6 ms·

OpenVMS 9.2 for x86 is finally available for hobbyists

128 points by jandeboevrie 4y ago

ninefathom 4y ago
//happy dance// ... That is all.
johndoe0815 4y ago
Finally an OS that uses all four protection rings of x86 CPUs? :)
- fredoralive 4y ago
  It seems x86 rings don't quite work like a VAX’s, so they have to emulate them. The issues you have trying to run a Real OS on a Toy CPU… (ducks)
  - johndoe0815 4y ago
    Interesting, did the VMS team publish something about the emulation? That would be interesting for my OS course...
    - fredoralive 4y ago
      The source of the bit about VMS only using 2 rings on x86 from the Wikipedia article is https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U8kcfvJ1Iec https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U8kcfvJ1Iec , which I did skim to check that source for what the differences were (it seems to be around page protection between rings[1], circa 14 minutes in). I assume it gives more information, but I don't have time to watch more of it. [1] Before I checked I was under the misunderstanding that AMD64 had just got rid of the extra rings alongside stuff like BCD instructions, so was trying to find a source for that.
  - javitron 4y ago
    I don't think OpenVMS has run on VAX for a very long time.
- pjmlp 4y ago
  Also one that doesn't follow the C church and was a pity that lost to the "freely available" UNIX derivatives, ending up supporting POSIX as well. Quite nice BASIC and Pascal compilers, and BLISS at least has facilities for proper bounds checking.
nubinetwork 4y ago
Nice, I had kindof given up on thinking they would open this up, but someone here mentioned a couple weeks ago that VMSI were waiting on compilers or something. Can't wait to try this out later this week, I haven't used VMS in years, and never had to install it... gonna be interesting.
zabzonk 4y ago
i used VMS in the very early 80s, when i was working at a college which was part of the university of london. i never cottoned on to it - that versioning file system (obviously designed to sell hard disks) and all that SYS$SYSTEM stuff (i mean - why?). and then i changed jobs somewhere else, using a dec-10, and discovered what a really horrible OS was like.
- kjellsbells 4y ago
  I feel your pain. Used to run IT at Birkbeck College and they were huge on VMS. IIRC the University of London library system at the time, Libertas, depended on VAX. As a UNIX person it was wild. But credit where it is due: that thing was bulletproof.
  - zabzonk 4y ago
    well, the vax was certainly a big upgrade from what we had before - a modular one. which frankly was a bit bizzare: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_Technology_Limited https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_Technology_Limited this was at queen elizabeth college, off high street kensington. the place i moved to with a dec-10 was middlesex poly.
  - kQq9oHeAz6wLLS 4y ago
    > that thing was bulletproof. I remember back when hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans, there was a shop running VMS for (I think) some financial institution that left a skeleton crew onsite to keep things running. They had 3 sites (if I recall) across the US, but for whatever reason they needed all 3 up as long as possible, so those guys manned the generator. They were doing live blog updates, which was pretty wild at the time. Eventually the site went offline, but the other VMS sites picked up without losing any data. Sadly, I can't find anything about this company in a few minutes of searching, so my vague memories are all I have. But I thought it was so cool that the other sites seamlessly picked up when the New Orleans site went down.
    - iam-TJ 4y ago
      "Survival of New Orleans Blog" by Michael Barnett (Interdictor) [0] on LiveJournal “We’re on the 10th and 11th floor of a corporate high rise on Poydras Ave., right near St. Charles. We have generators and tons of food and water. It is five of us total. I am not sure how the Internet connection will be affected. I have a camera and my gun. Sustained winds are 175, gusts to 215. The real danger is not the wind, it’s the storm surge the wind will be pushing into the city from the Gulf through the lake. The city might never recover. Honestly, this thing could be biblical” Starts on August 28th [1] From Baseline magazine summary [2]: That online diary, or weblog, entry was posted about noon on Sunday, Aug. 28, by Michael Barnett, a former Green Beret and business consultant to Intercosmos Media Group, the parent company of domain registrar DirectNIC and Zipa.com, a Web host. Barnett, a lifelong friend of Intercosmos chief executive officer Sigmund Solares, was holed up with his girlfriend Crystal Coleman in a data center in New Orleans’ Central Business District, an alleged safe place to ride out Hurricane Katrina. Solares hired Barnett as crisis manager for the storm. [0] https://web.archive.org/web/20050917030139/https://interdictor.livejournal.com/ https://web.archive.org/web/20050917030139/https://interdict... [1] https://web.archive.org/web/20060326000654/http://interdictor.livejournal.com/2005/08/28/ https://web.archive.org/web/20060326000654/http://interdicto... [2] https://www.baselinemag.com/business-intelligence/Diary-of-Disaster-Riding-Out-Katrina-in-the-Data-Center/ https://www.baselinemag.com/business-intelligence/Diary-of-D...
shrubble 4y ago
It's certainly a different take on operating systems... will be interesting to see if there is any interest now that you can spin it up as a VM on your KVM server box. Can't figure out the RAM needed to run it from the notes I have read, however...
- tyingq 4y ago
  From "VMS Software / Documentation / x86-64 V9.2 Installation Guide" https://docs.vmssoftware.com/vsi-openvms-x86-64-v92-installation-guide/ https://docs.vmssoftware.com/vsi-openvms-x86-64-v92-installa... 1.2.1. Recommended Settings for Virtual Machines VSI recommends that your OpenVMS virtual machine be configured with: Memory Minimum of 6 GB Minimum Number of CPUs: 2
  - PopePompus 4y ago
    How sad. VMS originally ran on a VAX 11/780 which maxed out at 8 MB. Now it apparently needs almost 1000 times more memory.
    - Aloha 4y ago
      VMS in 2020 is a vastly different beast than the VMS that ran on 11/780
      - usr1106 4y ago
        So what what has fundamentally changed? I used VMS on various types of VAXen in the mid 1980s and I liked it because of its systematically designed command line interpreter. A Unix shell is a complete mess compared to that. I switched to Unix in the late 1980s and to Linux later and found it technically more powerful. Lightweight processes, pipes and many more. Is there anything in OpenVMS that Linux is fundamentally lacking?
        lproven 4y ago
        > Is there anything in OpenVMS that Linux is fundamentally lacking? File versioning. This is bodged on in all xNixes by embedding version numbers into filenames, then writing a multi-tens-of-thousands-of-lines shell scripts to track all the versions, make loads of symlinks so programs can find them if they don't need specific revisions, occasionally add new versions and remap hundreds of links, occasionally prune old libraries, carefully manage umpteen paths to where different libraries are kept... and this is considered normal and nobody sees anything wrong with it, when in fact it's a vast ugly kludge of a hack, now fossilised as package managers and so on. All because it's a braindead filesystem.
CodeWriter23 4y ago
Does it have Rogue I mean DUNGEO ?
mrlonglong 4y ago
Yay!
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
haolez 4y ago
What's the license? Couldn't find this in the article.
- mepian 4y ago
  This one: https://vmssoftware.com/community/community-license/agreement/ https://vmssoftware.com/community/community-license/agreemen... "Subject to the terms and conditions of this Agreement and the payment of any applicable license fee, VSI grants You a non-exclusive, non-transferable revocable license to Use (as defined below) the Software in object code form as provided to you by VSI, solely for Non-commercial purposes." "Non-commercial means not used for commercial advantage, direct monetary compensation, or indirect monetary compensation."
  - kjellsbells 4y ago
    Not for "indirect monetary compensation" is vague, and worth looking at closely. Say you run curious-os.blog and take patreon or some other monetary payment, and you write a post based on your experience running this OS. Are the lawyers going to come after you?
    - BirAdam 4y ago
      I had the exact same questions running through my mind. The wording is so ambiguous that I am afraid to do anything with it.
    - phendrenad2 4y ago
      I mean, you can always email the company for clarification before you do that.
  - usr1106 4y ago
    Indirect monetary compensation. So if you become an expert in OpenVMS and later take a job to earn money using your expertise you violated the license? Just a thought. Personally I am not interested spending my hobby time on closed source. If I want to understand something I want to be able to read the source. Not that I do it every day or even every week. But having the option is valuable.
sponaugle 4y ago
A video about installing it in VMWare or KVM: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lS2u9HK6KNE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lS2u9HK6KNE
unixhero 4y ago
How does one ACTUALLY get this? There is talk of a download area, but how is it accessible?
- Aloha 4y ago
  You dont, yet I think. I registered for a hobbyist account and requested Alpha, hopefully that will lead to me getting access to the Portal to request AMD64
martinpw 4y ago
The last three rows on the table at the end of this page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenVMS https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenVMS imply V9.2 does not support AMD CPUs, and that support only comes with V9.2-1. That implies the version released here is Intel only - is that true? If so, why would that be?
- Aaron2222 4y ago
  The screenshot on the linked blog post shows V9.2 and E9.2-1 (Field Test, i.e. prerelease) available for download.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
64operator 4y ago
This would be good if it was Free Software. I just don't see any reason to give this long-obsolete and moribund system any mindshare if I'm just sharecropping for some company as a beta tester. It's the same reason I avoid Mac OS and Windows and the rest - no need to use proprietary software when the Free stuff is as good or (for my purposes) better.

128 points by jandeboevrie 4y ago

ninefathom 4y ago

//happy dance// ... That is all.

johndoe0815 4y ago

Finally an OS that uses all four protection rings of x86 CPUs? :)

fredoralive 4y ago
It seems x86 rings don't quite work like a VAX’s, so they have to emulate them. The issues you have trying to run a Real OS on a Toy CPU… (ducks)
- johndoe0815 4y ago
  Interesting, did the VMS team publish something about the emulation? That would be interesting for my OS course...
  - fredoralive 4y ago
    The source of the bit about VMS only using 2 rings on x86 from the Wikipedia article is https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U8kcfvJ1Iec https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U8kcfvJ1Iec , which I did skim to check that source for what the differences were (it seems to be around page protection between rings[1], circa 14 minutes in). I assume it gives more information, but I don't have time to watch more of it. [1] Before I checked I was under the misunderstanding that AMD64 had just got rid of the extra rings alongside stuff like BCD instructions, so was trying to find a source for that.
- javitron 4y ago
  I don't think OpenVMS has run on VAX for a very long time.
pjmlp 4y ago
Also one that doesn't follow the C church and was a pity that lost to the "freely available" UNIX derivatives, ending up supporting POSIX as well. Quite nice BASIC and Pascal compilers, and BLISS at least has facilities for proper bounds checking.

nubinetwork 4y ago

Nice, I had kindof given up on thinking they would open this up, but someone here mentioned a couple weeks ago that VMSI were waiting on compilers or something. Can't wait to try this out later this week, I haven't used VMS in years, and never had to install it... gonna be interesting.

zabzonk 4y ago

i used VMS in the very early 80s, when i was working at a college which was part of the university of london. i never cottoned on to it - that versioning file system (obviously designed to sell hard disks) and all that SYS$SYSTEM stuff (i mean - why?). and then i changed jobs somewhere else, using a dec-10, and discovered what a really horrible OS was like.

kjellsbells 4y ago
I feel your pain. Used to run IT at Birkbeck College and they were huge on VMS. IIRC the University of London library system at the time, Libertas, depended on VAX. As a UNIX person it was wild. But credit where it is due: that thing was bulletproof.
- zabzonk 4y ago
  well, the vax was certainly a big upgrade from what we had before - a modular one. which frankly was a bit bizzare: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_Technology_Limited https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_Technology_Limited this was at queen elizabeth college, off high street kensington. the place i moved to with a dec-10 was middlesex poly.
- kQq9oHeAz6wLLS 4y ago
  > that thing was bulletproof. I remember back when hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans, there was a shop running VMS for (I think) some financial institution that left a skeleton crew onsite to keep things running. They had 3 sites (if I recall) across the US, but for whatever reason they needed all 3 up as long as possible, so those guys manned the generator. They were doing live blog updates, which was pretty wild at the time. Eventually the site went offline, but the other VMS sites picked up without losing any data. Sadly, I can't find anything about this company in a few minutes of searching, so my vague memories are all I have. But I thought it was so cool that the other sites seamlessly picked up when the New Orleans site went down.
  - iam-TJ 4y ago
    "Survival of New Orleans Blog" by Michael Barnett (Interdictor) [0] on LiveJournal “We’re on the 10th and 11th floor of a corporate high rise on Poydras Ave., right near St. Charles. We have generators and tons of food and water. It is five of us total. I am not sure how the Internet connection will be affected. I have a camera and my gun. Sustained winds are 175, gusts to 215. The real danger is not the wind, it’s the storm surge the wind will be pushing into the city from the Gulf through the lake. The city might never recover. Honestly, this thing could be biblical” Starts on August 28th [1] From Baseline magazine summary [2]: That online diary, or weblog, entry was posted about noon on Sunday, Aug. 28, by Michael Barnett, a former Green Beret and business consultant to Intercosmos Media Group, the parent company of domain registrar DirectNIC and Zipa.com, a Web host. Barnett, a lifelong friend of Intercosmos chief executive officer Sigmund Solares, was holed up with his girlfriend Crystal Coleman in a data center in New Orleans’ Central Business District, an alleged safe place to ride out Hurricane Katrina. Solares hired Barnett as crisis manager for the storm. [0] https://web.archive.org/web/20050917030139/https://interdictor.livejournal.com/ https://web.archive.org/web/20050917030139/https://interdict... [1] https://web.archive.org/web/20060326000654/http://interdictor.livejournal.com/2005/08/28/ https://web.archive.org/web/20060326000654/http://interdicto... [2] https://www.baselinemag.com/business-intelligence/Diary-of-Disaster-Riding-Out-Katrina-in-the-Data-Center/ https://www.baselinemag.com/business-intelligence/Diary-of-D...

shrubble 4y ago

It's certainly a different take on operating systems... will be interesting to see if there is any interest now that you can spin it up as a VM on your KVM server box. Can't figure out the RAM needed to run it from the notes I have read, however...

tyingq 4y ago
From "VMS Software / Documentation / x86-64 V9.2 Installation Guide" https://docs.vmssoftware.com/vsi-openvms-x86-64-v92-installation-guide/ https://docs.vmssoftware.com/vsi-openvms-x86-64-v92-installa... 1.2.1. Recommended Settings for Virtual Machines VSI recommends that your OpenVMS virtual machine be configured with: Memory Minimum of 6 GB Minimum Number of CPUs: 2
- PopePompus 4y ago
  How sad. VMS originally ran on a VAX 11/780 which maxed out at 8 MB. Now it apparently needs almost 1000 times more memory.
  - Aloha 4y ago
    VMS in 2020 is a vastly different beast than the VMS that ran on 11/780
    - usr1106 4y ago
      So what what has fundamentally changed? I used VMS on various types of VAXen in the mid 1980s and I liked it because of its systematically designed command line interpreter. A Unix shell is a complete mess compared to that. I switched to Unix in the late 1980s and to Linux later and found it technically more powerful. Lightweight processes, pipes and many more. Is there anything in OpenVMS that Linux is fundamentally lacking?
      - lproven 4y ago
        > Is there anything in OpenVMS that Linux is fundamentally lacking? File versioning. This is bodged on in all xNixes by embedding version numbers into filenames, then writing a multi-tens-of-thousands-of-lines shell scripts to track all the versions, make loads of symlinks so programs can find them if they don't need specific revisions, occasionally add new versions and remap hundreds of links, occasionally prune old libraries, carefully manage umpteen paths to where different libraries are kept... and this is considered normal and nobody sees anything wrong with it, when in fact it's a vast ugly kludge of a hack, now fossilised as package managers and so on. All because it's a braindead filesystem.

CodeWriter23 4y ago

Does it have Rogue I mean DUNGEO ?

mrlonglong 4y ago

Yay!

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

haolez 4y ago

What's the license? Couldn't find this in the article.

mepian 4y ago
This one: https://vmssoftware.com/community/community-license/agreement/ https://vmssoftware.com/community/community-license/agreemen... "Subject to the terms and conditions of this Agreement and the payment of any applicable license fee, VSI grants You a non-exclusive, non-transferable revocable license to Use (as defined below) the Software in object code form as provided to you by VSI, solely for Non-commercial purposes." "Non-commercial means not used for commercial advantage, direct monetary compensation, or indirect monetary compensation."
- kjellsbells 4y ago
  Not for "indirect monetary compensation" is vague, and worth looking at closely. Say you run curious-os.blog and take patreon or some other monetary payment, and you write a post based on your experience running this OS. Are the lawyers going to come after you?
  - BirAdam 4y ago
    I had the exact same questions running through my mind. The wording is so ambiguous that I am afraid to do anything with it.
  - phendrenad2 4y ago
    I mean, you can always email the company for clarification before you do that.
- usr1106 4y ago
  Indirect monetary compensation. So if you become an expert in OpenVMS and later take a job to earn money using your expertise you violated the license? Just a thought. Personally I am not interested spending my hobby time on closed source. If I want to understand something I want to be able to read the source. Not that I do it every day or even every week. But having the option is valuable.

sponaugle 4y ago

A video about installing it in VMWare or KVM: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lS2u9HK6KNE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lS2u9HK6KNE

unixhero 4y ago

How does one ACTUALLY get this? There is talk of a download area, but how is it accessible?

Aloha 4y ago
You dont, yet I think. I registered for a hobbyist account and requested Alpha, hopefully that will lead to me getting access to the Portal to request AMD64

martinpw 4y ago

The last three rows on the table at the end of this page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenVMS https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenVMS imply V9.2 does not support AMD CPUs, and that support only comes with V9.2-1. That implies the version released here is Intel only - is that true? If so, why would that be?

Aaron2222 4y ago
The screenshot on the linked blog post shows V9.2 and E9.2-1 (Field Test, i.e. prerelease) available for download.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]

64operator 4y ago

This would be good if it was Free Software. I just don't see any reason to give this long-obsolete and moribund system any mindshare if I'm just sharecropping for some company as a beta tester. It's the same reason I avoid Mac OS and Windows and the rest - no need to use proprietary software when the Free stuff is as good or (for my purposes) better.