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Vax, PDP/11, HP3000 and Others Live On In the Cloud

Posted by Soulskill on from the cloud-of-the-living-dead dept.

judgecorp writes: Surprisingly, critical applications still rely on old platforms, although legacy hardware is on its last legs. Swiss emulation expert Stromasys is offering emulation in the cloud for old hardware using a tool cheekily named after Charon, the ferryman to the afterlife. Systems covered include the Vax and PDP/11 platforms from Digital Equipment (which was swallowed by Compaq and then HP) as well as Digital's Alpha RISC systems, and HP's HP3000. It also offers Sparc emulation, although Oracle might dispute the need for this.

62 comments

  1. Not a bad business by houstonbofh · · Score: 2

    Take a handful of emulators of very old hardware and open a cloud that host laughably small instances. It will probably work too.

  2. This shit is why managers think the cloud works. by attemptedgoalie · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I will probably be asked tomorrow why I've been saying we should consider a roadmap to replace our 15 year old RISC stuff when we could just do this.

    What should we work on this year sir? The 15 year old billing system that is mission critical and on unsupported hardware, software, and custom code written by employees long gone or a fifth try at implementing SharePoint that nobody will use?

    SharePoint. Got it. Are we going to use consultants paid so well they drive Teslas and Land Rovers again? Let's make sure we don't have clawback for improper billing or properly documented terms or expectations. It is why we're on implementation #5, but you're right, it'll work this time.

    --
    My mom says I'm cool.
  3. Re: This shit is why managers think the cloud work by attemptedgoalie · · Score: 1

    No, my billing system nearly is that old. But instead of investing in replacing/upgrading it, they spend money on SharePoint, leaving our most important system to languish.

    --
    My mom says I'm cool.
  4. The value is the software by mcrbids · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Up until about the year 2000, I ran a small hardware shop for customers. Gradually, it became clear to me that the value of computers isn't in the hardware, it's in the software and data that they hold.

    In response, I reinvented myself and co-developed a company that hosts data for (now) hundreds of clients and tens of thousands of users. Comparing the total hardware value of all our servers to our annual revenue puts hardware expenses (roughly) in petty cash. Servers host a *lot* of data, it's the data and the software used to manage the data that's valuable.

    --
    I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
    1. Re:The value is the software by zwarte+piet · · Score: 1

      Gradually, it became clear to me that the value of computers isn't in the hardware, it's in the software and data that they hold.

      unless your name is Apple and you will only sell that software with hardware. Then you can make a lot of money with the hardware also.

  5. Do they provide the OSes and licenses and all that by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Do they provide the OSes and licenses and all that jazz? Or do they just host the VM and the customers have to deal with all of the OS software, the licensing, and all that jazz?

  6. XMESS, MESS and MAME - where to get roms! by Grindalf · · Score: 1, Informative

    The world needs more good emulators, such as XMESS and MAME. But where do you get the ROMs from? Check out the internet archive with a good broadband connection! Try the following links: https://archive.org/details/ME... and https://archive.org/details/MA... for some ROMs. There are probably more, if you look at the "software" section and if you also try the "search" ...

    --
    The purpose of existence is to make money.
    1. Re:XMESS, MESS and MAME - where to get roms! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      http://www.mameworld.info/ubbt...

      Dont get shitlisted...

      Its about 2TB of stuff.

    2. Re:XMESS, MESS and MAME - where to get roms! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The world needs more good emulators, such as XMESS and MAME. But where do you get the ROMs from? Check out the internet archive with a good broadband connection! Try the following links: https://archive.org/details/ME... and https://archive.org/details/MA... for some ROMs. There are probably more, if you look at the "software" section and if you also try the "search" ...

      XMESS is amazingly decrepit and its continued use is considered harmful to the project itself. Both standard MAME and MESS compile out of the box on all major distros, and have the advantage of not having been forked and no longer updated for well over a decade. Seriously - there are several MAME and MESS developers who run Linux as their main OSes. Both of them even still support OS/2 out of the box if you're particularly insane.

  7. on last legs? by iggymanz · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Alpha is still supported by HP, and OpenVMS on Alpha supported until 2018.

    The emulation by Charon of Sparc is 32 bit, not the current 64 bit one. However, you can run 32 bit Sparc code on 64 bit sparc.

  8. It's VAX, not Vax by Intelopment · · Score: 1

    VAX (Virtual Address Extension) is the name of the OS, not Vax.

    1. Re:It's VAX, not Vax by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      No, VAX is the name of the CPU ISA. VMS is the name of the operating system that was the primary focus of that platform, although you could also get various Unix-class operating systems to run on VAX systems as well (NetBSD and OpenBSD are the main ones today.)

    2. Re:It's VAX, not Vax by ogdenk · · Score: 0

      BSD UNIX was born on the VAX. Ultrix was a commercial version of BSD marketed by Digital for the VAX and MIPS-based DECstation machines. NetBSD and OpenBSD are the only currently maintained VAX UNIX distros.

      VMS was cool too though.

    3. Re:It's VAX, not Vax by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

      Incorrect.

      BSD Unix was born on the PDP-11; the VAX-based Unix OSes started being available in June 1979, whilst the first VAX (VAX-11/780) was released in October 1977, with VMS as the OS. VMUNIX (the Unix OS kernel that supported the VAX's virtual memory capabilities) came out at the end of 1979.

    4. Re:It's VAX, not Vax by NotSanguine · · Score: 1

      Incorrect.

      BSD Unix was born on the PDP-11; the VAX-based Unix OSes started being available in June 1979, whilst the first VAX (VAX-11/780) was released in October 1977, with VMS as the OS. VMUNIX (the Unix OS kernel that supported the VAX's virtual memory capabilities) came out at the end of 1979.

      That is correct. It was based on Bell Labs v7 Unix, which DEC ported to PDP-11 and VAX, and renamed V7M. Ultrix was the follow on to V7M and was first released five years later, in 1984.

      Ken Olsen expounded on the DEC's relationship with loved UNIX:

      One of the questions that comes up all the time is: How enthusiastic is our support for UNIX? Unix was written on our machines and for our machines many years ago. Today, much of UNIX being done is done on our machines. Ten percent of our VAXs are going for UNIX use. UNIX is a simple language, easy to understand, easy to get started with. It's great for students, great for somewhat casual users, and it's great for interchanging programs between different machines. And so, because of its popularity in these markets, we support it. We have good UNIX on VAX and good UNIX on PDP-11s. It is our belief, however, that serious professional users will run out of things they can do with UNIX. They'll want a real system and will end up doing VMS when they get to be serious about programming. With UNIX, if you're looking for something, you can easily and quickly check that small manual and find out that it's not there. With VMS, no matter what you look for -- it's literally a five-foot shelf of documentation -- if you look long enough it's there. That's the difference -- the beauty of UNIX is it's simple; and the beauty of VMS is that it's all there. [emphasis added]
      -- Ken Olsen, President of DEC, 1984

      --
      No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
    5. Re:It's VAX, not Vax by NotSanguine · · Score: 4, Informative

      Apologies. I messed up the link:
      v7 Unix.

      Incorrect.

      BSD Unix was born on the PDP-11; the VAX-based Unix OSes started being available in June 1979, whilst the first VAX (VAX-11/780) was released in October 1977, with VMS as the OS. VMUNIX (the Unix OS kernel that supported the VAX's virtual memory capabilities) came out at the end of 1979.

      That is correct. It was based on Bell Labs v7 Unix, which DEC ported to PDP-11 and VAX, and renamed V7M. Ultrix was the follow on to V7M and was first released five years later, in 1984.

      Ken Olsen expounded on the DEC's relationship with loved UNIX:

      One of the questions that comes up all the time is: How enthusiastic is our support for UNIX? Unix was written on our machines and for our machines many years ago. Today, much of UNIX being done is done on our machines. Ten percent of our VAXs are going for UNIX use. UNIX is a simple language, easy to understand, easy to get started with. It's great for students, great for somewhat casual users, and it's great for interchanging programs between different machines. And so, because of its popularity in these markets, we support it. We have good UNIX on VAX and good UNIX on PDP-11s. It is our belief, however, that serious professional users will run out of things they can do with UNIX. They'll want a real system and will end up doing VMS when they get to be serious about programming. With UNIX, if you're looking for something, you can easily and quickly check that small manual and find out that it's not there. With VMS, no matter what you look for -- it's literally a five-foot shelf of documentation -- if you look long enough it's there. That's the difference -- the beauty of UNIX is it's simple; and the beauty of VMS is that it's all there. [emphasis added] -- Ken Olsen, President of DEC, 1984

      --
      No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
    6. Re:It's VAX, not Vax by Trailer+Trash · · Score: 2

      I used BSD Unix on a VAX 11/750 in 1988. It wasn't ready for prime time - to put it nicely. Olsen was absolutely correct. I think a lot of folks who grew up on Linux or the various free BSD spinoffs from the 90s don't appreciate just how far it's come. If you can find an old copy of "The Unix Haters Handbook" browse through it. Some of the stuff is really pedantic, but a lot of it really was problematic.

      Unix had a lot of potential, though, and Linux really helped it reach that potential. It's a more coherent system than VMS. On VMS it's pretty much impossible to use piping. That alone made the shell scripts (DCL scripts, that is) many many times longer for the same functionality. The command line tools weren't made to work together. They did have standardized option parsing, though, stuff that Unix never really had but is now handled by libraries.

      Up until the mid 90s you could type "rmdir something/" on most Unixes and it would give you the error "something: is a directory". Yeah, no shit sherlock.

      The best thing I remember about BSD in those old days was that processes were tied to terminals. And ctrl-z still suspended processes. At the university a lot of folks were used to DOS where ctrl-z exited a program. Of course, if they were in mail and hit ctrl-z it looked like it exited.

      So when we logged in the first thing we would do is type "fg". 90+% of the time a mail prompt would come up. We could then !s to get a shell as the mail user. I was never malicious. I would create a login script that would explain that ctrl-z doesn't actually exit and then destroy itself. Fun times.

      --
      Do you have ESP?
    7. Re:It's VAX, not Vax by ogdenk · · Score: 1

      BSD was and IS doing just fine. And BSD would be fine without Linux. The only reason Linux gained traction was because of the BSD lawsuit with AT&T that tied things up for years.

      Does Linux suck? No, not really. Do I prefer BSD? Yeah, it's documentation is better, it performs well under load and runs Linux binaries as well. It's also very clean and minimalist out of the box.

      Unix more than "just had potential". An entire global network was built on the back of BSD and various PDP10 OS's (the big 36-bitters).

      And maybe you should try "rm -rf" btw. Apparently, you don't know BSD like you think you do. Anyway, I have a DEC VAXstation still running with a copy of Ultrix 4.5 with a full X-Windows based desktop environment. Yeah, *SOME* things have come a long way but for the most part it's reimplemented 30-year-old shit with a lot of kludges on top to make it behave in a more modern fashion while breaking the original network transparency model in the process.

      Linux brought nothing new to the table, it just got big enough that video card manufacturers couldn't ignore it anymore. It does absolutely nothing no other OS could do, including other free and commercial UNIX-like systems.

    8. Re:It's VAX, not Vax by Trailer+Trash · · Score: 1

      Dude, I'm the guy who ran our LUG's webserver on a FreeBSD machine 13 years ago. I'm very familiar with BSD. Again, people like you have absolutely no idea what BSD was like before 1990. It was terrible - but it (barely) worked. And the basic paradigm was much better than anything else available at the time that I ever worked with.

      As for your stupid "rm -rf" comment - "rmdir" is made to remove a directory *as long as it's empty*. That's the point. "rmdir somedir/" would give the world's stupidest error while "rmdir somedir" would remove it. I never looked at source to find the cause of the error.

      What Linux brought to the table was a whole new generation interested in working on Unix. That's big. It's not directly a technological edge but it translates into that.

      --
      Do you have ESP?
    9. Re:It's VAX, not Vax by ogdenk · · Score: 3, Insightful

      What Linux brought to the table was a whole new generation interested in working on Unix. That's big. It's not directly a technological edge but it translates into that.

      Not really. A whole generation was already interested as PC's had just become powerful enough to make a full workstation-class UNIX port worth it. BSD got tied up in a big lawsuit and MINIX was a teaching tool. Linux arrived because folks wanted a cheap UNIX clone no one could sue them over. And it was pretty cool for a long time until most distros strayed from being a UNIX clone and adopted BS like systemd that's not even cross-platform..... or even UNIXy.

      And I have plenty of idea what UNIX was like before 1990 because I directly used it daily, dialing in from my Atari 8-bit at first. And it was a hell of a lot nicer than most alternatives at the time. NextStep was also a fabulous BSD/Mach hybrid that I still use, they just call it OSX now. You know, the only UNIX variant with a desktop environment that doesn't feel like a perpetual beta release as well as being the only UNIX with a significant amount of the desktop market?

      And silly bugs like you mention still exist in modern BSD/Linux distros. It was also probably fixed in a subsequent BSD release. BSD never died or went dormant. Linux never passed BSD from a tech standpoint. In fact, BSD is cleaner and performs better in a lot of scenarios. Even running Linux or SysV binaries.

    10. Re:It's VAX, not Vax by ogdenk · · Score: 2

      1BSD for the PDP-11 was simply a few add-ons to AT&T UNIX. 2BSD was really backports of functionality from 4.xBSD. Especially the network stack. The PDP-11 was never a serious platform for BSD development as the CSRG at Berkeley moved to the VAX pretty fast once BSD became a real OS in its own right instead of a few addons for V7. It was THE platform for early AT&T UNIX development though.

      If you consider a Pascal compiler and a text editor a true BSD UNIX release, then yeah, you're right ;-)

      VMS remained the dominant OS on the VAX platform but most serious UNIX development still happened on the VAX until the later 4.3BSD days. By the time 4.4 hit, RISC workstations were all the rage and the 386 finally became a contender and the minis started dying out. The 4.4 VAX port wasn't even complete if I remember right. Later versions of Ultrix weren't terrible.... it's really dated and a mash-up of 4.2BSD, 4.3BSD and a little SysV but its quite functional. DEC moved to OSF/1 (aka DEC UNIX/Tru64) for the Alpha. There was an early port of OSF/1 for the DECstation MIPS boxes too but I don't know if it ever got released. IIRC, OSF/1 was a Mach/SysV/BSD hybrid.

      I still have a VAXserver 3100 in the closet with Ultrix and NetBSD 4 installed. I fire it up from time to time. Slowest 32-bit machine I own but pretty entertaining. Even have an amber screen real VT220 for it. Clocked at around ~11MHz. Capable of about 2.8MIPS.

  9. Free Emulators for PDP-11 and VAX by maynard · · Score: 5, Informative

    There's lots of useful free stuff for people who want to emulate ancient computers at pdp11.org.

    1. Re:Free Emulators for PDP-11 and VAX by FireFury03 · · Score: 1

      There's lots of useful free stuff for people who want to emulate ancient computers at pdp11.org.

      Yeah, but that's not in the cloud, and if you're not doing it in the cloud you might accidentally get too much reliability.

      --
      http://blog.nexusuk.org
    2. Re:Free Emulators for PDP-11 and VAX by An+ominous+Cow+art · · Score: 1

      This isn't a bad time to post a link to SIMH, too. It simulates:

              Data General Nova, Eclipse
              Digital Equipment Corporation PDP-1, PDP-4, PDP-7, PDP-8, PDP-9, PDP-10, PDP-11, PDP-15, VAX
              GRI Corporation GRI-909, GRI-99
              IBM 1401, 1620, 1130, 7090/7094, System 3
              Interdata (Perkin-Elmer) 16b and 32b systems
              Hewlett-Packard 2114, 2115, 2116, 2100, 21MX, 1000
              Honeywell H316/H516
              MITS Altair 8800, with both 8080 and Z80
              Royal-Mcbee LGP-30, LGP-21
              Scientific Data Systems SDS 940
              SWTP 6800

    3. Re:Free Emulators for PDP-11 and VAX by Darinbob · · Score: 1

      SIMH does a good job. I've got BSD 4.2 running on a Vax on my PC. Don't know what the cloud ones do differently except enable them to have a post that implies they invented the whole concept.

  10. Where's the fun in that? by msobkow · · Score: 3, Funny

    Running VAX software just ain't no fun unless you're causing a city-wide brownout with the power drain... :P

    --
    I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
  11. Conflicted view on this... by flu1d · · Score: 3

    Having been in a small/medium business consulting realm I have seen many companies go far to long using old technology because "it works". The issue being of course that there is no support from any vendor when something doesn't. Usually my best argument for companies to get off these old systems is that the hardware will certainly fail and spare parts are increasingly difficult to find and expensive. Its great to have an option of emulation of this sort to allow companies to not have to have the huge burden of being forced to use a modern tool with most likely some considerable amount of downtime due to waiting to the last second. On the flip side of that the hidden long term costs of limping by with old, unsupported software will be even more challenging to present to those with the checkbook.

  12. Re:Do they provide the OSes and licenses and all t by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    We don't know.

  13. Re:This shit is why managers think the cloud works by jockm · · Score: 1, Flamebait

    And why not? It is easy to say that newer is better, but if you can cut costs of running the legacy hardware, and buy the time to work on other things AND work on replacing the legacy system then why not? It sounds like a perfectly reasonable use of resources to me.

    --

    What do you know I wrote a novel
  14. Re:Do they provide the OSes and licenses and all t by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It's in the cloud, you can't hook a Jaz up to it.

  15. Re:This shit is why managers think the cloud works by attemptedgoalie · · Score: 3, Interesting

    That would be a reasonable thing to do if it bought time.

    Year 5? Maybe it's time to hold off on the shiny stuff for a little bit and do the busy work of shoring up the business.

    Year 10? Two or three stupid multi-million dollar projects scrapped, but still no work on the billing system? It might be time to reconsider priorities. Or at least consider doing both?

    Year 15? I get the feeling that my ability to configure and maintain a resilient system has created a monster. Management assumes it will run forever, and gets to be wined/dined by consulting firms to put up stupid projects.

    If we ever finished ANY of the projects we decided to do instead of fixing the old stuff, it would be one thing. But to continue to retry, and fire consultants every year is just wasteful. (no, we're not the government)

    --
    My mom says I'm cool.
  16. SPARC not Sparc by khb · · Score: 1

    A nit but faithful emulation is all about tiny details (potentially even emulating chip errata)

    Nothing in the article explained the OS licensing issues. If the point is to keep critical apps running making sure it's legal isn't a nit

    1. Re:SPARC not Sparc by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It also offers Sparc emulation, although Oracle might dispute the need for this.

      Does the SPARC emulation support the old Sun architectures, like sun4, sun4c and sun4m. What kind of VME and SBus cards will it emulate? It seems it would need to do that kind of stuff to get customers to migrate off of the real (old) hardware.

  17. Re:This shit is why managers think the cloud works by ruir · · Score: 0

    I suspect you have to pay consultants a little better...I kid. But then, if consultants keep consistently failing at projects, maybe the fault is someplace else?

  18. Kids today by Hognoxious · · Score: 1

    Get back to me when it can run CICS or TSO. That'd be perfect for the occasions when I'm at a loose end and can't find any needles, broken glass or mole grips.

    --
    Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
    1. Re:Kids today by swamp+boy · · Score: 1

      Technically, there is an emulator (Hercules) that can do that now. Unfortunately, it can't run them legally due to IBM licensing restrictions. I think it would be nice to be able to run the latest versions of mainframe software on Hercules on x86. It would make for a fantastic learning/training platform.

    2. Re:Kids today by Eravnrekaree · · Score: 1

      Not quite true. There is Turnkey MVS. Older versions of MVS are public domain. There TSO but no CICS, unfortunately. Get a copy of Turnkey MVS and run it on Hercules

    3. Re:Kids today by Eravnrekaree · · Score: 1

      You can run TSO, look at Turnkey MVS. Its a distribution of the last public domain MVS OS from 1981, Alas, there is no CICS (yet) as a part of this, but TSO is there. also look at http://www.z390.org/.

    4. Re:Kids today by swamp+boy · · Score: 1

      Yes, I should have been more specific. The IBM software that can be run legally is from the 1970's. MVS 3.8J (IIRC) and VM/370 R6. It's possible there may be others from that same era (DOS/VSE) too. I've toyed with VM/370 on Hercules and it's a hoot. It would be a lot more useful if it had XEDIT (instead of EDIT) and REXX (I think that there may be a version of REXX now available with the VM/380 stuff).

    5. Re: Kids today by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      3.8j is about as close to z/OS as CP/M is to Win7 :-)

    6. Re:Kids today by iggymanz · · Score: 2

      then there is what naughty people do, torrent the Z/OS or Z/VM Application Developer CD (ADCD) sets and run the full mainframe monty in Hercules.

      A friend told me about that, that's it, a friend. Copyright pirate scum friend. yeah.

    7. Re:Kids today by iggymanz · · Score: 1

      For lawless criminal scum, torrents for the ADCD (Application Developers Controlled Distribution) sets for Z/OS, Z/VSE and Z/VM are out there as well as instructions for setting up a full mainframe on Hercules. But only very, very bad people use those. Good people who live by the word of IBMs pieces of paper and who respect their home state's blue laws prohibiting oral sex would never do such a thing. You've been duly warned.

  19. Re: This shit is why managers think the cloud work by donaldm · · Score: 1

    Sharepoint runs on PDP-11s? VAX? Alpha?

    Microsoft Sharepoint first came out in 2001. I think if it ran on NT at the time it could run on an Alpha, but why would any company want to have an run MS Sharepoint on unsupported architecture today? It is not that difficult to transfer the MS Sharepoint infrastructure to current X86 architecture. Of course maintaining a Sharepoint structure or even a Wiki is a totally different thing.

    --
    There ain't no such thing as proprietary standards only proprietary formats. Standards are by definition open.
  20. Re: This shit is why managers think the cloud work by ttucker · · Score: 1

    Sharepoint runs on PDP-11s? VAX? Alpha?

    Microsoft Sharepoint first came out in 2001. I think if it ran on NT at the time it could run on an Alpha, but why would any company want to have an run MS Sharepoint on unsupported architecture today? It is not that difficult to transfer the MS Sharepoint infrastructure to current X86 architecture. Of course maintaining a Sharepoint structure or even a Wiki is a totally different thing.

    Whoooosh....

  21. I can't be the only one running SIMH by 0xdeaddead · · Score: 1

    on a VPS connected to HECNET, right?

  22. Re:This shit is why managers think the cloud works by LWATCDR · · Score: 1

    Sounds like the hardware is far less of an issue than the OS in this case.
    If you are running on a Unix than a port to Linux might be a good solution it might just be a recompile.
    If you are VMS than I believe that you can still get VMS on X86 today. Wait no it looks like it is only for Itanium.
    Actually running it on a emulation system might not be such a bad idea after all.

    --
    See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
  23. Re: This shit is why managers think the cloud work by bill_mcgonigle · · Score: 1

    the consultants who drive Teslas understand RoI but, man, the guys in Range Rovers? - run away!

    --
    My God, it's Full of Source!
    OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
  24. Re:This shit is why managers think the cloud works by tedgyz · · Score: 1

    SharePoint - where documents go to die.

    --
    "No matter where you go, there you are." -- Buckaroo Banzai
  25. Re:This shit is why managers think the cloud works by operagost · · Score: 1

    Stromasys offers an Alphaserver emulator for this. There is a free version called PersonalAlpha. It is accurate, but even running on a modern quad-core 64-bit CPU it's only about as fast as an EV5 by my benchmarks. The commercial product fares a little better.

    There are other options, like FreeAXP, but I had better performance with Stromasys.

    OpenVMS has been licensed by VSI, a venture by Nemonix, so a migration to x86-64 is not out of the question. In fact, it's likely considering it would free VMS from the whims of HP.

    --

    Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
  26. Re:This shit is why managers think the cloud works by armanox · · Score: 1

    Currently runs on Itanium, with HP promising to port to x86_64.

    --
    I'm starting to think GNU is the problem with "GNU/Linux" these days.
  27. This is new to many but not news... by maurert · · Score: 1

    Charon VAX and Charon Alpha have been around for years. Those DECies that are hard core will know that TOPS-10 lives on on emulated DECsystem10 software. A emulated VAX on a modern low end desktop PC runs faster than fastest physical VAX. Want your VAX/VMS application to have the advantages of SAN attached SSD storage? Easy. Allowed to use Gigabit? Done. VMS doesn't think it has any of that, but the host has it and the emulator presents it as older gear to the OS. For those that don't want to be 32bit limited Charon Alpha works too.

    For those that think this is not the way to run a serious IT shop, consider that I wouldn't recommend running your business or shop floor app on a low end desktop. I'd buy a 1st tier data center class box, running Windows Server. I'd buy full hardware and software support for the host. Frequently those costs are recouped quickly from the fact that hardware support for 15 year gear is no longer needed. The users don't need to be retrained. Business isn't disrupted with data migrations to new databases and software that doesn't have the same features.

    With VAX and Alpha emulation, you don't even source code because a VAX is a VAX and an Alpha is an Alpha. Unfortunately not needing the source code is an advantage more often than you'd think.

  28. But what is truth? by Dcnjoe60 · · Score: 0

    I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.

    Exactly what truths are others being deprived of? One thing religion provides is an external arbitrator of truths, an objective, by definition, right or wrong. Without it, there are no absolute truths and everything is subjective or relevant. As such, truth, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder. I'm not making a point in favor of religion. I'm simply pointing out that you can't deprive others of truth if there are no absolute truths. Maybe a more accurate statement would be I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of their freedom. While not the same intention, it would at least be congruent.

    1. Re:But what is truth? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The value of pi is true, the biblical value is not. The periodic table of elements is true, earth wind fire and water are not true elements, etc.

    2. Re:But what is truth? by Dcnjoe60 · · Score: 1

      The value of pi is true, the biblical value is not. The periodic table of elements is true, earth wind fire and water are not true elements, etc.

      Pi, by definition is an irrational number. Nobody knows the "true" value. Instead we use approximations. The periodic table of elements is not a truth, it is a list and an incomplete one at that.

  29. Lizzie Borden took an ax by n6kuy · · Score: 1

    ... and plunged it deep into the VAX.

    --
    If you disagree with me on social issues, then it's pretty clear that you are a narrow-minded bigot.
  30. HP3K by zeugma-amp · · Score: 1

    I downloaded the HP-3000 VM for VMWare about 6 months ago to check it out. It seems to work pretty much as expected. It really brought back some memories. Now, if they would include a copy of Warp from the CSL tape, it would really rock.

    Someone had an HP-3000 online that you could telnet to and play Warp online a few years ago. I'd host one of those if I could get it working.

    Central Plaza.
    You are standing in what appears to be the central plaza
    of a small seacoast resort. There is a large fountain in the
    center of this square, and the plaza extends quite a distance
    to both the north and south. You can see the ocean in the
    distance to the west, and to the east there is a large
    building on which there is a sign that reads "WARP BUILDING".

    I can see the following:
    Fountain
    Round Peg

    >look at fountain
    The fountain is obviously neglected, its bottom is covered with mud
    and old leaves.

    >get in fountain
    That's not a vehicle!

    >get peg
    Round Peg taken.

    >look at it
    Round. Made of wood. Not very big.

    --
    This is an ex-parrot!
    1. Re:HP3K by eharvill · · Score: 1

      I downloaded the HP-3000 VM for VMWare about 6 months ago to check it out. It seems to work pretty much as expected. It really brought back some memories.

      We did the same thing. Unfortunately the performance was terrible and roughly 25% of what was required. I hate having this legacy crap in our DC, but would have felt a little better if it could have been virtualized to at least mitigate hardware issues going forward.

      --
      At night I drink myself to sleep and pretend I don't care that you're not here with me
  31. Re: This shit is why managers think the cloud work by zwarte+piet · · Score: 1

    If the sourcecode hasn't been lost I don't see a problem hiring some guys to update it if it did to reimplement it.

  32. Re:This shit is why managers think the cloud works by afidel · · Score: 2

    No, HP has promised no such thing, they've promised mainstream support through 2020 and minimal support through 2025 for the Itanium 8.4 release. They've also announced that VMS Software Inc. is the sole provider for future versions of OpenVMS and VMS Software Inc. has announced intentions to port to x86_64 but they make no promises, and can make no promises on HP's behalf.

    --
    There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
  33. Re: This shit is why managers think the cloud work by zwarte+piet · · Score: 1

    Sorry, I see that I didn't read your comment very well. Seems like a managment issue here. If the obsolete hardware is getting problematic, then perhaps run it in virtual machines.

  34. "...although Oracle might dispute the need ...." by idontgno · · Score: 1

    The driving need for sparc emulation is avoiding Oracle. Seems like a real need to me, and a real service in fulfilling the need.

    --
    Welcome to the Panopticon. Used to be a prison, now it's your home.