4 ms·

A little offtopic. But what kind of commercial use to VMS have at the moment. I know there’s a lot of big iron IBM systems around, but haven’t heard much about

by smabie 7y ago

A little offtopic. But what kind of commercial use to VMS have at the moment. I know there’s a lot of big iron IBM systems around, but haven’t heard much about VMS (nor have I ever used it). What hardware does it run on? Who is using it? And for what purpose?

klodolph 7y ago
It runs on VAX, Alpha, and Itanium! Woo! Most people haven’t seen a VAX. I saw them at my university and they were used for various administrative tasks and recordkeeping, but I never used them. I don’t know if they’re still there. The university only had a couple people who knew how to use them. Generally you will see them hang around, powered on, for long periods of time running some software which has been working for years. You don’t mess with them because they work fine, and messing with a working system will more likely break it than anything else. Every once in a while, you’ll see a job posting for people with VMS experience but it’s tough, because everyone with VMS experience is retired. See: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20209869 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20209869 Another company I worked at recently had a VAX, but it was part of the company’s museum!
- amyjess 7y ago
  Every once in a while, I go on eBay, search for VAXstations, and fantasize about buying one. Maybe one day I'll actually pull the trigger. There's one for $650 now that says it's fully working and comes with a licensed copy of VAX/VMS. There are also a few in the $150-200 range but I don't know if they have an OS on them or not.
  - phibz 7y ago
    I believe you can get a license from HP for non-commercial use for free. https://www.openvmshobbyist.com/faq.php https://www.openvmshobbyist.com/faq.php
  - zargon 7y ago
    It was 20 years ago that I bought my first VAXstation 3100 on eBay for under $100. Later got a VAXstation 4000 and an AlphaServer 2100. Got rid of them all during a period of downsizing. Along with some nice terminals and other DEC equipment. Kinda regret that now.
- vic-traill 7y ago
  In the spirit of repurposing, there is the Vaxbar: http://toyvax.glendale.ca.us/~vance/vaxbar.html http://toyvax.glendale.ca.us/~vance/vaxbar.html A VAX 11/780, where the Boot switch operates a blender. And the guy doesn't even drink!
- floren 7y ago
  My university had a VMS cluster (some VAX, some Alpha) available to the students at least until I graduated in 2010. Of course, nobody used it for web browsing or discussion forums any more, but it did provide the most reliable online interface to the class registration system. On registration day, it would be common to see over 200 simultaneous users on even the old VAX systems. We found that the web frontend fell over frequently, but once you were into the VAX, you were set. At one point, I personally acquired both a MicroVAX and an Alphastation and installed VMS on both. I found it a very boring system, in that it seemed like something you'd configure for a task and it would just do that task forever--I doubt the sysadmins at my school spent a lot of time maintaining the VMS cluster, but it kept on ticking for years!
- rjsw 7y ago
  I used to have a VAXstation 3100 on my desk. I was mostly porting software from VMS to Windows NT 3.5 but worked on optimizing the VMS version too.
linksnapzz 7y ago
IIRC, the more vital & boring an industry is, the more likely that it still has VMS systems hanging around. The German post office & rail system were very large users until at least fairly recently. There was enough interest in VMS such that HP spun off development to a startup near the old DEC HQ outside Boston, who are also working on the port to modern x86-64 hw. Ah, apparently first boot on x86 has occured: http://www.vmssoftware.com/updates_port.html http://www.vmssoftware.com/updates_port.html
patwolf 7y ago
I've heard first-hand accounts of them being used in manufacturing automation up until fairly recently, particularly in pharmaceutical manufacturing. But now a lot of that has moved to emulators running on standard x86 hardware. You can imagine the resistance to shutting down a manufacturing line that's been running fine for decades simply because the hardware is old. A lot of expense goes into getting everything cleared with the FDA, so it's not a trivial matter to replace hardware and software.
- sedachv 7y ago
  > But now a lot of that has moved to emulators running on standard x86 hardware. Not exactly: https://logical-co.com/ https://logical-co.com/ Modern PCs cannot even drive a parallel port with the correct timing. PDP/VAX CPU, RAM, and storage are emulated, but Q-Bus and Unibus interfacing needs to be done with custom hardware.
hylaride 7y ago
They are still used in a lot of “mission critical” industries that would have been computerized in the 1970s/1980s. In the past 5 years I’ve seen them in finance, some government sectors, and in quite a few in hospitals.

by smabie 7y ago

klodolph 7y ago

It runs on VAX, Alpha, and Itanium! Woo! Most people haven’t seen a VAX. I saw them at my university and they were used for various administrative tasks and recordkeeping, but I never used them. I don’t know if they’re still there. The university only had a couple people who knew how to use them. Generally you will see them hang around, powered on, for long periods of time running some software which has been working for years. You don’t mess with them because they work fine, and messing with a working system will more likely break it than anything else. Every once in a while, you’ll see a job posting for people with VMS experience but it’s tough, because everyone with VMS experience is retired. See: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20209869 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20209869 Another company I worked at recently had a VAX, but it was part of the company’s museum!

amyjess 7y ago
Every once in a while, I go on eBay, search for VAXstations, and fantasize about buying one. Maybe one day I'll actually pull the trigger. There's one for $650 now that says it's fully working and comes with a licensed copy of VAX/VMS. There are also a few in the $150-200 range but I don't know if they have an OS on them or not.
- phibz 7y ago
  I believe you can get a license from HP for non-commercial use for free. https://www.openvmshobbyist.com/faq.php https://www.openvmshobbyist.com/faq.php
- zargon 7y ago
  It was 20 years ago that I bought my first VAXstation 3100 on eBay for under $100. Later got a VAXstation 4000 and an AlphaServer 2100. Got rid of them all during a period of downsizing. Along with some nice terminals and other DEC equipment. Kinda regret that now.
vic-traill 7y ago
In the spirit of repurposing, there is the Vaxbar: http://toyvax.glendale.ca.us/~vance/vaxbar.html http://toyvax.glendale.ca.us/~vance/vaxbar.html A VAX 11/780, where the Boot switch operates a blender. And the guy doesn't even drink!
floren 7y ago
My university had a VMS cluster (some VAX, some Alpha) available to the students at least until I graduated in 2010. Of course, nobody used it for web browsing or discussion forums any more, but it did provide the most reliable online interface to the class registration system. On registration day, it would be common to see over 200 simultaneous users on even the old VAX systems. We found that the web frontend fell over frequently, but once you were into the VAX, you were set. At one point, I personally acquired both a MicroVAX and an Alphastation and installed VMS on both. I found it a very boring system, in that it seemed like something you'd configure for a task and it would just do that task forever--I doubt the sysadmins at my school spent a lot of time maintaining the VMS cluster, but it kept on ticking for years!
rjsw 7y ago
I used to have a VAXstation 3100 on my desk. I was mostly porting software from VMS to Windows NT 3.5 but worked on optimizing the VMS version too.

linksnapzz 7y ago

IIRC, the more vital & boring an industry is, the more likely that it still has VMS systems hanging around. The German post office & rail system were very large users until at least fairly recently. There was enough interest in VMS such that HP spun off development to a startup near the old DEC HQ outside Boston, who are also working on the port to modern x86-64 hw. Ah, apparently first boot on x86 has occured: http://www.vmssoftware.com/updates_port.html http://www.vmssoftware.com/updates_port.html

patwolf 7y ago

I've heard first-hand accounts of them being used in manufacturing automation up until fairly recently, particularly in pharmaceutical manufacturing. But now a lot of that has moved to emulators running on standard x86 hardware. You can imagine the resistance to shutting down a manufacturing line that's been running fine for decades simply because the hardware is old. A lot of expense goes into getting everything cleared with the FDA, so it's not a trivial matter to replace hardware and software.

sedachv 7y ago
> But now a lot of that has moved to emulators running on standard x86 hardware. Not exactly: https://logical-co.com/ https://logical-co.com/ Modern PCs cannot even drive a parallel port with the correct timing. PDP/VAX CPU, RAM, and storage are emulated, but Q-Bus and Unibus interfacing needs to be done with custom hardware.

hylaride 7y ago

They are still used in a lot of “mission critical” industries that would have been computerized in the 1970s/1980s. In the past 5 years I’ve seen them in finance, some government sectors, and in quite a few in hospitals.