:SYS$SYSTEM.BIN]*.*;*

(or something like that; I've thankfully forgotten the syntax.)
In fairness to VMS, I think the last two characters are redundant. Wouldn't just "DIR *.*" give you all the versions as well?

Speaking of which, the VMS automatic version-numbering feature is the only one I have ever wished other operating systems would copy. Quite a good idea, that one.

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Re: Anyone a VAX/VMS administrator in a former life?
Old 04-02-2006, 11:31 PM   #52
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Re: Anyone a VAX/VMS administrator in a former life?

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Originally Posted by bpp
In fairness to VMS, I think the last two characters are redundant.
Ugh.* *Double-ugh.* *There's no need to be fair to VMS.

But, yes, the versioning stuff was optional in the DCL args.* * I don't remember if you could actually turn it off, though.* * Certainly not at the user level, so you had to PURGE your cruft often.

Versioning is a Good Thing.* * Versioning built into the OS and forced on the user is definitely a Bad Thing.* * The VAX and VMS were the epitome of CISC thinking.* * Ugh.* **Shudder*.

Simple is beautiful.* * Live free or die.* */etc* *
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Re: Anyone a VAX/VMS administrator in a former life?
Old 04-03-2006, 01:36 AM   #53
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Re: Anyone a VAX/VMS administrator in a former life?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Cute Fuzzy Bunny
How can you compare a real-time, multi-user, multi-tasking virtual memory operating system written by real New England engineers with a single task, single thread, crappily written and partially stolen piece of crud written by relatively damp Seattle coffee drinkers.
Price/performance? The PC killed the minicomputer industry in Massachusetts. Digital, Data General, Apollo, Wang.. RIP.
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Re: Anyone a VAX/VMS administrator in a former life?
Old 04-03-2006, 07:51 AM   #54
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Re: Anyone a VAX/VMS administrator in a former life?

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Originally Posted by wab
Versioning is a Good Thing. Versioning built into the OS and forced on the user is definitely a Bad Thing. The VAX and VMS were the epitome of CISC thinking. Ugh. *Shutter*.
Yeah, ok, but you know, alternatives like SCCS and CVS are just a lot of work. They are good for project management, but for everyday protection against stepping on one's own penile member, I have to admit that the VMS auto-versioning system was kind of handy at times. Just put a purge command in your logout script, if it bothered you that much.

Quote:
Simple is beautiful. Live free or die. /etc
I'm as much of a unix bigot as the next guy, and spent my time in the trenches waving the unix/c flag against the entrenched VMS/fortran forces back when it was a live issue, but hey, that war has long been won. Not even an issue any more. Now enough time has passed for the veterans from both sides to get together and grudgingly admit what the other side did right after all. I'll give CFB his versioning system, he'll grant that unix did everything else in the world better, and we'll all go out and get wasted together.

What say?

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Re: Anyone a VAX/VMS administrator in a former life?
Old 04-03-2006, 09:01 AM   #55
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Re: Anyone a VAX/VMS administrator in a former life?

I'm down with the get wasted part!

Now if only UNIX had less cumbersome auditing. I generate gigabytes a week, how is my auditor supposed to sift through that! And that's with reduction tools! It's version of "domain" security leaves something to be desired (speaking of Solaris and Irix here, specifically). But anyhoo, off to work.
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Re: Anyone a VAX/VMS administrator in a former life?
Old 04-03-2006, 09:30 AM   #56
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Re: Anyone a VAX/VMS administrator in a former life?

Quote:
Originally Posted by bpp
Really? That's cool, I never knew that.

So each VAX had a mini-PDP-11 built in to boot it?
Was this just the 11/780, or did later versions have this too?

Bpp
Just the 780 as far as I recall. The PDP-11 loaded the vax's microcode and fed it the cold boot.

Wab - when you write an OS, I'll take your comments more seriously.

Unix? Ick!

The minicomputer industry killed itself.

I think I covered everything

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Re: Anyone a VAX/VMS administrator in a former life?
Old 04-03-2006, 09:59 AM   #57
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Re: Anyone a VAX/VMS administrator in a former life?

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Originally Posted by Cute Fuzzy Bunny
Wab - when you write an OS, I'll take your comments more seriously.
Does grad school count?* *That was one of the more fun things they made me do.* *Did I ever tell you about the PDP-8 I made out of bitslice micros?

Thankfully, I didn't have to write my OS in MACRO-11.* **Shudder*.
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Re: Anyone a VAX/VMS administrator in a former life?
Old 04-03-2006, 10:18 AM   #58
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Re: Anyone a VAX/VMS administrator in a former life?

why, oh why, for all things great and holy did I enter this thread :P
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Re: Anyone a VAX/VMS administrator in a former life?
Old 04-03-2006, 10:26 AM   #59
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Re: Anyone a VAX/VMS administrator in a former life?

I was gong to make some snide snappy comment about people on this thread needing to check in at the nearest chapter of Nerds Anonymous, but realized I would probably tick off half our regular posters and decided "nevermind". :

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Re: Anyone a VAX/VMS administrator in a former life?
Old 04-03-2006, 10:27 AM   #60
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Re: Anyone a VAX/VMS administrator in a former life?

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Originally Posted by cube_rat
why, oh why, for all things great and holy did I enter this thread* :P*
I tried to avoid it for four pages. * But the praise of VMS brought back a flood of terrible memories. * Bpp alluded to the war between the Unix/C faction and the VMS/FORTRAN establishment. * Those were interesting times.

Suffice it to say that Unix weenies wanted VMS off the VAX so badly that some of them wrote a version of Unix that ran on *top* of VMS. * Anybody remember Eunice? * *Shudder*.
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