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

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.

Comments

This shit is why managers think the cloud works.

[attemptedgoalie]

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.

The value is the software

[mcrbids]

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.

on last legs?

[iggymanz]

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.

Free Emulators for PDP-11 and VAX

[maynard]

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

Where's the fun in that?

[msobkow]

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

Conflicted view on this...

[flu1d]

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.

Re:It's VAX, not Vax

[Anonymous Coward]

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.)

Re:It's VAX, not Vax

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:This shit is why managers think the cloud works

[attemptedgoalie]

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)

Re:It's VAX, not Vax

[NotSanguine]

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

Re:It's VAX, not Vax

[ogdenk]

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.