7 ms·

I was considering getting a Vax station 3100, but otherwise planned to run it on SIMH (emulator).

by memetomancer 4y ago

icedchai 4y ago
If you google "VMS Liberation Front", your licensing problems will be solved.
- huslage 4y ago
  Next we need a z/OS Liberation Front
  - kotaKat 4y ago
    ^ This. The amount of hoops for an aspiring mainframer that just wants to poke at z/PDT and throw money at IBM is silly. They ghosted me after trying to sign up for it.
    - skissane 4y ago
      All you have to do is go to this website – https://www.ibm.com/marketplace/purchase/configuration/en/us/checkout?editionID=EIDXNMGM https://www.ibm.com/marketplace/purchase/configuration/en/us... – sign in with your IBM ID (anyone can create one), and provide your details, and give your credit card number. I've successfully done it up to the step where you give your credit card, I haven't taken it further because I'm not sufficiently interested in this to justify to myself giving IBM so much money. One thing I noticed – IBM does not want individual consumers as customers, only enterprises. If you say they live in the US, the order form says "IBM products are only available for commercial, academic, public, research, or other organizational use", and asks you for an organisation name. I am in Australia, so I give my country of Australia and home address, it then asks me to certify I am buying it for a business, and won't let the order process continue unless I tick it. For Australian orders, it also asks for an Australian Business Number (ABN), which you get from the government when you register a business with them. (Government agencies, and educational/religious/charitable/nonprofit/etc institutions, and trusts, are also eligible for them.) I guess the US equivalent would be an IRS EIN, or a DUNS number, but the US order form doesn't ask for one, just an organisation name. Anyone in Australia, can get an ABN, but you have to tell the government you are running a business, and in theory they can revoke it if you aren't a real business (and occasionally they actually have). However, another way to get an ABN – anyone can incorporate a company, and when you do you get an Australian Company Number (ACN), and anyone with an ACN is automatically entitled to an ABN (the ABN is just the ACN with a couple of checksum digits prefixed). I actually own a company, which does nothing and has never done anything – one day I was daydreaming about starting my own business, so I created a corporation, and then I daydreamed a bit more, and then I parked the idea – but I pay US$200 a year to the government to keep my corporation alive, so I have a legitimate ABN to give them through that. There is no legal requirement for a corporation to do anything, a "shelf corporation" which stays forever dormant and just pays the annual fees (and engages in a few other pro forma annual legal rituals) is legally just as valid as a billion dollar company If I gave them my credit card number, and let them charge all that $$$ to it – I expect they'd process the order. How are they supposed to know that my "business", despite being a real legal corporation, is actually just a "fantasy daydream business" not a real one? I don't see how they could tell. (I mean, I could be an independent contractor/consultant/freelancer working through that corporation, rather than a full-time employee – and maybe one day I shall be.) They could cancel the order and give me the $$$ back instead of fulfilling it, but I'd be surprised if they did that. Indeed, ex-IBM employee Colin Paice in Scotland reports successfully buying it from them – https://colinpaice.blog/2020/06/29/getting-z-os-installed-on-my-ubuntu-laptop/ https://colinpaice.blog/2020/06/29/getting-z-os-installed-on... – I guess one thing that may help – don't say it is for a hobby or personal use, claim it is for a business (which if you think about it, doesn't even have to be a lie – tell yourself a story about how you are going to use this to develop software to sell people, and if you believe your own story, that makes it true – who knows, believing in it might even make it happen – and if it doesn't ever actually happen, well a lot of businesses fail, often even just as they are getting started...)
  - Koshkin 4y ago
    OS/370 is all we will ever need.
  - skissane 4y ago
    Older versions of z/OS and OS/390 are easy to come by online [0], and from what I've heard run well under Hercules–although I myself have never tried (I have run the public domain MVS 3.8J in the past, in particular the TK4- distribution of it.) Of course, downloading and running those online versions violates IBM's license agreements and quite likely violates copyright laws – but you can make your own judgement about the legal risk and ethics of that. I think getting your hands on the most recent versions – such as the latest z/OS 2.5 – is a lot harder, unless you work for IBM or an IBM customer, or you know someone who does (and who is willing to help you out, an action which may involve some risk for them). In recent years IBM has added hurdles to make unauthorised distribution harder (such as encrypting the ADCD distributions), although those hurdles are not insurmountable, they just add more work (usual story with DRM). And I think you'll find Hercules will barf on the latest versions of z/OS anyway. If you want to latest versions from IBM totally legitimately – IBM will sell you a development environment (zPDT) for US$5,540 a year. If you need it for work, could be a totally reasonable investment. If you are just doing it to muck around – well, that's an expensive hobby, although certainly there are people out there who spend more than US$5,000 a year on their hobby, and many people here earn enough they can afford it – but you'd have to really enjoy it for it to be worth it. I doubt there are many people out there who enjoy z/OS that much – although there is one retired IBM guy in Orkney, Scotland (Colin Paice), who does, and he's actually blogged about how he forked the money out and bought it [1]. [0] I think it is better not to say where publicly, in part because doing so draws attention to those places and attention might result in IBM issuing takedown notices. If you know the right search terms it is easy to find. [1] https://colinpaice.blog/2020/06/29/getting-z-os-installed-on-my-ubuntu-laptop/ https://colinpaice.blog/2020/06/29/getting-z-os-installed-on...
  - jamal-kumar 4y ago
    Wasn't there that kid that IBM uses as a sort of new mascot for mainframe stuff who bought an old mainframe and got it working in his basement? [1] [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=45X4VP8CGtk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=45X4VP8CGtk
classichasclass 4y ago
I've actually got a VAXstation 3100 M76. It's fun to run it on the hardware, but most of these little VAXen have performance most charitably described as pedestrian.
- the_only_law 4y ago
  Yeah they later ones aren’t priced to bad on eBay. You can occasionally find some minicomputers and some of the larger VAXStations but they tend to be a lot more especially considering it would have to ship freight.
  - dhosek 4y ago
    I was tempted (but fortunately didn’t succumb) to buy the IBM 4000-series minicomputer my college was decommissioning in the 90s. It would have been both cool and an overwhelming burden to have this thing.
the_only_law 4y ago
I don’t think modern OpenVMS runs on VAX anymore. But hey if you have the ever popular Itanium architecture, it will run.
- sehro 4y ago
  Yeh, the last OpenVMS release for VAX was 7.sommat, and hasn't been updated since. Alpha and Itanium still have active releases with mostly feature parity, tho.
jasomill 4y ago
Last I heard, VSI's agreement with HP only permits them to issue licenses for VSI OpenVMS releases, and they've never released a VAX build. So at this point, any VAX license would have to come from HP (who, AFAIK, is no longer issuing them, at least not to hobbyists).

I was considering getting a Vax station 3100, but otherwise planned to run it on SIMH (emulator).

icedchai 4y ago

If you google "VMS Liberation Front", your licensing problems will be solved.

huslage 4y ago
Next we need a z/OS Liberation Front
- kotaKat 4y ago
  ^ This. The amount of hoops for an aspiring mainframer that just wants to poke at z/PDT and throw money at IBM is silly. They ghosted me after trying to sign up for it.
  - skissane 4y ago
    All you have to do is go to this website – https://www.ibm.com/marketplace/purchase/configuration/en/us/checkout?editionID=EIDXNMGM https://www.ibm.com/marketplace/purchase/configuration/en/us... – sign in with your IBM ID (anyone can create one), and provide your details, and give your credit card number. I've successfully done it up to the step where you give your credit card, I haven't taken it further because I'm not sufficiently interested in this to justify to myself giving IBM so much money. One thing I noticed – IBM does not want individual consumers as customers, only enterprises. If you say they live in the US, the order form says "IBM products are only available for commercial, academic, public, research, or other organizational use", and asks you for an organisation name. I am in Australia, so I give my country of Australia and home address, it then asks me to certify I am buying it for a business, and won't let the order process continue unless I tick it. For Australian orders, it also asks for an Australian Business Number (ABN), which you get from the government when you register a business with them. (Government agencies, and educational/religious/charitable/nonprofit/etc institutions, and trusts, are also eligible for them.) I guess the US equivalent would be an IRS EIN, or a DUNS number, but the US order form doesn't ask for one, just an organisation name. Anyone in Australia, can get an ABN, but you have to tell the government you are running a business, and in theory they can revoke it if you aren't a real business (and occasionally they actually have). However, another way to get an ABN – anyone can incorporate a company, and when you do you get an Australian Company Number (ACN), and anyone with an ACN is automatically entitled to an ABN (the ABN is just the ACN with a couple of checksum digits prefixed). I actually own a company, which does nothing and has never done anything – one day I was daydreaming about starting my own business, so I created a corporation, and then I daydreamed a bit more, and then I parked the idea – but I pay US$200 a year to the government to keep my corporation alive, so I have a legitimate ABN to give them through that. There is no legal requirement for a corporation to do anything, a "shelf corporation" which stays forever dormant and just pays the annual fees (and engages in a few other pro forma annual legal rituals) is legally just as valid as a billion dollar company If I gave them my credit card number, and let them charge all that $$$ to it – I expect they'd process the order. How are they supposed to know that my "business", despite being a real legal corporation, is actually just a "fantasy daydream business" not a real one? I don't see how they could tell. (I mean, I could be an independent contractor/consultant/freelancer working through that corporation, rather than a full-time employee – and maybe one day I shall be.) They could cancel the order and give me the $$$ back instead of fulfilling it, but I'd be surprised if they did that. Indeed, ex-IBM employee Colin Paice in Scotland reports successfully buying it from them – https://colinpaice.blog/2020/06/29/getting-z-os-installed-on-my-ubuntu-laptop/ https://colinpaice.blog/2020/06/29/getting-z-os-installed-on... – I guess one thing that may help – don't say it is for a hobby or personal use, claim it is for a business (which if you think about it, doesn't even have to be a lie – tell yourself a story about how you are going to use this to develop software to sell people, and if you believe your own story, that makes it true – who knows, believing in it might even make it happen – and if it doesn't ever actually happen, well a lot of businesses fail, often even just as they are getting started...)
- Koshkin 4y ago
  OS/370 is all we will ever need.
- skissane 4y ago
  Older versions of z/OS and OS/390 are easy to come by online [0], and from what I've heard run well under Hercules–although I myself have never tried (I have run the public domain MVS 3.8J in the past, in particular the TK4- distribution of it.) Of course, downloading and running those online versions violates IBM's license agreements and quite likely violates copyright laws – but you can make your own judgement about the legal risk and ethics of that. I think getting your hands on the most recent versions – such as the latest z/OS 2.5 – is a lot harder, unless you work for IBM or an IBM customer, or you know someone who does (and who is willing to help you out, an action which may involve some risk for them). In recent years IBM has added hurdles to make unauthorised distribution harder (such as encrypting the ADCD distributions), although those hurdles are not insurmountable, they just add more work (usual story with DRM). And I think you'll find Hercules will barf on the latest versions of z/OS anyway. If you want to latest versions from IBM totally legitimately – IBM will sell you a development environment (zPDT) for US$5,540 a year. If you need it for work, could be a totally reasonable investment. If you are just doing it to muck around – well, that's an expensive hobby, although certainly there are people out there who spend more than US$5,000 a year on their hobby, and many people here earn enough they can afford it – but you'd have to really enjoy it for it to be worth it. I doubt there are many people out there who enjoy z/OS that much – although there is one retired IBM guy in Orkney, Scotland (Colin Paice), who does, and he's actually blogged about how he forked the money out and bought it [1]. [0] I think it is better not to say where publicly, in part because doing so draws attention to those places and attention might result in IBM issuing takedown notices. If you know the right search terms it is easy to find. [1] https://colinpaice.blog/2020/06/29/getting-z-os-installed-on-my-ubuntu-laptop/ https://colinpaice.blog/2020/06/29/getting-z-os-installed-on...
- jamal-kumar 4y ago
  Wasn't there that kid that IBM uses as a sort of new mascot for mainframe stuff who bought an old mainframe and got it working in his basement? [1] [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=45X4VP8CGtk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=45X4VP8CGtk

classichasclass 4y ago

I've actually got a VAXstation 3100 M76. It's fun to run it on the hardware, but most of these little VAXen have performance most charitably described as pedestrian.

the_only_law 4y ago
Yeah they later ones aren’t priced to bad on eBay. You can occasionally find some minicomputers and some of the larger VAXStations but they tend to be a lot more especially considering it would have to ship freight.
- dhosek 4y ago
  I was tempted (but fortunately didn’t succumb) to buy the IBM 4000-series minicomputer my college was decommissioning in the 90s. It would have been both cool and an overwhelming burden to have this thing.

the_only_law 4y ago

I don’t think modern OpenVMS runs on VAX anymore. But hey if you have the ever popular Itanium architecture, it will run.

sehro 4y ago
Yeh, the last OpenVMS release for VAX was 7.sommat, and hasn't been updated since. Alpha and Itanium still have active releases with mostly feature parity, tho.

jasomill 4y ago

Last I heard, VSI's agreement with HP only permits them to issue licenses for VSI OpenVMS releases, and they've never released a VAX build. So at this point, any VAX license would have to come from HP (who, AFAIK, is no longer issuing them, at least not to hobbyists).