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VMS Software Inc. [1] are the custodian of (own, I suppose) VMS these days. The exciting news in this space is that the x86 port of OpenVMS is coming along nic

by nickt 5y ago

VMS Software Inc. [1] are the custodian of (own, I suppose) VMS these days. The exciting news in this space is that the x86 port of OpenVMS is coming along nicely. While I’ve not used VMS in production (apart from a few days at an, ahem, large British telco, where we had to track down a retiree), I’ve always been fond of it and have an Alphastation at home. VSI are also providing the hobbyist license for OpenVMS for Itanium, Alpha and soon x86. After some concern last year that it would go away it’s nice to see them doing this [2]. [1] https://vmssoftware.com/ https://vmssoftware.com/ [2] https://vmssoftware.com/community/community-license/ https://vmssoftware.com/community/community-license/ [Edit: typo]

slownews45 5y ago
Side note. I worked on a systems implementation for medical billing that moved from OpenVMS to a Java/IE only monstrosity. I've never missed a simple system so much. The impact on EVERY professional (not just tech / accounting / it / billing) of this switch was a monumental disaster. The old system just worked. Even better, it was very focused on key data points (aka efficient). The new system was so complicated - to login you needed to get through a weird web based VPN, then a second VPN thing for the platform, then login to the system. All on 30 day password rotation (three passwords to get in) and impossible to get hardware tokens. All on an old version of IE and Java (yes, constant java popups asking to update). We had to downgrade machines to allow for connections. And the new system had been designed obviously by committee, so endless repetitive questions that were variants on each other. Literally 10's to 100's of additional fields to enter. Race, national origin, ethnicity (some staff and even participants don't know how these are all different!). I've never seen more money spent for more frustration (I ended up leaving the space entirely). By the end of the implementation I absolutely missed our green screen system - all keyboard driven (so FAST even on older machines), a single VPN and then a login to connect (we ran latest Windows but had a terminal emulator connection to the green screen - think Putty style).

by nickt 5y ago

slownews45 5y ago

Side note. I worked on a systems implementation for medical billing that moved from OpenVMS to a Java/IE only monstrosity. I've never missed a simple system so much. The impact on EVERY professional (not just tech / accounting / it / billing) of this switch was a monumental disaster. The old system just worked. Even better, it was very focused on key data points (aka efficient). The new system was so complicated - to login you needed to get through a weird web based VPN, then a second VPN thing for the platform, then login to the system. All on 30 day password rotation (three passwords to get in) and impossible to get hardware tokens. All on an old version of IE and Java (yes, constant java popups asking to update). We had to downgrade machines to allow for connections. And the new system had been designed obviously by committee, so endless repetitive questions that were variants on each other. Literally 10's to 100's of additional fields to enter. Race, national origin, ethnicity (some staff and even participants don't know how these are all different!). I've never seen more money spent for more frustration (I ended up leaving the space entirely). By the end of the implementation I absolutely missed our green screen system - all keyboard driven (so FAST even on older machines), a single VPN and then a login to connect (we ran latest Windows but had a terminal emulator connection to the green screen - think Putty style).