INFO-VAX Thu, 02 Aug 2007 Volume 2007 : Issue 420 Contents: Appending in a file Re: Appending in a file Re: Appending in a file Re: broken monitor, well sort of FP on IA64 Re: Stay on Alpha forever? Re: FP on IA64 Re: Stay on Alpha forever? Re: Installing VMS without a bootable CD-ROM drive Re: Installing VMS without a bootable CD-ROM drive Re: July the 4th Re: July the 4th Re: July the 4th Re: July the 4th Re: July the 4th Re: July the 4th Re: July the 4th Re: July the 4th Re: Kerry needs a news readerRe: Stay on Alpha forever? Re: Kerry needs a news readerRe: Stay on Alpha forever? Re: Kerry needs a news readerRe: Stay on Alpha forever? Re: Kerry needs a news readerRe: Stay on Alpha forever? Re: Kerry needs a news readerRe: Stay on Alpha forever? Re: Kerry needs a news readerRe: Stay on Alpha forever? Re: Kerry needs a news readerRe: Stay on Alpha forever? Re: Kerry needs a news readerRe: Stay on Alpha forever? Re: Kerry needs a news readerRe: Stay on Alpha forever? Re: Kerry needs a news readerRe: Stay on Alpha forever? Re: Kerry needs a news readerRe: Stay on Alpha forever? Re: Kerry needs a news readerRe: Stay on Alpha forever? Re: Kerry needs a news readerRe: Stay on Alpha forever? Re: Maximum Java Heap Size/OpenVMS Java Experiences? Re: New Python 2.5.1 kit (V1.3-0) Re: New Python 2.5.1 kit (V1.3-0) Re: New Python 2.5.1 kit (V1.3-0) Problem with STABACKIT.COM and TLZ drives Re: Problem with STABACKIT.COM and TLZ drives Re: Problem with STABACKIT.COM and TLZ drives Re: Problem with STABACKIT.COM and TLZ drives Re: Problem with STABACKIT.COM and TLZ drives Re: Stay on Alpha forever? Re: Stay on Alpha forever? Re: Stay on Alpha forever? Re: Stay on Alpha forever? Re: Stay on Alpha forever? Re: Stay on Alpha forever? Re: Stay on Alpha forever? Re: Stay on Alpha forever? Re: Stay on Alpha forever? Re: Stay on Alpha forever? Re: Stay on Alpha forever? Re: Stay on Alpha forever? Re: Stay on Alpha forever? Re: Stay on Alpha forever? Re: Stay on Alpha forever? Re: Stay on Alpha forever? Re: Stay on Alpha forever? Re: Stay on Alpha forever? Re: Stay on Alpha forever? Re: Stay on Alpha forever? Re: Stay on Alpha forever? Re: unable to dispaly actual used size after RMS CONVERT to an indexed file file Re: VMS cluster behind a *NIX firewall Re: VMS cluster behind a *NIX firewall Re: VMS cluster behind a *NIX firewall Re: VMS cluster behind a *NIX firewall Re: VMS cluster behind a *NIX firewall Re: VMS cluster behind a *NIX firewall Re: VMS cluster behind a *NIX firewall Re: What does GEM mean? Re: What does GEM mean? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 02 Aug 2007 13:16:43 -0000 From: apogeusistemas@gmail.com Subject: Appending in a file Message-ID: <1186060603.611891.242210@19g2000hsx.googlegroups.com> Hi: Is there any way in VMS to append a file with only one line command ? Anything Like this: $ write f$time() >> file.dat (I'd like avoid use open/append etc...) Thank you ! ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 2 Aug 2007 09:35:48 -0400 From: "Ken Robinson" Subject: Re: Appending in a file Message-ID: <7dd80f60708020635u708f33a5n2f4d49471b705a94@mail.gmail.com> On 8/2/07, apogeusistemas@gmail.com wrote: > Hi: > > Is there any way in VMS to append a file with only one line command ? > Anything Like this: > $ write f$time() >> file.dat > (I'd like avoid use open/append etc...) Why do you want to avoid those commands? Anyway, you can use the PIPE command: $ pipe write sys$output f$time() | append sys$pipe test.dat Ken ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 02 Aug 2007 13:57:25 GMT From: VAXman- @SendSpamHere.ORG Subject: Re: Appending in a file Message-ID: <9plsi.23$b72.16@newsfe12.lga> In article <1186060603.611891.242210@19g2000hsx.googlegroups.com>, apogeusistemas@gmail.com writes: > > >Hi: > >Is there any way in VMS to append a file with only one line command ? >Anything Like this: >$ write f$time() >> file.dat >(I'd like avoid use open/append etc...) >Thank you ! Seems silly but.... $ PIPE WRITE SYS$OUTPUT "''F$time()'" | APPEND SYS$PIPE FILE.DAT FILE.DAT must be created first. -- VAXman- A Bored Certified VMS Kernel Mode Hacker VAXman(at)TMESIS(dot)COM "Well my son, life is like a beanstalk, isn't it?" http://tmesis.com/drat.html ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 02 Aug 2007 10:12:36 -0600 From: Keith Parris Subject: Re: broken monitor, well sort of Message-ID: David J Dachtera wrote: > kiwi-red wrote: >>I have asked my local support guy, Sek, in oz and he is looking at it. >>I assume we are supported, as we keep paying the bills ;-) > > yeah - that's what we thought, also - until we called for phone support and > couldn't understand the person on the other end. Ironically, folks had the same complaints when the Customer Support Center in Atlanta first opened up -- folks said they couldn't understand the Southern accent. Some folks even hung up the phone if they were connected to a person with a Southern accent. But people learned, over time, to understand and appreciate each other. I grew up in a college town with students from all over the world, and grew to understand (and even enjoy) the variety of English accents. I taught a seminar for the DECUS user group in Budapest in 2004. They were only 10 years or so out of Communist rule and most adults (who already knew Hungarian and Russian) had already learned English as well. They said if I could have spoken English with a German or French accent they could have understood me better, but my American accent was too different and hard to understand. They had my respect and my sympathy, and we did the best we could together. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 02 Aug 2007 06:41:32 -0700 From: "Tom Linden" Subject: FP on IA64 Re: Stay on Alpha forever? Message-ID: On Thu, 02 Aug 2007 05:57:09 -0700, John Reagan wrote: > There has been only one case with me where a customer had this rather > ugly Macro-32 application on Alpha which directly manipulated the FP, > SP, etc. to emulate some PDP-11 application. I looked for about 30 > minutes and threw up my hands. I recommended they stay on Alpha or go > to a VAX emulator product. BTW, why no frame pointer? I remember Mips did something similar and it made signal handling rather cumbersome. -- PL/I for OpenVMS www.kednos.com ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 2 Aug 2007 16:11:17 +0000 (UTC) From: moroney@world.std.spaamtrap.com (Michael Moroney) Subject: Re: FP on IA64 Re: Stay on Alpha forever? Message-ID: "Tom Linden" writes: >On Thu, 02 Aug 2007 05:57:09 -0700, John Reagan wrote: >> There has been only one case with me where a customer had this rather >> ugly Macro-32 application on Alpha which directly manipulated the FP, >> SP, etc. to emulate some PDP-11 application. I looked for about 30 >> minutes and threw up my hands. I recommended they stay on Alpha or go >> to a VAX emulator product. >BTW, why no frame pointer? I remember Mips did something similar and it >made signal handling rather cumbersome. It's 'emulated'. Normal code such as 'MOVAB x,(FP)' is interpreted as 'they want to set a condition handler' and code is generated to do so, however the Itanium actually does this. Directly messing with the FP is not normal code. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 02 Aug 2007 02:11:33 -0400 From: JF Mezei Subject: Re: Installing VMS without a bootable CD-ROM drive Message-ID: <97aec$46b17597$cef8887a$10043@TEKSAVVY.COM> Doug Phillips wrote: > I still find definitions like: > $assign/sys/exec $disk2:[updates.] updir: > or such in some "old" systartup's, but maybe I used that for something > else;-) However, during an upgrade, STARTUP.COM doesn't get executed. The first phase of the upgrade will reset SYSGEN to point to another /startup file and it is that file which executes when the system reboots to continue the upgrade, and thus, none of the local logical name definitions get executed. Savesets may or may not be extracted during the first phase, so it is a gamble to know whether the upgrade will try to access savesets after the first phase (or whether there will be reboots during the procedure) ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 02 Aug 2007 08:39:44 -0700 From: Doug Phillips Subject: Re: Installing VMS without a bootable CD-ROM drive Message-ID: <1186069184.939651.234490@j4g2000prf.googlegroups.com> On Aug 2, 1:11 am, JF Mezei wrote: > Doug Phillips wrote: > > I still find definitions like: > > $assign/sys/exec $disk2:[updates.] updir: > > or such in some "old" systartup's, but maybe I used that for something > > else;-) > > However, during an upgrade, STARTUP.COM doesn't get executed. The first > phase of the upgrade will reset SYSGEN to point to another /startup file > and it is that file which executes when the system reboots to continue > the upgrade, and thus, none of the local logical name definitions get > executed. > Yes, I know how that works. The logical was defined before the update began. When it hit the reboot point, the media could be removed and the update would still succeed --- at least for all of the ones I recall. Any multi-tape updates I recall would ask for the next tape to be mounted during the current phase (before the reboot), and/or would allow you to abort to $ after the post-reboot phase completed. The MUP's are the only ones that come to mind. > Savesets may or may not be extracted during the first phase, so it is a > gamble to know whether the upgrade will try to access savesets after the > first phase (or whether there will be reboots during the procedure) I guess I was just lucky, then. I didn't copy the tapes to disk until I met the TK50 and had enough free disk to do so. I could do the tape to disk copy unattended during the day or overnight and reduce my "babysitting" time in the evening or weekend when I did the update. Once CD's came along, I no longer felt that need. Still, I have yet to think of a single update or upgrade that required the media to still be mounted after it did an auto-reboot. I don't remember any that did a second reboot without asking permission, or re- asking for the source device, either. Maybe you or someone else can name one so I can stop wracking my tired old brain? ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 2 Aug 2007 08:43:43 +0000 (UTC) From: david20@alpha2.mdx.ac.uk Subject: Re: July the 4th Message-ID: In article , david20@alpha2.mdx.ac.uk writes: >In article <1185925991.267428.175810@l70g2000hse.googlegroups.com>, AEF writes: >>On Jul 31, 1:30 pm, davi...@alpha2.mdx.ac.uk wrote: >>> In article <1185761687.729407.239...@g4g2000hsf.googlegroups.com>, AEF writes:>On Jul 29, 8:58 pm, JF Mezei wrote: >>> >> AEF wrote: >>> >> > It doesn't matter what the US does. Hamas, Hezbollah, etc., want to >>> >> > destroy the state of Israel. THEY'VE PLAINLY AND LOUDLY SAID SO! >>> >>> >> They acceptance of Israel's existance will be the RESULT of succesful >>> >> negotiations. The USA/Israel require them to accept Israel as a >>> >> pre-condition for negotiations. >>> >>> >Ridiculous. How do you negotiate with someone who wants to destroy >>> >you? I don't think Hamas or Hezbollah even wants to negotiate. Fatah >>> >maybe. >>> >>> Although Hamas doesn't officially recognise Israel they definitely want the >>> establishment of a Palestinian state and have recognised the existence of >> >>So why do they not make the right moves to make a state? They could >>have had a state numerous times. >> >>> Israel as a reality both now and after the formation of such a state >>> >>> see >>> >>> http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0,,1802862,00.html >> >>It appears that Hamas did this under pressure from Abbas according to >>this article. Now that Hamas has defeated Fatah in Gaza I suspect it >>may not mean anything anymore. >> >>And why are they still firing rockets into Israel? They got their land >>back. Why don't they stop fighting Israel and start building a >>country? >> >>> >>> and >>> >>> http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/israel-a-reality-hamas-leader-admits... >> >>This article seems to show the Hamas leader admitting Israel is here >>to stay. But they still have their priorities wrong. >> >>> >>> The only way out of this conflict is for bitter enemies to negotiate in good >>> faith. >> >>Good luck. >> >>> Who would have thought that Gerry Adam's Sinn Fein and Ian Paisley's >>> DUP could be working together in running Northern Ireland a decade ago. >> >>There's a big difference: Sinn Fein never had plans to kill all the >>Britons and take over the UK. They had much more limited objectives. >>Something about a parade in a certain town in N. Ireland and a say in >>N. Ireland matters or whatever. Anyway, I make no judgments on that >>matter in this post. I'm just pointing out the enormous difference in >>goals. Too much difference to make this analogy useful. >> >What ?????????? >You obviously know nothing about the IRA. > I suppose I had better expand on that. The provisional IRA aimed to force the British out of Northern Ireland and to setup a United Ireland. For 30 years they ran a campaign of terror involving shootings, car bombings, larger scale bombings often using Semtex, and mortar attacks. The majority of attacks took place in Northern Ireland and were targetted at British soldiers and installations, Protestant/Loyalist Areas of Northern Ireland, perceived collaborators and traitors, and the Loyalist Terrorist groups which had sprung up in reaction to the IRA actions eg the UVF Probably the most dispicable tactic used was the use of proxy-bombers see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proxy_bomb where an innocent person's family was kidnapped and threatened in order to force them to become a suicide bomber by driving a car packed with high explosives at British Army checkpoints or bases. As well as the attacks in Northern Ireland the IRA also launched a long running campaign on the mainland of the UK. This involved Attacks on civilian targets eg Railway stations - London Bridge, Docklands, Victoria station, Paddington station Airports - Multiple attacks on Heathrow Shops,Shopping centres - Harrods, Oxford street, Arndale centre in Manchester etc Pubs - Guildford pub bombing, Sussex Arms Public House in Covent garden, Kings head pub woolwich etc Bus - M62 coach bombing Economic targets - Bombing of London stock Exchange Bishopsgate bombing in the city of London Attacks on Military targets eg Hyde park bombing of Household calvalry killing two calverymen and seven horses. Regents Park bandstand bombing which killed seven bansdmen from the Royal Green Jackets as they played music to spectators. Attack on Royal Marine base in Deal in Kent resulting in death of ten bandsmen. Attacks on Governement, MPS and Queen's relatives eg Earl Mountbatten the Queen's first cousin killed by IRA bomb. Car bombing of Ian Gow MP Bomb attack on Houses of Parliment. Bomb attack on house of former prime minister Edward Heath. Brighton Hotel Bombing. British Prime Minister and cabinet escape with light injuries after the IRA blow up a bomb at the hotel where the conservative party are staying for their party conference. Several others including Margaret Tebbit wife of Norman Tebbit were left permanently disabled The prime minister Margaret Thatcher narrowly escaped death. Mortar attack on Prime Minister and Cabinet at 10 Downing street. The IRA also attacked British army bases and personnel in other parts of the world eg Germany. I think that's probably enough for now. David Webb Security team leader CCSS Middlesex University >David Webb >Security team leader >CCSS >Middlesex University > > >>> >>> David Webb >>> Security team leader >>> CCSS >>> Middlesex University >>> >>[...] >> >>AEF >> ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 2 Aug 2007 11:36:03 +0000 (UTC) From: david20@alpha2.mdx.ac.uk Subject: Re: July the 4th Message-ID: In article <1186009880.411374.178300@k79g2000hse.googlegroups.com>, AEF writes: >On Aug 1, 12:52 pm, davi...@alpha2.mdx.ac.uk wrote: >> In article <1185925991.267428.175...@l70g2000hse.googlegroups.com>, AEF writes:>On Jul 31, 1:30 pm, davi...@alpha2.mdx.ac.uk wrote: >> >> In article <1185761687.729407.239...@g4g2000hsf.googlegroups.com>, AEF writes:>On Jul 29, 8:58 pm, JF Mezei wrote: >> >> >> AEF wrote: >> >> >> > It doesn't matter what the US does. Hamas, Hezbollah, etc., want to >> >> >> > destroy the state of Israel. THEY'VE PLAINLY AND LOUDLY SAID SO! >> >> >> >> They acceptance of Israel's existance will be the RESULT of succesful >> >> >> negotiations. The USA/Israel require them to accept Israel as a >> >> >> pre-condition for negotiations. >> >> >> >Ridiculous. How do you negotiate with someone who wants to destroy >> >> >you? I don't think Hamas or Hezbollah even wants to negotiate. Fatah >> >> >maybe. >> >> >> Although Hamas doesn't officially recognise Israel they definitely want the >> >> establishment of a Palestinian state and have recognised the existence of >> >> >So why do they not make the right moves to make a state? They could >> >have had a state numerous times. >> >> >> Israel as a reality both now and after the formation of such a state >> >> >> see >> >> >>http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0,,1802862,00.html >> >> >It appears that Hamas did this under pressure from Abbas according to >> >this article. Now that Hamas has defeated Fatah in Gaza I suspect it >> >may not mean anything anymore. >> >> >And why are they still firing rockets into Israel? They got their land >> >back. Why don't they stop fighting Israel and start building a >> >country? >> >> >> and >> >> >>http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/israel-a-reality-hamas-leader-admits... >> >> >This article seems to show the Hamas leader admitting Israel is here >> >to stay. But they still have their priorities wrong. >> >> >> The only way out of this conflict is for bitter enemies to negotiate in good >> >> faith. >> >> >Good luck. >> >> >> Who would have thought that Gerry Adam's Sinn Fein and Ian Paisley's >> >> DUP could be working together in running Northern Ireland a decade ago. >> >> >There's a big difference: Sinn Fein never had plans to kill all the >> >Britons and take over the UK. They had much more limited objectives. >> >Something about a parade in a certain town in N. Ireland and a say in >> >N. Ireland matters or whatever. Anyway, I make no judgments on that >> >matter in this post. I'm just pointing out the enormous difference in >> >goals. Too much difference to make this analogy useful. >> >> What ?????????? >> You obviously know nothing about the IRA. > >Fine. Does their charter have destruction of Great Britain as a >primary goal? > As part of it's armed struggle to end Northern Ireland's status within the United Kingdom and to setup a sovereign all-island irish state the provisional IRA conducted an extensive terrorist campaign on mainland Britain. This included numerous bombings and mortar attacks aimed at killing British prime ministers, cabinet officials and other members of the British Government. So yes. By definition since Northern Ireland is part of the United Kingdom they were seeking the destruction of the United Kingdom and to further that aim they sought the destruction of the British Government, its armed forces and murdered its citizens. David Webb Security team leader CCSS Middlesex University >> >> David Webb >> Security team leader >> CCSS >> Middlesex University >> >> >> David Webb >> >> Security team leader >> >> CCSS >> >> Middlesex University >> >> >[...] >> >> >AEF > > ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 2 Aug 2007 11:44:43 +0000 (UTC) From: david20@alpha2.mdx.ac.uk Subject: Re: July the 4th Message-ID: In article <1186010329.495752.168100@19g2000hsx.googlegroups.com>, AEF writes: >On Aug 1, 6:15 pm, Dirk Munk wrote: >> Ron Johnson wrote: >> > On 07/30/07 02:15, Dirk Munk wrote: >> >> JF Mezei wrote: >> >>> AEF wrote: >> >>>> It doesn't matter what the US does. Hamas, Hezbollah, etc., want to >> >>>> destroy the state of Israel. THEY'VE PLAINLY AND LOUDLY SAID SO! >> >>> They acceptance of Israel's existance will be the RESULT of succesful >> >>> negotiations. The USA/Israel require them to accept Israel as a >> >>> pre-condition for negotiations. >> >> The state of Israel exists since the UN more or less established it in >> >> 1948. The existence of the state of Israel or acceptance of this fact is >> >> not negotiable. >> >> >> Almost no one in the middle east is interested in solving the conflict >> >> between Israel and the Palestinians. Why not? Simple, corrupt and >> >> autocratic leaders love to use this conflict to distract their own >> >> people from the problems in their own country. It is the oldest game in >> >> politics, find something abroad to distract the attention of the people >> >> from your own failures. And it works perfectly. Poverty in your own >> >> country? Look at the Americans and Europeans! They help the Israeli >> >> against the Palestinians! They hate Muslems! That is why we are poor! >> >> >> Who is paying the salaries of the Palestinian civil servants? Not the >> >> rich Arab countries or other "Muslem brother states". No, the US and the >> >> EU, those damned friends of Israel. >> >> > A man after my own heart. >> >> > Are you *sure* that you are European? Or were you stolen at birth >> > from a Texas hospital and spirited across the pond? >> >> Quite sure, thanks. :-) >> >> There is no such thing as "the Palestinians". In recent times there has >> never been a consolidated Palestinian leadership. There is Fatah, rotten >> and corrupt to the core, and there is Hamas. The problem is that Hamas >> is doing a lot of good things for the Palestinian people with money from >> rather unpleasant Arab states. They have hospitals, social care, schools >> and so on. In return they have to preach hatred against Israel and >> destabilize any peace process. You get nothing for free. Besides these >> two there are all kind of other Palestinians groups out of control by >> the two main parties. In the middle of this is the poor Palestinian >> people, and I do mean that. The average Palestinian man woman or child >> hasn't seen peace or happiness in decades. Generations grew up in >> misery. They are used as pawns in a very cynical political chess game. >> >> >> Now Israel isn't doing very much to improve the situation either. If you >> >> are a Palestinian or a Israeli citizen of Arab origin, and you can't get >> >> water from the tap while Jewish people are splashing in their private >> >> swimming pool just a few hundred yards from your home, you will not get >> >> the idea that you get treated fairly by the Israeli government. And this >> >> is just a small example of the rather foolish way Israel is fueling the >> >> conflict. >> >> > This is interesting and sad. Do you have a reference, so that I >> > might get more detail? >> >> Now you know why I am from Europe and not the US. The Netherlands have >> always strongly supported Israel in its struggle to survive, and that >> included for instance sending Patriot missiles to Israel during the >> first Gulf war. I totally agree with this all. However we also see that >> Israel is not treating its Arab citizens or the Palestinians the way it >> should, far from it. That is what we also get to see on television and >> in newspapers over here, not just pro Israel talk. The water problem is >> just a very small example. Israel does numerous unnecessary small things >> (and big things as well) that make life for Arabs very unpleasant. In > >Can you please give some detail on this water problem? If you're >talking about when Israel was still in Gaza, well, they're out now. >The Gazans can have that water all to themselves. If not, please do >tell. > >And what are all these things to make life unpleasant for its Arab >population? > >Also, the Palestinians (or whatever you choose to call them -- I see >your point, but we have to call them something!) have had several >chances to have their own state and blew every single one. I also love >how whenever Israel "withdrew" from the West bank the P's violence >against Israel increased. Not a real good incentive for the Israelis >leave! > >> the end this attitude will backfire and Israel will regret this stupidity. >> >> By the way, did you know that not even all Jews are treated equal in >> Israel? There are 'classes' of Jews, it all depends where your family >> came from. Did they come from some poor underdeveloped country, and they >> hardly had any education? Then you are a second class Jew I'm afraid. > >Never heard of this. Can you elaborate? Just exactly how are they >treated differently? > see for instance http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/51a/093.html (This is mostly about the Palestinians but you can ignore that if you wish and look towards the end about the stratification of Jewish society. Ethiopian and Yemeni Jews being at the bottom of Jewish society). David Webb Security team leader CCSS Middlesex University >AEF > ------------------------------ Date: 2 Aug 2007 12:31:06 GMT From: bill@cs.uofs.edu (Bill Gunshannon) Subject: Re: July the 4th Message-ID: <5he14aF3hs6srU1@mid.individual.net> In article , Dirk Munk writes: > > By the way, did you know that not even all Jews are treated equal in > Israel? There are 'classes' of Jews, it all depends where your family > came from. Did they come from some poor underdeveloped country, and they > hardly had any education? Then you are a second class Jew I'm afraid. So, what are you saying? That there are no "classes" in the Netherlands? I've been there, I know better. The only places that have ever claimed to have eliminated "classes" were the communist countries and anyone who was not blind saw what a lie that was. (Hint: when did you ever see a picture of Gorbachev standing in line for his daily bread?) bill -- Bill Gunshannon | de-moc-ra-cy (di mok' ra see) n. Three wolves bill@cs.scranton.edu | and a sheep voting on what's for dinner. University of Scranton | Scranton, Pennsylvania | #include ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 2 Aug 2007 13:17:01 +0000 (UTC) From: david20@alpha2.mdx.ac.uk Subject: Re: July the 4th Message-ID: In article <1186010758.279252.53060@22g2000hsm.googlegroups.com>, AEF writes: >On Jul 31, 9:01 pm, davi...@alpha2.mdx.ac.uk wrote: >> In article <1185845107.304275.215...@22g2000hsm.googlegroups.com>, AEF writes: >> >> >On Jul 30, 1:41 pm, davi...@alpha2.mdx.ac.uk wrote: >> >> In article <1185733582.741490.41...@d55g2000hsg.googlegroups.com>, AEF writes: >> >> >> >On Jul 29, 1:22 pm, JF Mezei wrote: >> >> >> Ron Johnson wrote: >> >> >> > The whole "they'll like us when we stop supporting Israel" idea is a >> >> >> > steaming pile of shit. >> >> >> >> You wouldn't be able to grasp more evolved concepts such as "our blind >> >> >> support for Israel prevents establishement of a real peace in middle >> >> >> east". It is VERY different than what you stated above. >> >> >> >More bologna from you. It is the Arab's refusal to accept even the >> >> >existence of Israel that prevents the establishment of real peace. >> >> >Again, I shouldn't have implied all Arabs. Those who offered >> >diplomatic relations (or whatever the phrase is) for returning to the >> >1967 borders took a big step in the right direction, though I think >> >that offer also has some serious sticking points (at least one, >> >anyway). >> >> >> Are you really that ignorant of the situation ? >> >> Yasser Arafat and the PLO accepted Israels right to exist over a decade ago !! >> >> This was formally confirmed when Arafat exchanged letters of PLO-Israel >> >> recognition with the Yitzhak Rabin in 1993. >> >> >> See http://www.earlham.edu/~pss/yasser_arafat.htm >> >> >See >> >> > http://www.faithsforfairness.org/article4.htm >> >> >for the opposing viewpoint. >> >> I like the last line >> >> " >> Now that Arafat is dead, there are expectations of establishing a democratic >> and peaceful Palestinian state. >> " >> >> As I said before you can find pages on the web about the Palestine-Israeli >> conflict with all kinds of biases. One persons terrorist is another persons >> freedom fighter. In many many cases terrorists have gone on to become >> politians eg >> >> Nelson Mandela - Head of the ANC's armed wing > >I don't know the details, but I don't think he murdered all the whites >after winning S. Africa. If the P's defeated Israel, they would kill >all the Jews, or at least throw them out tout de suite! > Do you really believe that such a genocide could ever happen in the full glare of world attention ? As I've said before the statements of terrorist groups as to their demands often differ considerably from what they will eventually accept. Hard line policies and hyperbole about total destruction of the enemy are used to attract support and recruits. In a negotiated settlement noone ever ends up with what they initially demand - hence it pays to start out demanding much more than you will eventually accept. Unfortunately that also means that such negotiations, even in the cases where the final solution is pretty much obvious from the start, take a long time and a lot of effort to achieve as each party tries to appease their own hardliners and tries not to be appear to be weakly accepting what the otherside offers. >> Martin McGuiness - Second in command of provisional IRA in Derry in 1972 >> (Now Deputy first minister of Northern Ireland) > >Sorry, I'm not up on the IRA. > >> >> Menachem Begin - Leader of Irgun terrorist group which blew up buses and >> famously the King David Hotel in 1946 in it's campagn >> against both the British and Arabs in Palestine. >> (Became Israeli Prime minister in 1977). > >Well, there's some controversy about exactly what happened and why. >There was a lot of fighting among the Jews, Arabs, and Britons in >Palestine at the time. > These are just examples of terrorists/freedom fighters who later became "respected" polititians. There will always be controversy since some see them as terrorists whereas others see them as freedom fighters. However they were all senior figures in organisations which used terrorist tactics against their opponents and "innocent" civilians. >Note that the Palestinians had numerous opportunities to have their >own state. They didn't take it because too many Arabs and/or P's were >more interested in destroying Israel and its Jews than anything else. > >I don't think the ones you mention above were ever offered anything as >good. Did Britain ever offer N. Ireland in its entirety to the IRA and >were turned down? Such a solution was not offered since catholic/nationalists were only part of the population of Northern Ireland and the majority protestant/ loyalists would never have accepted such a solution. In effect though such a solution had been implemented in the 1920s which setup the Irish Free state in the south of the island of ireland (which later became the Republic of ireland - Eire). The six-counties in the north-east of the island could in theory have joined the Irish Free State at that time but the protestant majority in those counties feared discrimination by the catholics who formed a majority in the south and opted to remain part of the United Kingdom - thus creating Northern Ireland. >Did the white rulers of S. Africa ever offer to >eliminate the Arpartheid and were turned down? The offer was made under F.W. De Klerk and accepted. This paved the way for a new constitution and multiracial elections which ended the conflict. David Webb Security team leader CCSS Middlesex University > >> >> David Webb >> Security team leader >> CCSS >> Middlesex University >> >> >[...] >> >> >AEF > > ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 2 Aug 2007 15:07:45 +0000 (UTC) From: david20@alpha2.mdx.ac.uk Subject: Re: July the 4th Message-ID: In article <1186012512.864170.256570@k79g2000hse.googlegroups.com>, AEF writes: >On Jul 31, 7:45 pm, davi...@alpha2.mdx.ac.uk wrote: >> In article <1185840161.601200.18...@b79g2000hse.googlegroups.com>, AEF writes: >> >> >On Jul 30, 1:41 pm, davi...@alpha2.mdx.ac.uk wrote: >> >> In article <1185733582.741490.41...@d55g2000hsg.googlegroups.com>, AEF writes: >> >> >> >On Jul 29, 1:22 pm, JF Mezei wrote: >> >> >> Ron Johnson wrote: >> >> >> > The whole "they'll like us when we stop supporting Israel" idea is a >> >> >> > steaming pile of shit. >> >> >> >> You wouldn't be able to grasp more evolved concepts such as "our blind >> >> >> support for Israel prevents establishement of a real peace in middle >> >> >> east". It is VERY different than what you stated above. >> >> >> >More bologna from you. It is the Arab's refusal to accept even the >> >> >existence of Israel that prevents the establishment of real peace. >> >> >> Are you really that ignorant of the situation ? >> >> Yasser Arafat and the PLO accepted Israels right to exist over a decade ago !! >> >> This was formally confirmed when Arafat exchanged letters of PLO-Israel >> >> recognition with the Yitzhak Rabin in 1993. >> >> >Right. That was a big step forward ... NOT! I heard they still had it >> >in their charter to destroy Israel and move in. >> >> Then you heard wrong. The charter was formally revised in the presence of >> Bill Clinton in 1998. >> >> From http://www.adl.org/israel/advocacy/glossary/plo.asp >> >> " >> Following secret negotiations with Israel in Oslo, on September 9, 1993, Arafat >> sent a letter to Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin recognizing Israel's >> right to exist, renouncing terrorism, and pledging to remove clauses in the >> Palestine National Charter calling for the destruction of Israel. In return, >> Israel recognized the PLO as the "official representative" of the Palestinian >> people and began formal negotiations with the PLO. The Charter was revised in >> the presence of U.S. President Bill Clinton in December 1998. However, the >> original Charter is still featured on some Palestinian Authority Web sites. >> " >> >> which you might note is an Israeli advocacy site. > >Fine, but what about this from the site I gave earlier > >http://www.faithsforfairness.org/article4.htm > >[begin quote] > >[...] > >During the 1980's, Arafat settled in Tunisia, after the PLO was forced >out of Lebanon. There, he continued to direct violence against Israel >from afar until the Oslo Accords in 1993 allowed the PLO to return to >the West Bank and Gaza. The world believed that the Middle East was >finally on its way to peace, but Arafat's message to his people was >quite the opposite. Under Arafat's control, government-sponsored >Palestinian school textbooks denied Israel's right to exist and Muslim >clerics were encouraged to call for "Jihad" or Holy War. Throughout >this period, Arafat personally solicited and accepted money from >Saddam Hussein and Saudi Arabia to pay the families of suicide >bombers. > I've no idea how accurate this portrayal of Arafat's actions is. However since after the signing of the Oslo agreements Israeli settlement expansion accelerated to 5 times it's original rate it wouldn't be surprising if the Palestininans quickly became disillusioned. see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oslo_peace_accords The history of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict (like the northern ireland process) is often a case of two steps forward followed by one,two or even three steps back by all parties. >In June 2002, the United States conceded that peace could never be >obtained while Arafat was in power. That conclusion was reached after >the Camp David Summit of 2000 where Arafat rejected proposals that met >97% of his demands without making a single concession or counter >offer. Arafat knew that a peace agreement would mark the end of his >absolute authority. Once the Palestinians were granted an independent >state, they would want the right to choose their own leaders in an >honest, fair election and establish a society that allowed them to >live in freedom. > >[...] > >[end quote] > >It appears he says one thing and does another. I could swear I heard >or read a report that he never removed the destroy Israel bit from the >PLO's charter. Still, he says he renounces terrorism but does more >terrorism anyway. If there's another side to the above two paragraphs, >please post it. > >> >> > Yes, I painted with >> >too broad a brush. Many Arabs do recognize the existence of Israel, >> >hence the Arab League's move to recognize it, relations, etc., if >> >Israel would move back to the 1967 borders. >> >> >But the PLO isn't really much of a factor now. OK, Fatah is, and there >> >is *some* hope with them. >> >> To all intents and purposes Fatah is the PLO. From >> >> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fatah#History >> >> " >> Fatah joined the PLO and won the leadership role in 1969, after which the >> other constituent members the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and >> the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine were marginalized. >> " > >Yeah, but I think of Fatah as having descended from the PLO. It seems >so much different without Arafat. > >> >> >And actions speak louder than words. And >> >Hezbollah and Hamas certainly don't even pretend to recognize Israel. >> >> As I mentioned in another post Hamas have made nods in the direction of >> recognising Israel but only as part of a final solution when a Palestinian >> state has been established. Having seen that it made little difference to >> Israels treatment of Arafat and his moderates it probably doesn't make much >> sense for the Hamas leadership to risk upsetting it's more hardline supporters. >> This is similar to Sinn Fein and the IRAs quandry over disarmament in Northern >> Ireland - something which only happened at the end of the peace process. >> >> >> See http://www.earlham.edu/~pss/yasser_arafat.htm >> >> >Looks like a biased write-up to me. Even if the write-up is truthful, >> >other Arabs continued to cause trouble as the same write-up says. I'm >> >sure you can find write-ups of Arafat biased totally in the other >> >direction. I see no reason to go with this one. >> >> If you look on the web for pages on the Israel-palestinian conflict you can >> find pages biased in every possible way. However since I was only referencing >> that page to support the fact that Arafat had accepted Israels right to exist >> and had signed an agreement to that effect with Yitzhak Rabin it's slant on >> events is irrelevent unless you believe that event did not take place. > >But he continued his terrorists ways after. See above. Says one thing >-- does another. > Recognising Israel's right to exist does not equate with surrendering. Until a final settlement is achieved it is very easy for ill considered actions by either side - or considered actions by hawks on either side - to restart hostilities. However in the main points agreed at one point in time by two parties tend to be conserved in subsequent agreements between those parties. Hence any future agreements between Fatah and Israel would almost certainly re-affirm Fatah's acceptance of Israel's right to exist. Unfortunately Hamas was never a partner in that agreement and , unlike in Ireland where the hardliners of the "real IRA" were marginalised, has gained in power and influence. David Webb Security team leader CCSS Middlesex University >[...] > >> David Webb >> Security team leader >> CCSS >> Middlesex University >[...] > >AEF > ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 02 Aug 2007 10:44:22 -0500 From: Ron Johnson Subject: Re: July the 4th Message-ID: On 08/02/07 08:17, david20@alpha2.mdx.ac.uk wrote: [snip] >> > Do you really believe that such a genocide could ever happen in > the full glare of world attention ? As I've said before the > statements of terrorist groups as to their demands often differ > considerably from what they will eventually accept. Hard line > policies and hyperbole about total destruction of the enemy are > used to attract support and recruits. In a negotiated settlement > noone ever I've "always" thought that such hyperbole is a bad strategy. This a because, even though the leaders will eventually compromise because they want to retain some power, if there are enough True Believers and they are radicalized enough, they'll splinter and won't compromise. I saw this in the American Pro-Life movement. -- Ron Johnson, Jr. Jefferson LA USA Give a man a fish, and he eats for a day. Hit him with a fish, and he goes away for good! ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 2 Aug 2007 17:32:29 +0000 (UTC) From: david20@alpha2.mdx.ac.uk Subject: Re: July the 4th Message-ID: In article , Ron Johnson writes: >On 08/02/07 08:17, david20@alpha2.mdx.ac.uk wrote: >[snip] >>> >> Do you really believe that such a genocide could ever happen in >> the full glare of world attention ? As I've said before the >> statements of terrorist groups as to their demands often differ >> considerably from what they will eventually accept. Hard line >> policies and hyperbole about total destruction of the enemy are >> used to attract support and recruits. In a negotiated settlement >> noone ever > >I've "always" thought that such hyperbole is a bad strategy. This a >because, even though the leaders will eventually compromise because >they want to retain some power, if there are enough True Believers >and they are radicalized enough, they'll splinter and won't >compromise. I saw this in the American Pro-Life movement. > Yes that is always a risk. In the case of Northern Ireland the hardliners who would not accept the peace process split off to form the Real IRA. They then carried out the Omagh bombing which caused such revulsion around the world that they were forced into calling a ceasefire. Although they later attempted to restart their campaign firstly on the UK mainland and then later resuming actions in Northern Ireland they had been severely weakened and became increasingly marginalised. If a reasonably peaceful co-existence can be established for long enough a tipping point seems to occur where actions by such hardline splinter groups which previously would have derailed the process instead end up marginalising the hardliners. David Webb Security team leader CCSS Middlesex University >-- >Ron Johnson, Jr. >Jefferson LA USA > >Give a man a fish, and he eats for a day. >Hit him with a fish, and he goes away for good! ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 02 Aug 2007 02:16:50 -0400 From: JF Mezei Subject: Re: Kerry needs a news readerRe: Stay on Alpha forever? Message-ID: Main, Kerry wrote: >> -----Original Message----- >> From: David J Dachtera [mailto:djesys.no@spam.comcast.net] >> Sent: August 1, 2007 10:29 PM >> To: Info-VAX@Mvb.Saic.Com >> Subject: Re: Kerry needs a news readerRe: Stay on Alpha forever? >> >> "Main, Kerry" wrote: >> > > > [snip...] > >> Notice the quote indicators. There's only one at the beginning of >> the sentence >> above; the rest of the lines break where Netscape thought they >> should (as I'm >> seeing it, writing this reply), but came into the news-server as >> one long line. >> >> So, yes - that is how the Usenet world is seeing your posts. >> >> -- >> David J Dachtera >> dba DJE Systems >> http://www.djesys.com/ > > > I have set my client to wrap at 76 characters, so it seems various newsreaders interpret things differently or Info-VAX is not handling it correctly. This is what this message looked like (as it was propagated in NNTP world) > I have set my client to wrap at 76 characters, so it seems various newsread= > ers interpret things differently or Info-VAX is not handling it correctly. > > As I mentioned before, based on offline feedback I received awhile ago, oth= > ers with different newsreaders seem to have no issues. So yes, your stupid Microsoft junk does wrap the actual raw data, but it doesn't wrap the lines, it adds a "join next line to the end of this line" "=" sign at the end of each line. So when the newsreader reconstructs your message, it puts it all back onto the same line. And when it saves the text to a local file, it is saved as on line per paragraph. Microsoft truly does not want to adhere to internet standards at all. > As I mentioned before, based on offline feedback I received awhile ago, others with different newsreaders seem to have no issues. > > Regards > > > Kerry Main > Senior Consultant > HP Services Canada > Voice: 613-592-4660 > Fax: 613-591-4477 > kerryDOTmainAThpDOTcom > (remove the DOT's and AT) > > OpenVMS - the secure, multi-site OS that just works. > > > > > ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 02 Aug 2007 02:20:54 -0400 From: JF Mezei Subject: Re: Kerry needs a news readerRe: Stay on Alpha forever? Message-ID: <939b2$46b177c7$cef8887a$11677@TEKSAVVY.COM> Main, Kerry wrote: > Others have stated they have had no issues with my posts. Many news readers have kludges to handle the poorly formatted Microsoft junk posts. Many web browsers have kludges to handle the non-standard microsoft pretend-HTML pages. But it doesn't mean it is right. Standards exist to ensure ANY software can access/process the data. Microsoft wants only its own software to be able to access its own software, and it thinks it will force others to buy Microsoft junk once they get tired of not being able to access web sites produced by Microsoft software. (or by getting companies such as Bell Canada to prevent you from accessing their web pages oif you don't have a microsoft browser). ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 02 Aug 2007 05:08:28 -0500 From: Ron Johnson Subject: Re: Kerry needs a news readerRe: Stay on Alpha forever? Message-ID: On 08/02/07 01:16, JF Mezei wrote: [snip] > > Microsoft truly does not want to adhere to internet standards at all. > Stop agreeing with me!!!! It's bad for my image! -- Ron Johnson, Jr. Jefferson LA USA Give a man a fish, and he eats for a day. Hit him with a fish, and he goes away for good! ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 02 Aug 2007 05:10:41 -0500 From: Ron Johnson Subject: Re: Kerry needs a news readerRe: Stay on Alpha forever? Message-ID: On 08/01/07 22:12, Main, Kerry wrote: [snip] > > Others have stated they have had no issues with my posts. > But Outlook's wrongness ruins it for the rest of us who use RFC-compliant readers. -- Ron Johnson, Jr. Jefferson LA USA Give a man a fish, and he eats for a day. Hit him with a fish, and he goes away for good! ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 02 Aug 2007 05:45:46 -0700 From: "Tom Linden" Subject: Re: Kerry needs a news readerRe: Stay on Alpha forever? Message-ID: On Wed, 01 Aug 2007 18:16:16 -0700, Main, Kerry wrote: > >> -----Original Message----- >> From: Tom Linden [mailto:tom@kednos.company] >> Sent: August 1, 2007 9:01 PM >> To: Info-VAX@Mvb.Saic.Com >> Subject: Kerry needs a news readerRe: Stay on Alpha forever? >> >> Kerry, no insult intended, but your posts always come out of order, >> almost >> a non sequitur. Please get a news reader. Try Opera, use >> news.individual.net >> or please stop posting. Most annoying. >> >> On Wed, 01 Aug 2007 17:43:19 -0700, Main, Kerry >> wrote: >> > > Tom - I thought top posting was bad form? > > Based on offline feedback from others on this list, they do not have > issues with the postings, so I suspect the issue you are having is with > your client or the way Info-VAX is processing replies. Well, if you consider it, I wasn't top-posting, since I created a new subject. It was my error to have included superfluos text from the previous post. This group has a penchant for meandering without changing the subject, and I find it convenient with my newsreader, Opera, to wipe out entire trees, for subjects which I have no interest in. But when you post through Info-VAX it doesn't appear as a descendant but as a new root. Maybe other newsreaders don't have this capability, I don't know. > > Regards > > > Kerry Main > Senior Consultant > HP Services Canada > Voice: 613-592-4660 > Fax: 613-591-4477 > kerryDOTmainAThpDOTcom > (remove the DOT's and AT) > > OpenVMS - the secure, multi-site OS that just works. > > > -- PL/I for OpenVMS www.kednos.com ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 02 Aug 2007 05:58:49 -0700 From: "Tom Linden" Subject: Re: Kerry needs a news readerRe: Stay on Alpha forever? Message-ID: On Thu, 02 Aug 2007 03:10:41 -0700, Ron Johnson wrote: Kerry, stop using Outlook to post to Info-VAX. I did. Install Opera or whatever that has a news reader, you will be happier for it, and so will we. -- PL/I for OpenVMS www.kednos.com ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 02 Aug 2007 09:06:05 -0400 From: "Richard B. Gilbert" Subject: Re: Kerry needs a news readerRe: Stay on Alpha forever? Message-ID: <46B1D6BD.9090404@comcast.net> Michael Moroney wrote: > David J Dachtera writes: > > >>"Main, Kerry" wrote: >> >>>Tom - I thought top posting was bad form? >>> >>>Based on offline feedback from others on this list, they do not have issues with the postings, so I suspect the issue you are having is with your client or the way Info-VAX is processing replies. >>> >> > >>Notice the quote indicators. There's only one at the beginning of the sentence >>above; the rest of the lines break where Netscape thought they should (as I'm >>seeing it, writing this reply), but came into the news-server as one long line. > > >>So, yes - that is how the Usenet world is seeing your posts. > > > Kerry's posts are "quoted-printable" so they still appear as the Microsoft > standard superlong line if you use a news reader that supports it. If > yours doesn't, the lines are broken up oddly with strange equal signs > added, like this: > > (quote) > Based on offline feedback from others on this list, they do not have issues= > with the postings, so I suspect the issue you are having is with your clie= > nt or the way Info-VAX is processing replies. > (end quote) > > Kerry's posts don't have a References: header, which is very bad and > breaks threading, and this is the cause of the initial complaint. > I don't know if this is solvable using Info-VAX. > > If you have to use Outhouse, I think there is a "post as straight text" > setting somewhere. I'm using the Netscape Mail/News client under Windows/XP and I've never noticed any problems with Kerry's posts! ------------------------------ Date: 2 Aug 2007 13:37:23 GMT From: bill@cs.uofs.edu (Bill Gunshannon) Subject: Re: Kerry needs a news readerRe: Stay on Alpha forever? Message-ID: <5he50jF3jrc6tU1@mid.individual.net> In article , "Main, Kerry" writes: > >> -----Original Message----- >> From: Tom Linden >> Sent: August 1, 2007 9:01 PM >> To: Info-VAX@Mvb.Saic.Com >> Subject: Kerry needs a news readerRe: Stay on Alpha forever? >> >> Kerry, no insult intended, but your posts always come out of order, >> almost >> a non sequitur. Please get a news reader. Try Opera, use >> news.individual.net >> or please stop posting. Most annoying. >> >> On Wed, 01 Aug 2007 17:43:19 -0700, Main, Kerry >> wrote: >> > > Tom - I thought top posting was bad form? Sometimes that's where the answer belongs. Of course you could then cut the majority of the rest if it is irrelevant. > > Based on offline feedback from others on this list, they do not have issues= > with the postings, so I suspect the issue you are having is with your clie= > nt or the way Info-VAX is processing replies. Well, here's another vote along with Tom. I especially don't like the fact that your replies take an address from the headefrs and create a "mailto:" from it even when it is not a valid email address and just gives the spammers more machines thay can annoy. You really shold try to find a real news reader and a real news server to read from. Tom mentioned news.individual.net. I use it and second that suggestion. The cost is trivial and the service excellent. bill -- Bill Gunshannon | de-moc-ra-cy (di mok' ra see) n. Three wolves bill@cs.scranton.edu | and a sheep voting on what's for dinner. University of Scranton | Scranton, Pennsylvania | #include ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 02 Aug 2007 06:42:40 -0700 From: "Tom Linden" Subject: Re: Kerry needs a news readerRe: Stay on Alpha forever? Message-ID: On Thu, 02 Aug 2007 06:06:05 -0700, Richard B. Gilbert wrote: > I'm using the Netscape Mail/News client under Windows/XP and I've never > noticed any problems with Kerry's posts! > Are they properly threaded? Maybe _I_ need to change newsreader. -- PL/I for OpenVMS www.kednos.com ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 02 Aug 2007 15:00:45 +0100 From: Tom Wade Subject: Re: Kerry needs a news readerRe: Stay on Alpha forever? Message-ID: > So yes, your stupid Microsoft junk does wrap the actual raw data, but it > doesn't wrap the lines, it adds a "join next line to the end of this > line" "=" sign at the end of each line. Whereas I will agree that Outlook is one of the worst pieces of software that Microsoft ever inflicted on the world (makes Windows look like an Operating System), the above specific criticism is unfair. The line wrapping mechanism using the '=' sign is not a Microsoft 'standard'. It is Quoted-Printable encoding, and it is defined in the MIME standard RFC-1521, and one of its authors was no less a luminary than Ned Freed of PMDF fame. The problem is that older NEWS reading software does not support this standard (which dates from 1993). PMDF itself uses MIME extensively. I suppose it could have been worse - it could have used BASE64 ;-) It probably goes back to netiquette, and whether quoted-printable encoding to be considered similarly to file attachments. So, I don't think Kerry is doing anything 'unstandard', although personally, I wouldn't use Outlook to unblock a toilet (I use Mozilla Thunderbird for mail and news, with my mail folders accessed via IMAP on a VMS/PMDF server). --------------------------------------------------------- Tom Wade | EMail: tee dot wade at eurokom dot ie EuroKom | Tel: +353 (1) 296-9696 A2, Nutgrove Office Park | Fax: +353 (1) 296-9697 Rathfarnham | Disclaimer: This is not a disclaimer Dublin 14 | Tip: "Friends don't let friends do Unix !" Ireland ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 02 Aug 2007 14:17:47 +0000 From: "Paul Raulerson" Subject: Re: Kerry needs a news readerRe: Stay on Alpha forever? Message-ID: ----=_vm_0011_W631194053_6637_1186064267 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable One thing you guys are missing, I am *not* using a "newsreader" - nor do = I ever plan to use one. I see these messages as e-mail, and my local client, be that Outlook, Mai= l.app, or a web interface to Exchange or whatever, handles putting the e-= mail into nice little neat folders. These folders are synchronized over s= everal machines. I neither have reliable access to, nor do I wish to setup or pay for reli= able access to a newserver. E-Mail suites me *much* better. All this whoohaw about "meeting internet standards" is sort of "not appic= able", if you get my drift. The e-mail I send and recieve *is* compliant = with all the relevant RFCs. Now, if there are things that I can easily do to make whatever transits t= he e-mail <=3D=3D> newsgroup gateway work better for you guys, I am all f= or doing that. Such as sending messages in plain text instead of with dec= ent and most often useful formatting. Also, I have no trouble at all with= threading, except where there has been too much editing going on. I'll also point out that the "standards" this group has IRT messages are = far more local to this group than they are "universal" standards on the I= nternet. That means that every once in a while I might slip and format a = message for here the way I would format it for say, the VM list. Personal= ly, I prefer either TOP *or* BOTTOM posting, *or* an edited snippet with = a Bottom Post. Note that in the "old" days, it was considered good form to include the e= ntire posting history, because a lot of sites did not recieve all the mes= sages and you wanted to be able to reference what was said 10 or 15 posts= ago. Today, threading e-mail and (I guess) newsreader software does that= for you, so there is little need to include everything. But for heavens = sake, unless you are on a 9600bps per packed modem connection, who cares?= And yes, this message is purposely top posted because I am making a gener= al answer to several posts. I find it difficult to believe that in 2007, everyone here does not have = access to a PC, Mac, or even a Linux machine with software than can handl= e anything and everything thrown at it. For example, I've yet to see one of Kerry's messages that does *not* form= at nicely, on any of the machines I use. I even looked at it using tin on= a Linux box connecting to a newsgroup, and saw no issues. I respectfully submit that the issues under complaint most likely are bei= ng caused by factors that are not easily within the sphere of my control.= >On 08/02/07 01:16, JF Mezei wrote: >[snip] >> >> Microsoft truly does not want to adhere to internet standards at all. >> > >Stop agreeing with me!!!! It's bad for my image! > >-- >Ron Johnson, Jr. >Jefferson LA USA ----=_vm_0011_W631194053_6637_1186064267-- ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 02 Aug 2007 11:13:37 -0600 From: Mark Berryman Subject: Re: Kerry needs a news readerRe: Stay on Alpha forever? Message-ID: <46b1ae53$1@mvb.saic.com> [ The stuff that started all of this removed ] When the Info-VAX gateway was written there were no mail clients that generated (or propagated) a References header. So that was not one of the headers that the gateway looked for in a mail message to propagate into a news message. I took a look at a couple of Kerry's messages and discovered that they now contain the References header so I have added that to the list of propagated headers in the gateway. Let's see if that makes any difference. However, there is nothing I can do about the fact that Kerry's choice of client does not believe in line breaks. Mark Berryman Info-VAX admin ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 02 Aug 2007 11:22:42 -0600 From: Mark Berryman Subject: Re: Kerry needs a news readerRe: Stay on Alpha forever? Message-ID: <46b1b073@mvb.saic.com> Main, Kerry wrote: >>-----Original Message----- >>From: David J Dachtera [mailto:djesys.no@spam.comcast.net] >>Sent: August 1, 2007 10:29 PM >>To: Info-VAX@Mvb.Saic.Com >>Subject: Re: Kerry needs a news readerRe: Stay on Alpha forever? >> >>"Main, Kerry" wrote: >> > > [snip...] > > >>Notice the quote indicators. There's only one at the beginning of >>the sentence >>above; the rest of the lines break where Netscape thought they >>should (as I'm >>seeing it, writing this reply), but came into the news-server as >>one long line. >> >>So, yes - that is how the Usenet world is seeing your posts. >> >>-- >>David J Dachtera >>dba DJE Systems >>http://www.djesys.com/ > > > > I have set my client to wrap at 76 characters, so it seems various newsreaders interpret things differently or Info-VAX is not handling it correctly. > > As I mentioned before, based on offline feedback I received awhile ago, others with different newsreaders seem to have no issues. Those with graphic news readers will tend not to have an issue with the format of your posts since such readers will reformat the text based on local settings. However, those using character-cell news readers will simply see one long line of text until a paragraph break is encountered. Also, because your posts consist of one line per paragraph it tends to make quoting your posts rather difficult and this is another source of the complaints about the formats of your postings. This is a result of your choice to use a Microsoft client since Microsoft refuses to adhere to the RFCs in this regard. This post was intended simply to provide some pertinent information. What you choose to do about any of this is, of course, completely up to you. Mark Berryman ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 02 Aug 2007 09:07:31 +0200 From: "P. Sture" Subject: Re: Maximum Java Heap Size/OpenVMS Java Experiences? Message-ID: In article , norm.raphael@metso.com wrote: > "P. Sture" wrote on 08/01/2007 02:20:09 PM: > > > In article <1185990365.187329.66340@i38g2000prf.googlegroups.com>, > > sean@obanion.us wrote: > > > > > Out of sheer curiosity and thinking it would be easy, I tried to find > > > in the on-line documentation what the current maximum WSMAX value is, > > > since it looks like that's the next limit. > > > > If you do: > > > > $ MCR SYSGEN SHOW WSMAX > > > > you get something like this (taken on V8.3, Alpha) > > > > > > Parameter Name Current Default Min. Max. Unit Dynamic > > -------------- ------- ------- ------- ------- ---- ------- > > WSMAX 393216 8192 1024 134217728 Pagelets > > internal value 24576 512 64 8388608 Pages > > > > $ write sys$output 134217728/2048 ! max in megabytes > > 65536 > > > > i.e. 64 GB, for Alpha running V8.3. You should repeat this on Itanium > > to check that SYSGEN uses the same maximum value there. > > Math? > > $ say 134217728/8 !pagelets = 16 * 512bytes > 16777216 bytes > > $ say 8388608*2 !pages = 512bytes > 16777216 bytes My maths may be wrong, but you've got your pages and pagelets mixed up here. From the VMS FAQ: "On OpenVMS Alpha and on OpenVMS I64, a 512 byte area of memory- equivalent in size to an OpenVMS VAX memory page-is often refered to as a "pagelet"." > But this max_value is main-memory-dependent. > > Do you have 2GB? > Are we talking about servers or workstations here? The Alpha servers I worked with several years ago all had 2 or more GB. For the Alpha workstations I've come across, then no. -- Paul Sture Sue's OpenVMS bookmarks: http://eisner.encompasserve.org/~sture/ovms-bookmarks.html ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 02 Aug 2007 07:34:28 -0700 From: Rich Jordan Subject: Re: New Python 2.5.1 kit (V1.3-0) Message-ID: <1186065268.880480.38410@g12g2000prg.googlegroups.com> On Aug 1, 2:20 pm, Jean-Fran=E7ois Pi=E9ronne wrote: > A new Python 2.5.1 kit is available for AXP and IA64. > > OpenVMS AXP 7.3-2 and IA64 8.3 are, now, minimum version. > > This kit is a new features kit. > > # The following new libraries has been added: PycURLhttp://pycurl.sourcef= orge.net/which is a Python interface to libcurl. > # lxmlhttp://codespeak.net/lxml/which is a Pythonic binding for the > libxml2 and libxslt libraries (latest version of these libraries are > also included - libxml2 2.6.29 libxslt 1.1.21) > # OpenVMS SMG$ interface (more than 100 functions added), it include an > object interface and the low level interface > > The OpenVMS RMS module has a new routine "getfdl" to retreive a file FDL > description. > > Some modules has been upgrade to the latest version. > > # New LD images are also available: Mercurialhttp://www.selenic.com/mercu= rial/wiki/has been upgrade to the latest > snapshot > # Webware for Pythonhttp://www.webwareforpython.org/has been upgrade > to 0.9.4 > > The LD images are useful for testing or using this software on a system > where no ODS5 device is available or on which you can't install these > software using the VMS command PRODUCT. > > For more information on Python 2.5.1, please see:http://www.python.org/2.= 5=2E1/ > > For more information on Python for OpenVMS please see:http://vmspython.dy= ndns.org/ > > Jean-Fran=E7ois Pi=E9ronne Thank you for all the work on these! ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 02 Aug 2007 08:43:23 -0700 From: "Tom Linden" Subject: Re: New Python 2.5.1 kit (V1.3-0) Message-ID: On Wed, 01 Aug 2007 12:20:26 -0700, Jean-François Piéronne wrote: > A new Python 2.5.1 kit is available for AXP and IA64. > > OpenVMS AXP 7.3-2 and IA64 8.3 are, now, minimum version. > > This kit is a new features kit. > > # The following new libraries has been added: PycURL > http://pycurl.sourceforge.net/ which is a Python interface to libcurl. > # lxml http://codespeak.net/lxml/ which is a Pythonic binding for the > libxml2 and libxslt libraries (latest version of these libraries are > also included - libxml2 2.6.29 libxslt 1.1.21) > # OpenVMS SMG$ interface (more than 100 functions added), it include an > object interface and the low level interface > > The OpenVMS RMS module has a new routine "getfdl" to retreive a file FDL > description. > > Some modules has been upgrade to the latest version. > > # New LD images are also available: Mercurial > http://www.selenic.com/mercurial/wiki/ has been upgrade to the latest > snapshot > # Webware for Python http://www.webwareforpython.org/ has been upgrade > to 0.9.4 > > The LD images are useful for testing or using this software on a system > where no ODS5 device is available or on which you can't install these > software using the VMS command PRODUCT. > > For more information on Python 2.5.1, please see: > http://www.python.org/2.5.1/ > > For more information on Python for OpenVMS please see: > http://vmspython.dyndns.org/ > > Jean-François Piéronne Any plans for $ HELP PYTHON -- PL/I for OpenVMS www.kednos.com ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 02 Aug 2007 19:23:36 +0200 From: =?ISO-8859-15?Q?Jean-Fran=E7ois_Pi=E9ronne?= Subject: Re: New Python 2.5.1 kit (V1.3-0) Message-ID: <46b2131b$0$18900$426a74cc@news.free.fr> Tom Linden wrote: > > Any plans for > $ HELP PYTHON > You can do: $ python -c help() This will execute the python help. JF ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 02 Aug 2007 08:45:03 -0700 From: AEF Subject: Problem with STABACKIT.COM and TLZ drives Message-ID: <1186069503.617052.127600@x35g2000prf.googlegroups.com> Hello VMSers! [On topic!!!] I can't make standalone backup kits on my TLZ07 and TLZ09 drives. I looked at the code and it seems to have the wrong device type id for it (them). What happens is that the code decides it's a disk and takes the wrong path through itself. $ WRITE SYS$OUTPUT F$GETDVI("MKA300","DEVTYPE") 28 $ SEAR SYS$UPDATE:STABACKIT.COM TLZ07,TLZ09 $ ! TZ885, TZ887, TZ895, TZ897, TL810, TL820, TLZ07, .OR. DEV_TYPE .EQ. 60 - ! TLZ07 TAPE .OR. DEV_TYPE .EQ. 61 - ! TLZ7 LOADER for TLZ07 .OR. DEV_TYPE .EQ. 60 - ! TLZ07 TAPE $ SH DEV MKA300/FUL Magtape IDS03$MKA300:, device type DEC TLZ07, is online, record- oriented device, [...] Can I just change the 60's above to 28's or should I just not make standalone backup kits on TLZ drives and why? Thanks! AEF ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 02 Aug 2007 16:36:09 -0000 From: Volker Halle Subject: Re: Problem with STABACKIT.COM and TLZ drives Message-ID: <1186072569.711919.171360@i13g2000prf.googlegroups.com> AEF, which version of OpenVMS VAX ? OpenVMS VAX V7.3 STABACKIT.COM has ... .OR. DEV_TYPE .EQ. 28 - ! Generic SCSI tape, includes TLZ07 ... Question is, can your VAX boot from a TLZ07 ? Volker. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 02 Aug 2007 10:13:59 -0700 From: AEF Subject: Re: Problem with STABACKIT.COM and TLZ drives Message-ID: <1186074839.126441.189660@e16g2000pri.googlegroups.com> On Aug 2, 12:36 pm, Volker Halle wrote: > AEF, > > which version of OpenVMS VAX ? $ SHOW SYS/NOPROC OpenVMS V6.2 on node XXXXXX 2-AUG-2007 13:10:06.47 Uptime 0 01:49:01 $ > > OpenVMS VAX V7.3 STABACKIT.COM has > > ... > .OR. DEV_TYPE .EQ. 28 - ! Generic SCSI tape, includes TLZ07 > ... > > Question is, can your VAX boot from a TLZ07 ? > > Volker. I don't know. It shows up with a >>> SHOW DEVICES command. I can boot from a TZ30. I successfully make a Standalone Backup kit on a TZ88N- VA. Why not a TLZ07 or 09? Is there any harm in trying? Thanks. AEF ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 02 Aug 2007 10:25:55 -0700 From: Volker Halle Subject: Re: Problem with STABACKIT.COM and TLZ drives Message-ID: <1186075555.359008.217280@e16g2000pri.googlegroups.com> AEF, just give it a try. Consider to make a private copy of STABACKIT.COM and edit it to replace 60 with 28. Then see, if you can boot the TLZ07 afterwards. Volker. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 02 Aug 2007 13:43:45 -0400 From: Stephen Hoffman Subject: Re: Problem with STABACKIT.COM and TLZ drives Message-ID: AEF wrote: > [On topic!!!] [Yikes! Bad Poster! Bad!] :-) > I can't make standalone backup kits on my TLZ07 and TLZ09 drives. I > looked at the code and it seems to have the wrong device type id for > it (them). What happens is that the code decides it's a disk and takes > the wrong path through itself. ... > Can I just change the 60's above to 28's or should I just not make > standalone backup kits on TLZ drives and why? Do you have a CD burner and a CD drive? If so, send all memory of tape-based standalone BACKUP off to the scrap heap. (I'd also send memory of DDS/DAT to the same scrap heap, and swap in some used DLT or SDLT gear.) But to answer your question, yes, Generic MK or Generic TU device code was added to the list of devices, and a hand-edit of your own local copy of STABACKIT is worth a try. You're probably on a comparatively old version of OpenVMS VAX, too; if you look at a more current version you'll see an update for this added into the newer versions. Do also dig around for driver patches for MK and BACKUP for whatever version of OpenVMS VAX is in use here. The other option is to use an OpenVMS VAX V7.1 or later release to create the STABACKIT kit on tape. You can use newer OpenVMS VAX to manage standalone BACKUP for older releases. You might also try searches for STABACKIT.COM discussions; I recall this topic arising before. -- www.HoffmanLabs.com Services for OpenVMS ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 02 Aug 2007 02:23:54 -0400 From: JF Mezei Subject: Re: Stay on Alpha forever? Message-ID: Michael Moroney wrote: > Most of the VMS porting from Alpha to Itanic _is_ very straightforward > when using a higher level language. Until Oracle became available on that IA64 thing, porting Oracle applications would have required you wrie your own version of Oracle and compile it on that IA64 thing. NOT TRIVIAL. Remember that IA64 only has a subset of software (especially middleware upon which your apps may rely) of Alpha. So if your company relies on software that is known not to be ported to IA64, it won't even investigate going to IA64. As someone else said, the statements that porting to IA64 is easy are self-selecting since only those for whom a port is easy/possible will investigate it to a point where HP is aware of it. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 02 Aug 2007 09:24:31 +0200 From: "P. Sture" Subject: Re: Stay on Alpha forever? Message-ID: In article , Kilgallen@SpamCop.net (Larry Kilgallen) wrote: > In article , moroney@world.std.spaamtrap.com > (Michael Moroney) writes: > > > Do you need a performance boost now? What kind of performance boost are > > you likely to need in the future? > > Note that there are some domains where no performance boost is needed. > The best example I have heard of is the software reading toll tickets > on toll roads. That is a case where the bandwidth of the road is never > going to increase enough to tax the computer capacity. And I am quite > careful before I use the word "never". Putting a GUI on it would probably do the trick. Totally unnecessary I agree, but I wouldn't be at all surprised if someone somewhere has at least proposed it. -- Paul Sture Sue's OpenVMS bookmarks: http://eisner.encompasserve.org/~sture/ovms-bookmarks.html ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 02 Aug 2007 05:04:18 -0500 From: Ron Johnson Subject: Re: Stay on Alpha forever? Message-ID: On 08/02/07 02:24, P. Sture wrote: > In article , > Kilgallen@SpamCop.net (Larry Kilgallen) wrote: > >> In article , moroney@world.std.spaamtrap.com >> (Michael Moroney) writes: >> >>> Do you need a performance boost now? What kind of performance boost are >>> you likely to need in the future? >> Note that there are some domains where no performance boost is needed. >> The best example I have heard of is the software reading toll tickets >> on toll roads. That is a case where the bandwidth of the road is never >> going to increase enough to tax the computer capacity. And I am quite >> careful before I use the word "never". > > Putting a GUI on it would probably do the trick. Totally unnecessary I > agree, but I wouldn't be at all surprised if someone somewhere has at > least proposed it. Don't even go there. We had a beautifully fast system written in C, Rdb & DECforms. The customer wanted GUI and 3-tier C-S, though, object-oriented middleware, blah blah. So that's what they got. God, I hate customers. Especially government customers who couldn't find their arses with both hands. -- Ron Johnson, Jr. Jefferson LA USA Give a man a fish, and he eats for a day. Hit him with a fish, and he goes away for good! ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 02 Aug 2007 03:17:45 -0700 From: Neil Rieck Subject: Re: Stay on Alpha forever? Message-ID: <1186049865.463964.33450@g12g2000prg.googlegroups.com> On Aug 1, 10:13 pm, JF Mezei wrote: > Another possible avenue if the Alpha maintenance costs are too high > would be to consider buying 64 bit 8086 servers and running the Alpha > emulator (*). This will eventually give you performance boosts compared > to exists systems without the need to migrate to that IA64 thing. > Unlike PDP, VAX, and Alpha servers, most 8086 based stuff (64 bit or not) has been manufactured dirt-cheap and very rarely supports server- quality features like hardware-based error-detection on memory, caches and I/O channels. On top of this, DEC systems could always do single- bit (and sometimes 2-bit) error correction in memory. ps-1: PC motherboards supporting parity exist but most of the time parity-checking is disabled and only 8-bit chips are installed ps-2: A few months back I watched a technician "fix a problem" by disabling partity-checking in BIOS. Some people just don't get it. So I wouldn't recommend a permanent PC/emulator solution at this time. But there are plenty of new and used Alpha systems available from multiple sources so if people can't move to Itanium then they should just move to a bigger better Alpha while wait until Itanium supports all the stuff you need. Neil Rieck Kitchener/Waterloo/Cambridge, Ontario, Canada. http://www3.sympatico.ca/n.rieck/ ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 02 Aug 2007 03:34:26 -0700 From: Neil Rieck Subject: Re: Stay on Alpha forever? Message-ID: <1186050866.271931.120540@i13g2000prf.googlegroups.com> On Aug 2, 12:34 am, moro...@world.std.spaamtrap.com (Michael Moroney) wrote: [...snip...] > > Most of the VMS porting from Alpha to Itanic _is_ very straightforward > when using a higher level language. > > On the other hand, if you're going from VAX to Itanic, and using Macro, > and doing just about every crazy trick possible...let's not go there... > Do yourself a favour and start converting your Macro-32 code to C/C++ now. I did two ports from VAX to Alpha between 1999-2001. The VAX-BASIC stuff was straight forward although I decided to rewrite some code produced by some less disciplined programmers; I was slowed down a little more by converting "some highly tweaked VAX-C code to DEC-C" and "Macro-32 code to DEC-C". Now that the hard work is done I expect a port from Alpha to Itanium should be fairly easy. http://www3.sympatico.ca/n.rieck/docs/alpha_diary.html Neil Rieck Kitchener/Waterloo/Cambridge, Ontario, Canada. http://www3.sympatico.ca/n.rieck/ ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 02 Aug 2007 03:42:36 -0700 From: etmsreec@yahoo.co.uk Subject: Re: Stay on Alpha forever? Message-ID: <1186051356.646635.167300@b79g2000hse.googlegroups.com> On 1 Aug, 21:21, "Richard B. Gilbert" wrote: > tadamsmar wrote: > > I am evaluating an upgrade to Integrity. > > > I am pretty sure the upgrade is going to be more costly than staying > > on Alpha. I don't have good estimates, but I would ballpark the costs > > in the tens of thousands, with no significant return on investment. > > > But the app is mission-critical with no end-date in site. > > > Can a costly upgrade be justfied simply because you can't stay on > > Alphas forever? > > Nothing lasts "forever"! If you buy spares now, you should be able to > run on Alpha for the next twenty or thirty years. This means a couple > of spare machines plus spare parts such as power supplies and fans. > > Alphas will be around and in service for many years. Consider that > there are a few VAXen still in service a bit more than twelve years > after the first Alphas hit the streets. Somehow I doubt that the same > can be said for Itanic. Itanic has been "sailing under a curse" from > day one. It was announced before even samples were available and the > scheduled availability date slipped several times for a total of several > years! It has been referred to, contemptuously as "Unobtainium" for > that reason. > > I've no personal experience but I've read that Itanic has little or no > performance advantage over the best Alphas. > > And before you spend a lot of money, question how long the application > will be in use in it's current form! There's a good chance that in five > or ten years the application will no longer meet the needs of the > business. At that point, at whatever time it occurs, Alphas may not > meet the needs of the business either. With no personal experience Richard, you may not be in the best position to judge (I can't conclude one way or the other since I don't know you or your background). FWIW, I'm seeing nice performance boosts going to Integrity from Alpha. The only gotcha that I'm aware of is that alignment is critical. An alignment fault on Alpha was slower than VAX, but we didn't care because the Alpha hardware was so much faster than VAX. Moving to Integrity, we've got more cycles but alignment faults are much, much much more expensive (Guy has a comparison in one of his papers) so you really need to make sure that your data are aligned for getting the best bang for the buck out of Integrity. Memory bandwidth isn't (I'm told) as good as it was on Alpha. I think that's a "yet" rather than a "will never be". If your apps are mission critical and all available on Integrity tadamsmar, maybe you could persuade HP to loan you an Integrity of a similar size/tier to your present Alphas and see how porting would go? A "try before you buy" scenario? Steve ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 02 Aug 2007 06:36:14 -0500 From: Ron Johnson Subject: Re: Stay on Alpha forever? Message-ID: On 08/02/07 05:17, Neil Rieck wrote: > On Aug 1, 10:13 pm, JF Mezei wrote: >> Another possible avenue if the Alpha maintenance costs are too high >> would be to consider buying 64 bit 8086 servers and running the Alpha >> emulator (*). This will eventually give you performance boosts compared >> to exists systems without the need to migrate to that IA64 thing. >> > > Unlike PDP, VAX, and Alpha servers, most 8086 based stuff (64 bit or > not) has been manufactured dirt-cheap and very rarely supports server- > quality features like hardware-based error-detection on memory, caches > and I/O channels. On top of this, DEC systems could always do single- > bit (and sometimes 2-bit) error correction in memory. > > ps-1: PC motherboards supporting parity exist but most of the time > parity-checking is disabled and only 8-bit chips are installed Sure, PC motherboards are cheap. But x86(-64) *server* motherboards are *not* cheap. And, depending on how much you want to spend, they *do* provide all the important server-level features. That's why they're server mobos, not PC mobos. > ps-2: A few months back I watched a technician "fix a problem" by > disabling partity-checking in BIOS. Some people just don't get it. And Field Circus was so named because... they worked on PCs? I think not. > So I wouldn't recommend a permanent PC/emulator solution at this time. > But there are plenty of new and used Alpha systems available from > multiple sources so if people can't move to Itanium then they should > just move to a bigger better Alpha while wait until Itanium supports > all the stuff you need. -- Ron Johnson, Jr. Jefferson LA USA Give a man a fish, and he eats for a day. Hit him with a fish, and he goes away for good! ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 02 Aug 2007 13:37:27 +0200 From: "P. Sture" Subject: Re: Stay on Alpha forever? Message-ID: In article , Ron Johnson wrote: > On 08/02/07 02:24, P. Sture wrote: > > In article , > > Kilgallen@SpamCop.net (Larry Kilgallen) wrote: > > > >> In article , moroney@world.std.spaamtrap.com > >> (Michael Moroney) writes: > >> > >>> Do you need a performance boost now? What kind of performance boost are > >>> you likely to need in the future? > >> Note that there are some domains where no performance boost is needed. > >> The best example I have heard of is the software reading toll tickets > >> on toll roads. That is a case where the bandwidth of the road is never > >> going to increase enough to tax the computer capacity. And I am quite > >> careful before I use the word "never". > > > > Putting a GUI on it would probably do the trick. Totally unnecessary I > > agree, but I wouldn't be at all surprised if someone somewhere has at > > least proposed it. > > Don't even go there. Tell me about it. I should have added a big :-( > We had a beautifully fast system written in C, Rdb & DECforms. The > customer wanted GUI and 3-tier C-S, though, object-oriented > middleware, blah blah. So that's what they got. The sad thing is that that story appears to be far from unusual. > God, I hate customers. Especially government customers who couldn't > find their arses with both hands. :-( -- Paul Sture Sue's OpenVMS bookmarks: http://eisner.encompasserve.org/~sture/ovms-bookmarks.html ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 02 Aug 2007 08:57:09 -0400 From: John Reagan Subject: Re: Stay on Alpha forever? Message-ID: Larry Kilgallen wrote: > > But that is a self-selecting sample, of those for whom a port made > sense and for whom there were appropriate compilers on IPF. Only partially true. Lots of customers who have come to the HP/Intel Developer's Forum came for the cheap hardware with little or no guess if their code could port or not. It is true that folks with PL/I code for instance might have been steered away, I have seen customers who just came with a saveset that even they haven't looked inside of before. Many of those ported easily. There has been only one case with me where a customer had this rather ugly Macro-32 application on Alpha which directly manipulated the FP, SP, etc. to emulate some PDP-11 application. I looked for about 30 minutes and threw up my hands. I recommended they stay on Alpha or go to a VAX emulator product. -- John Reagan OpenVMS Pascal/Macro-32/COBOL Project Leader Hewlett-Packard Company ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 02 Aug 2007 06:50:42 -0700 From: Bob Gezelter Subject: Re: Stay on Alpha forever? Message-ID: <1186062642.479656.84390@o61g2000hsh.googlegroups.com> On Aug 1, 3:17 pm, tadamsmar wrote: > I am evaluating an upgrade to Integrity. > > I am pretty sure the upgrade is going to be more costly than staying > on Alpha. I don't have good estimates, but I would ballpark the costs > in the tens of thousands, with no significant return on investment. > > But the app is mission-critical with no end-date in site. > > Can a costly upgrade be justfied simply because you can't stay on > Alphas forever? tadamsmar, Without an audit of the source code, it is impossible to make an accurate assessment. However, having attended three of the porting seminars (once as a student, twice as an Encompass volunteer), some comments are appropriate. Many people were able to port to Itanium simply by recompiling, even when the OpenVMS software was not yet released (see my article on the 2006 Mahwah, New Jersey porting seminar at http://www.openvms.org/stories.php?story=04/12/07/0088240 ). The results of this seminar echoed the comments that I made at the outset of the Itanium effort at the Compaq Enterprise Technology Symposium in September 2001 (see http://www.rlgsc.com/cets/2001/1620.html ). The most common problem in porting is simply a straightforward problem with lack of sources, lack of build files, or sources that have not been compiled for an extended period of time. As an example,. there is a lot of C code written for the old VAX C compiler, with the relaxed standards that were current at the time. The newer C compilers do not support these extensions, necessitating textual changes that are not complex, but they can be voluminous. My recently paper "Strategies for Migrating from Alpha and VAX systems to HP Integrity Servers on OpenVMS" in the OpenVMS Technical Journal, Volume 10 (see http://www.rlgsc.com/publications/vmstechjournal/migrationstrategies.html ), addressed the strategic question of how the costs and intensity of the migration effort can be reduced through strategic use of both mixed architecture OpenVMS clusters and the binary translator. I demonstrated how to strategically structure a migration as an incremental effort, so as to reduce risk and intensity. Without information, it is hard to speculate as to how much effort is required to migrate your workload to Itanium. What is clear from my experiences is that the risk and effort are often less than is perceived. - Bob Gezelter, http://www.rlgsc.com ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 02 Aug 2007 07:07:34 -0700 From: tadamsmar Subject: Re: Stay on Alpha forever? Message-ID: <1186063654.971605.226750@d55g2000hsg.googlegroups.com> On Aug 2, 6:42 am, etmsr...@yahoo.co.uk wrote: > On 1 Aug, 21:21, "Richard B. Gilbert" wrote: > > > > > > >tadamsmarwrote: > > > I am evaluating an upgrade to Integrity. > > > > I am pretty sure the upgrade is going to be more costly than staying > > > on Alpha. I don't have good estimates, but I would ballpark the costs > > > in the tens of thousands, with no significant return on investment. > > > > But the app is mission-critical with no end-date in site. > > > > Can a costly upgrade be justfied simply because you can't stay on > > > Alphas forever? > > > Nothing lasts "forever"! If you buy spares now, you should be able to > > run on Alpha for the next twenty or thirty years. This means a couple > > of spare machines plus spare parts such as power supplies and fans. > > > Alphas will be around and in service for many years. Consider that > > there are a few VAXen still in service a bit more than twelve years > > after the first Alphas hit the streets. Somehow I doubt that the same > > can be said for Itanic. Itanic has been "sailing under a curse" from > > day one. It was announced before even samples were available and the > > scheduled availability date slipped several times for a total of several > > years! It has been referred to, contemptuously as "Unobtainium" for > > that reason. > > > I've no personal experience but I've read that Itanic has little or no > > performance advantage over the best Alphas. > > > And before you spend a lot of money, question how long the application > > will be in use in it's current form! There's a good chance that in five > > or ten years the application will no longer meet the needs of the > > business. At that point, at whatever time it occurs, Alphas may not > > meet the needs of the business either. > > With no personal experience Richard, you may not be in the best > position to judge (I can't conclude one way or the other since I don't > know you or your background). > > FWIW, I'm seeing nice performance boosts going to Integrity from > Alpha. The only gotcha that I'm aware of is that alignment is > critical. An alignment fault on Alpha was slower than VAX, but we > didn't care because the Alpha hardware was so much faster than VAX. > Moving to Integrity, we've got more cycles but alignment faults are > much, much much more expensive (Guy has a comparison in one of his > papers) so you really need to make sure that your data are aligned for > getting the best bang for the buck out of Integrity. > > Memory bandwidth isn't (I'm told) as good as it was on Alpha. I think > that's a "yet" rather than a "will never be". > > If your apps are mission critical and all available on Integritytadamsmar, maybe you could persuade HP to loan you an Integrity of a > similar size/tier to your present Alphas and see how porting would > go? A "try before you buy" scenario? > > Steve- Hide quoted text - > > - Show quoted text - In our case, performance is not an issue. We have plenty of capacity with DS-10s. The main reason that I estimate an upgrade would be costly is that a number of our commercial software vendors did not upgrade to Alpha, so we would have to go to different commercial software and (maybe) do some reprogramming to integrate with the differenent software. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 02 Aug 2007 07:12:32 -0700 From: tadamsmar Subject: Re: Stay on Alpha forever? Message-ID: <1186063952.960629.236800@d55g2000hsg.googlegroups.com> On Aug 1, 4:58 pm, "Guy Peleg" wrote: > "tadamsmar" wrote in message > > news:1185995866.368720.29970@g4g2000hsf.googlegroups.com... > > >I am evaluating an upgrade to Integrity. > > > I am pretty sure the upgrade is going to be more costly than staying > > on Alpha. I don't have good estimates, but I would ballpark the costs > > in the tens of thousands, with no significant return on investment. > > > But the app is mission-critical with no end-date in site. > > > Can a costly upgrade be justfied simply because you can't stay on > > Alphas forever? > > There are few reasons I could think of that justify migration: > > 1. Performance - most of the applications I've seen, got significant > performance boost by going to Itanium. I can't identify a performance need for us. > > 2. New hardware support - if you need 10gb lan adapter, it's > only available on Itanium Don't see the need in our case. > > 3. Cost of software support - should be lower but YMMV based > on local country policy. We have dropped most of our software support, so I think the support costs would rise. Of course we would *have* support; there is always the possibility that we would need support that we currently don't have. > > 99% of customer I've worked with completed the port itself in less > than a week. Planning and testing takes longer of course. I don't think that will happen. I think we may need to reintegrate our custom code with a different commercial software package. But if, I can avoid that, the the port could go fast. > > fwiw, > > Guy Peleg > BRUDEN-OSSGhttp://www.brudenossg.com > > > > -- > Posted via a free Usenet account fromhttp://www.teranews.com ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 02 Aug 2007 07:36:37 -0700 From: tadamsmar Subject: Re: Stay on Alpha forever? Message-ID: <1186065397.434749.20060@q75g2000hsh.googlegroups.com> On Aug 1, 5:29 pm, moro...@world.std.spaamtrap.com (Michael Moroney) wrote: > tadamsmar writes: > >I am evaluating an upgrade to Integrity. > >I am pretty sure the upgrade is going to be more costly than staying > >on Alpha. I don't have good estimates, but I would ballpark the costs > >in the tens of thousands, with no significant return on investment. > >But the app is mission-critical with no end-date in site. > >Can a costly upgrade be justfied simply because you can't stay on > >Alphas forever? > > Not enough info. > > Are your Alphas already old, the latest model or somewhere in between? I am replacing an AS400 soon with a DS10. At that point we will have one AlphaServer 800 and five DS10's. The oldest in production will be the AS800, 5+ years old, I think. > > Do you need a performance boost now? What kind of performance boost are > you likely to need in the future? Don't forsee a need for a performance boost. > > Can you expand your application by adding nodes to a cluster, or CPU cards > and/or memory to your existing Alphas? Can they be upgraded to a better > model? I am running 7.3.2. Can upgrade to any box that will run that. Don't see any expansion issues. > > How likely are you going to need to use new hardware - hardware that > will only be available on Integrity? Don't forsee that. > > Will the Itanic upgrade pay for itself in reduced maint. cost or power > consumption (wait...Itanic power consumption...scratch that argument!)? Actually, Itanic might draw less power, and reduce maintenance. > > How available are (and will be) spare parts and systems? How much $? We will have one spare old AS400 when I replace it. An one DS10 is a defacto spare but it is "in production" in a currently unused location. And my development machine is a "hot" backup for any failed production machine (not that hot, takes 30 minutes to switch to it). All systems except the non-real-time database machine have disk shadowing. I can get a spare or replacement if I can justify the cost. I have UPSes on all boxes in an attempt to avoid power failures that can lead to hardware failures. > > How good of an idea is it to run a mission critical app. on "old" Alphas? > That's what people will be thinking in the future. > > Also, a path to consider is to upgrade to Itanic "later". The choice > isn't binary, upgrade right now or stay on Alpha forever, is it? No, we could upgrade later. I don't know if it will be harder to get consulting, or whatever later. I guess waiting would allow one to see what the future holds for OpenVMS. But is the future likely to be different? ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 02 Aug 2007 07:41:47 -0700 From: tadamsmar Subject: Re: Stay on Alpha forever? Message-ID: <1186065707.891664.302010@d55g2000hsg.googlegroups.com> On Aug 1, 8:43 pm, "Main, Kerry" wrote: > > -----Original Message----- > > From:tadamsmar[mailto:tadams...@yahoo.com] > > Sent: August 1, 2007 3:18 PM > > To: Info-...@Mvb.Saic.Com > > Subject: Stay on Alpha forever? > > > I am evaluating an upgrade to Integrity. > > > I am pretty sure the upgrade is going to be more costly than > > staying > > on Alpha. I don't have good estimates, but I would ballpark the > > costs > > in the tens of thousands, with no significant return on investment. > > > But the app is mission-critical with no end-date in site. > > > Can a costly upgrade be justfied simply because you can't stay on > > Alphas forever? > > Upgrades are typically about plus's and minus's and then looking at the overall benefits. > > With Alpha, since you stated it was a mission critical application, >can we assume you are paying maint on the existing Alpha's? If so, >then you can assume that these are costs that are going to increase >quite a bit as the servers continue to age. This is no different than >VAX maint costs (and they are significant). We are not paying maintenance. We have have at least one spare ready to replace a failed machine. > > In some cases, I have seen the 3-4 year maint cost savings alone were enough to justify the initial migration costs. > > In terms of migration costs, it really depends on the application. Some Customers have ported large applications in 3 day porting workshops. If there is minimal architecture specific code, and release notes are reviewed, the porting costs would likely be minimal. Of course, the primary application porting is only one of the considerations, because supporting app's, ISV utilities and testing efforts also need to be considered as well, but again, it depends on the environment. > We have commercial software that did not port. That's probably the biggest headache for us. > You also have to consider that, over time, more and more new OpenVMS features will be Integrity specific, so depending on your app requirements, that may impede your ability to address future requirements. That is indeed a potential issue. As new networking features come into use, we might not be able to find Alpha software for them. > > Depending on the App type and requirements, Integrity servers do outperform Alpha servers as well. > > Reference a good porting and performance presentation by Guy Peleg from Bruden that is available at:http://www.hp-interex.be/wiki/images/4/48/Porting_real_applications.ppt > > Regards > > Kerry Main > Senior Consultant > HP Services Canada > Voice: 613-592-4660 > Fax: 613-591-4477 > kerryDOTmainAThpDOTcom > (remove the DOT's and AT) > > OpenVMS - the secure, multi-site OS that just works.- Hide quoted text - > > - Show quoted text - ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 02 Aug 2007 07:44:11 -0700 From: tadamsmar Subject: Re: Stay on Alpha forever? Message-ID: <1186065851.998426.90670@19g2000hsx.googlegroups.com> On Aug 1, 5:42 pm, Neil Rieck wrote: > On Aug 1, 3:17 pm,tadamsmar wrote: > > > I am evaluating an upgrade to Integrity. > > > I am pretty sure the upgrade is going to be more costly than staying > > on Alpha. I don't have good estimates, but I would ballpark the costs > > in the tens of thousands, with no significant return on investment. > > > But the app is mission-critical with no end-date in site. > > > Can a costly upgrade be justfied simply because you can't stay on > > Alphas forever? > > What kind of CPU are you currently running on? > > Neil Rieck > Kitchener/Waterloo/Cambridge, > Ontario, Canada.http://www3.sympatico.ca/n.rieck/ DS10s, one AlphaServer800. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 2 Aug 2007 15:42:31 +0000 (UTC) From: moroney@world.std.spaamtrap.com (Michael Moroney) Subject: Re: Stay on Alpha forever? Message-ID: John Reagan writes: >There has been only one case with me where a customer had this rather >ugly Macro-32 application on Alpha which directly manipulated the FP, >SP, etc. to emulate some PDP-11 application. I looked for about 30 >minutes and threw up my hands. I recommended they stay on Alpha or go >to a VAX emulator product. (waves!) It's on a VAX, not an Alpha. The Alpha compiler would have choked on the bizarre code just as much as the Itanium compiler does now. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 2 Aug 2007 16:18:48 +0000 (UTC) From: david20@alpha2.mdx.ac.uk Subject: Re: Stay on Alpha forever? Message-ID: In article , "Tom Linden" writes: >On Wed, 01 Aug 2007 12:17:46 -0700, tadamsmar wrote: > >> I am evaluating an upgrade to Integrity. >> >> I am pretty sure the upgrade is going to be more costly than staying >> on Alpha. I don't have good estimates, but I would ballpark the costs >> in the tens of thousands, with no significant return on investment. >> >> But the app is mission-critical with no end-date in site. >> >> Can a costly upgrade be justfied simply because you can't stay on >> Alphas forever? >> >This is the wrong forum to seek that advice, in a sense. It is more of an >analysis of your own business plans. I can tell you that I know of >organizations with large VAXen planning to keep them in service past 2020. >Why? Because Digital didn't properly handled the the VAX - Alpha >transition. > >Just as Alpha had less capability then VAX, Itanium likewise has less than >Alpha, and to the extent that this doesn't impact you then you could give >Itanium a try, if you can make a business case for doing so. Incidentally, >I found that Alpha executables are about 3x those of VAX, and only recently >dtermined that there is an expansion of executables form Alpha to Itanium, >maybe a about a factor of two. Is this significant for the end user, >probably >not, but for us of those that muck about in the entrails, it is an >indication of >poor design. > For VAX to Alpha it wasn't poor design but just because the excutable had more instructions due to the fact that it was on a RISC chip. The doubling for Itanium is probably due to similar changes caused by compiler hints and other things to do with running on an EPIC architecture. I assume that by less capability in the above you are refering to software availability. In most cases Alphas would easily outperform Vax systems. David Webb Security team leader CCSS Middlesex University > >-- >PL/I for OpenVMS >www.kednos.com ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 02 Aug 2007 09:21:14 -0700 From: "Tom Linden" Subject: Re: Stay on Alpha forever? Message-ID: On Thu, 02 Aug 2007 08:53:19 -0700, Stanley F. Quayle wrote: >> Because Digital didn't properly handled the the VAX - Alpha transition > Tom, I don't think anyone here would disagree with your statement. I > finally ported a client's application from VAX to Alpha just a couple > of years ago. The tools and techniques are MUCH better now. Moving > from Alpha to Itanium is even less painful (usually). I basically don't agree with the choices Digital made when transitioning to alpha (including that one) in deciding what to cull. VAX had a great set of tools, Alpha had a smaller set and, from what I can tell, Itanium yet smaller still. And then there is the 3rd part list. It would be a good student study for a business school, "How to destroy a business" -- PL/I for OpenVMS www.kednos.com ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 2 Aug 2007 16:29:05 +0000 (UTC) From: moroney@world.std.spaamtrap.com (Michael Moroney) Subject: Re: Stay on Alpha forever? Message-ID: Neil Rieck writes: >On Aug 2, 12:34 am, moro...@world.std.spaamtrap.com (Michael Moroney) >wrote: >[...snip...] >> >> Most of the VMS porting from Alpha to Itanic _is_ very straightforward >> when using a higher level language. >> >> On the other hand, if you're going from VAX to Itanic, and using Macro, >> and doing just about every crazy trick possible...let's not go there... >> >Do yourself a favour and start converting your Macro-32 code to C/C++ >now. That's what *I* want to do, but the customer is always right... ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 02 Aug 2007 09:29:53 -0700 From: "Tom Linden" Subject: Re: Stay on Alpha forever? Message-ID: On Thu, 02 Aug 2007 09:18:48 -0700, wrote: > In article , "Tom Linden" > writes: >> On Wed, 01 Aug 2007 12:17:46 -0700, tadamsmar >> wrote: >> >>> I am evaluating an upgrade to Integrity. >>> >>> I am pretty sure the upgrade is going to be more costly than staying >>> on Alpha. I don't have good estimates, but I would ballpark the costs >>> in the tens of thousands, with no significant return on investment. >>> >>> But the app is mission-critical with no end-date in site. >>> >>> Can a costly upgrade be justfied simply because you can't stay on >>> Alphas forever? >>> >> This is the wrong forum to seek that advice, in a sense. It is more of >> an >> analysis of your own business plans. I can tell you that I know of >> organizations with large VAXen planning to keep them in service past >> 2020. >> Why? Because Digital didn't properly handled the the VAX - Alpha >> transition. >> >> Just as Alpha had less capability then VAX, Itanium likewise has less >> than >> Alpha, and to the extent that this doesn't impact you then you could >> give >> Itanium a try, if you can make a business case for doing so. >> Incidentally, >> I found that Alpha executables are about 3x those of VAX, and only >> recently >> dtermined that there is an expansion of executables form Alpha to >> Itanium, >> maybe a about a factor of two. Is this significant for the end user, >> probably >> not, but for us of those that muck about in the entrails, it is an >> indication of >> poor design. >> > For VAX to Alpha it wasn't poor design but just because the excutable had > more instructions due to the fact that it was on a RISC chip. We have this discussion before, perhaps to ennui, but what I found running the PL/I test suite was that normalizing to clock speed a 3x Alpha had the same performance as a VAX. The larger, weaker instrucution set also demands larger memory bandwidth and larger caches > > The doubling for Itanium is probably due to similar changes caused by > compiler > hints and other things to do with running on an EPIC architecture. > > I assume that by less capability in the above you are refering to > software > availability. In most cases Alphas would easily outperform Vax systems. Yes. Of course, VAX was left alone. > > David Webb > Security team leader > CCSS > Middlesex University > > >> >> -- >> PL/I for OpenVMS >> www.kednos.com -- PL/I for OpenVMS www.kednos.com ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 02 Aug 2007 13:23:22 -0400 From: Stephen Hoffman Subject: Re: Stay on Alpha forever? Message-ID: tadamsmar wrote: > I am evaluating an upgrade to Integrity. > > I am pretty sure the upgrade is going to be more costly than staying > on Alpha. I don't have good estimates, but I would ballpark the costs > in the tens of thousands, with no significant return on investment. > > But the app is mission-critical with no end-date in site. > > Can a costly upgrade be justfied simply because you can't stay on > Alphas forever? First, apologies in advance for an on-topic post. :-) Hardware does not last forever; hardware can and does "rot". The expertise in the particular application bits and the platform bits, and the availability of compatible tools, can and does tend to decline over time, too. For AlphaServer DS10 or similar boxes here, you can maintain your own spares. And I would. But the spares and particularly the peripheral devices can and tend to do decompose over time; mechanical devices and electronics just don't last forever. Emulation can be a viable and short-term solution, and can potentially allow you to remove older hardware from the equation. Emulation does not, however, remove risk -- the software stack is even longer, and you end up with the same basic issues involved with hardware support, albeit from the hardware emulator (software) vendor, and from the underlying operating system software platform. In the case of SIMH, for instance, you may well end up owning the emulator support. (Don't read that as a recommendation against emulation, simply that it is not a panacea.) For tens of thousands of dollars, you can purchase a fair stable of spare parts for AlphaServer DS10 and related gear. And you'll have some budget left over. Porting a non-trivial application off of OpenVMS Alpha -- whether to OpenVMS I64 or to another platform -- will almost certainly cost more. Particular if prerequisite products are not available. You can choose to incrementally move toward more portable code here, too, though there's no payback in that effort until and unless you actually do port. If you do choose to move toward a port, you can also choose whether this work is going to be an incremental port toward OpenVMS I64, or over toward Microsoft Windows, or toward a UNIX 03 or similar platform model. A port to OpenVMS I64 will be the smallest port/jump, and UNIX 03 and Windows will be of higher difficulty. A lack of critical prerequisite layered products can demolish all savings from the basic OpenVMS-to-OpenVMS port. Once you open up the porting discussion, you do need and want to open up the discussion across all platforms, and least for some form of investigation. You'll also particularly want to look for a COTS application -- whether an existing and available commercial package, or the creation of a semi- or fully-custom package that can itself subsequently be commercialized -- that can be tailored to meet your particular business-critical requirements. Some related OpenVMS porting topics: http://64.223.189.234/node/225 (off of OpenVMS) http://64.223.189.234/node/226 (to OpenVMS I64) Hoff -- www.HoffmanLabs.com Services for OpenVMS ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 02 Aug 2007 09:43:26 -0600 From: Keith Parris Subject: Re: unable to dispaly actual used size after RMS CONVERT to an indexed file file Message-ID: 51 wrote: > Hi there, > I have a 73-2 system, after patch RMS-V0300 or update v0900, RMS > convert command lost the ablity to tell the actual size of the file > converted.(this only affect indexed file). It was able to show that > before the patch. End-Of-File pointer behavior has had anomalies for indexed files for quite a while. There was a change in behavior with this patch, presumably to try to correct other problems related to inconsistent End-Of-File pointers on indexed files. Before the patch, the End-Of-File marker was getting set to relative the last block in use after the $CONVERT. After the patch, the End-of-File pointer gets set relative to the actual end of the space allocated (and thus usable by RMS) within the file. Most folks who depended on the earlier behavior likely did so to find out how much space had been saved as a result of the $CONVERT. If you were to edit the FDL file used for the $CONVERT and delete the ALLOCATION quantity lines, the $CONVERT will create a new file of just the size needed for the data, and you'll be able to see exactly how much space you saved. So try adding something like these lines before your $CONVERT/FDL: $ EDIT/EDT/NOCOMMAND t.fdl d all "ALLOCATION" exit ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 2 Aug 2007 09:08:16 +0100 From: Anton Shterenlikht Subject: Re: VMS cluster behind a *NIX firewall Message-ID: <20070802080816.GA2585@mech-aslap33.men.bris.ac.uk> On Thu, Aug 02, 2007 at 01:12:24AM +0000, Main, Kerry wrote: > Anton, > > Is the concern the network folks have related to non-TCPIP > protocols on the net or OpenVMS itself? > > If it is network protocols, they are worried about, then setting > up a private VLAN for the cluster SCS traffic and restricting > the primary NICs to TCPIP only would solve that. > > If they are worried about OpenVMS security, I guess that is a an > education problem. > > [Can't help smiling on this - what they are doing is like > protecting a police station by placing a rent-a-cop in front of it.] I think they (probably justifiably) doubt my ability to ensure the cluster is properly maintained, so that it cannot be exploited in any way by.. whoever. And given they have no VMS expertise, and cannot help me with this, they saw it safer to arrange things this way, at least for now. As I said, if everythig goes well, and I succeed in making the cluster a useful and secure computing resource, they might be more relaxed. To conclude, the issue is probably more myself than VMS. > Here are a few security whitepapers that may be of interest > to your network folks: > > http://h71028.www7.hp.com/ERC/downloads/4AA0-2896ENW.pdf > This whitepaper presents an overview of OpenVMS security and its role in enterprise business continuity. The whitepaper supports the conclusion that IT environments requiring elevated security capabilities need OpenVMS now more than ever, whether on HP Integrity servers, AlphaServer systems, or a combination of both. (November 2005) > > http://h71000.www7.hp.com/openvms/whitepapers/TCS_2004.pdf > Techwise Research - This whitepaper provides a detailed comparison of potential vulnerabilities and security-related cluster crashes for HP OpenVMS, IBM AIX, and Sun Solaris Server Clusters. (June 2004) Thank you for this. I'll have a look, or maybe I had already, I had to read quite a lot lately.. On a related subject, I wonder if HP could promote VMS in my University given VMS strengths you just commented above. I don't just mean the core Information Services people, who maintain the main parts of the various Uni computing services, but also the end users, researchers, perhaps even undergraduates. Regarding the latter, the idea is to at least make them aware that (a) VMS exists and (b) is alive and well and modern in 2007. For example, energy efficiency is likely to be at the top of the agenda for people like Director of the Information Services. The Uni is starting to look back at the model where we use powerful servers and thin clients instead of PCs. The energy savings would be huge. I've seen some 4Wt Sun Ray thin clients used in IT services hooked to a linux server. Looks quite impressive. Given that most office computers do nothing more than run an emil client, web browser and an text editor, such model is likely to be their preferred one. Perhaps these servers could run VMS instead. Of course, if there will be some VMS presence on campus, it will make my life much easier - I might be able to get some in-house technical help, and would not be considered such a madman (lunatic/crackpot). thanks a lot anton -- Anton Shterenlikht Room 2.6, Queen's Building Mech Eng Dept Bristol University University Walk, Bristol BS8 1TR, UK Tel: +44 (0)117 928 8233 Fax: +44 (0)117 929 4423 ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 02 Aug 2007 01:51:40 -0700 From: IanMiller Subject: Re: VMS cluster behind a *NIX firewall Message-ID: <1186044700.310910.59960@l70g2000hse.googlegroups.com> Anton, there is a large HP office in Bristol and there are people there who can help educate your University. There are also local consultants who can help. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 2 Aug 2007 10:20:17 +0100 From: Anton Shterenlikht Subject: Re: VMS cluster behind a *NIX firewall Message-ID: <20070802092017.GA8665@mech-aslap33.men.bris.ac.uk> On Thu, Aug 02, 2007 at 01:51:40AM -0700, IanMiller wrote: > Anton, > there is a large HP office in Bristol and there are people there who > can help educate your University. There are also local consultants who > can help. sure, I know. But the initiative must come from HP, not from our side. For various reasons the Uni, as an organisation, will not show initiative in this, I'm afraid. Anyway, I'm talking far beyond my level of competence and responsibility. It's none of my business anyway. This was merely a wish. -- Anton Shterenlikht Room 2.6, Queen's Building Mech Eng Dept Bristol University University Walk, Bristol BS8 1TR, UK Tel: +44 (0)117 928 8233 Fax: +44 (0)117 929 4423 ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 02 Aug 2007 11:52:28 +0200 From: "P. Sture" Subject: Re: VMS cluster behind a *NIX firewall Message-ID: In article <20070802080816.GA2585@mech-aslap33.men.bris.ac.uk>, Anton Shterenlikht wrote: > On Thu, Aug 02, 2007 at 01:12:24AM +0000, Main, Kerry wrote: > > Anton, > > > > Is the concern the network folks have related to non-TCPIP > > protocols on the net or OpenVMS itself? > > > > If it is network protocols, they are worried about, then setting > > up a private VLAN for the cluster SCS traffic and restricting > > the primary NICs to TCPIP only would solve that. > > > > If they are worried about OpenVMS security, I guess that is a an > > education problem. > > > > [Can't help smiling on this - what they are doing is like > > protecting a police station by placing a rent-a-cop in front of it.] > > I think they (probably justifiably) doubt my ability to ensure the > cluster is properly maintained, so that it cannot be exploited in any > way by.. whoever. And given they have no VMS expertise, and cannot help > me with this, they saw it safer to arrange things this way, at least for > now. Looking at the positive side of this, you should have a relatively safe playground in which to experiment and learn, so any mistakes you may make shouldn't be catastrophic. > As I said, if everythig goes well, and I succeed in making the > cluster a useful and secure computing resource, they might be more relaxed. > > To conclude, the issue is probably more myself than VMS. A downside in the long term is that if your system isn't exposed to the big bad world, it might be hard to prove to others that it can cope. > > For example, energy efficiency is likely to be at the top of the > agenda for people like Director of the Information Services. The Uni > is starting to look back at the model where we use powerful servers and > thin clients instead of PCs. The energy savings would be huge. I've > seen some 4Wt Sun Ray thin clients used in IT services hooked to a linux > server. Looks quite impressive. Given that most office computers do > nothing more than run an emil client, web browser and an text editor, > such model is likely to be their preferred one. Perhaps these servers > could run VMS instead. There is also the potential to save on management costs. Energy efficiency is indeed a hot issue in today's energy conscious environment, and I would imagine that proposals to achieve that will go down extremely well in a university setting. > Of course, if there will be some VMS presence on campus, it > will make my life much easier - I might be able to get some in-house > technical help, and would not be considered such a madman (lunatic/crackpot). > Please contact the folks Ian Miller suggests. -- Paul Sture Sue's OpenVMS bookmarks: http://eisner.encompasserve.org/~sture/ovms-bookmarks.html ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 02 Aug 2007 03:04:56 -0700 From: etmsreec@yahoo.co.uk Subject: Re: VMS cluster behind a *NIX firewall Message-ID: <1186049096.518982.129180@22g2000hsm.googlegroups.com> On 2 Aug, 10:20, Anton Shterenlikht wrote: > On Thu, Aug 02, 2007 at 01:51:40AM -0700, IanMiller wrote: > > Anton, > > there is a large HP office in Bristol and there are people there who > > can help educate your University. There are also local consultants who > > can help. > > sure, I know. But the initiative must come from HP, not from our side. > For various reasons the Uni, as an organisation, will not show > initiative in this, I'm afraid. > > Anyway, I'm talking far beyond my level of competence and responsibility. > It's none of my business anyway. This was merely a wish. > > -- > Anton Shterenlikht > Room 2.6, Queen's Building > Mech Eng Dept > Bristol University > University Walk, Bristol BS8 1TR, UK > Tel: +44 (0)117 928 8233 > Fax: +44 (0)117 929 4423 Universities used to be a big customer base for VMS. That's where I learned all about VMS - first at Liverpool Poly then at Leicester University. Unfortunately, Starlink went to another platform (was it Unix?) and the general user undergraduate systems went to Sun and Microsoft which left VMS out in the cold. The loss of so many software products on VMS didn't help either - when I was an undergraduate I could do all of my word processing, spreadsheet, graphics and programming on VMS. The word processing got expensive to shift to Alpha (so it didn't move), same for spreadsheets. With Uniras and its stablemates, I could still do graphics and with the in- house compilers I could still do programming. Half the tasks went away to other software houses on other platforms though. ------------------------------ Date: 2 Aug 2007 12:49:29 GMT From: bill@cs.uofs.edu (Bill Gunshannon) Subject: Re: VMS cluster behind a *NIX firewall Message-ID: <5he26pF3hs6srU2@mid.individual.net> In article , "Main, Kerry" writes: >> -----Original Message----- >> From: Anton Shterenlikht [mailto:mexas@bristol.ac.uk] >> Sent: August 1, 2007 7:25 AM >> To: Info-VAX@Mvb.Saic.Com >> Subject: Re: VMS cluster behind a *NIX firewall >> >> On Tue, Jul 31, 2007 at 08:45:34PM -0500, Paul Raulerson wrote: >> > >> > It sounds to me like our friend here is involved in a "prove it!" >> issue with >> > the VMS systems, and so getting them up and running is more >> profitable than >> > worrying about SPOF issues right now; let the SPOF issues become >> a problem >> > for the "unix people" would be my way of handling it. >> >> that's about right >> > Anton, > > Is the concern the network folks have related to non-TCPIP protocols on the= > net or OpenVMS itself? > > If it is network protocols, they are worried about, then setting up a priva= > te VLAN for the cluster SCS traffic and restricting the primary NICs to TCP= > IP only would solve that. Sadly, that will not protect the bandwidth if they percieve the protocol as too "chatty". You would need an entire, separate physical network. Which is, of course, also doable. > > If they are worried about OpenVMS security, I guess that is a an education = > problem. > > [Can't help smiling on this - what they are doing is like protecting a poli= > ce station by placing a rent-a-cop in front of it.] > >:-) Your opinion. The rest of the industry just doesn't see your "legacy" product as offering any increase in security that it needs over Unix. Of course, you have this notion that every Unix box ont he planet is hacked at least 5 times a day and evidence to the contrary is just swept aside. > > Here are a few security whitepapers that may be of interest to your network= > folks: > > http://h71028.www7.hp.com/ERC/downloads/4AA0-2896ENW.pdf > This whitepaper presents an overview of OpenVMS security and its role in en= > terprise business continuity. The whitepaper supports the conclusion that I= > T environments requiring elevated security capabilities need OpenVMS now mo= > re than ever, whether on HP Integrity servers, AlphaServer systems, or a co= > mbination of both. (November 2005) > > http://h71000.www7.hp.com/openvms/whitepapers/TCS_2004.pdf > Techwise Research - This whitepaper provides a detailed comparison of poten= > tial vulnerabilities and security-related cluster crashes for HP OpenVMS, I= > BM AIX, and Sun Solaris Server Clusters. (June 2004) A lot of old drivel from a biased source. It is doubtful it was accurate when written, but it is rather long int he tooth today. Surely you can do better. bill -- Bill Gunshannon | de-moc-ra-cy (di mok' ra see) n. Three wolves bill@cs.scranton.edu | and a sheep voting on what's for dinner. University of Scranton | Scranton, Pennsylvania | #include ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 02 Aug 2007 06:06:45 -0700 From: "Tom Linden" Subject: Re: VMS cluster behind a *NIX firewall Message-ID: On Thu, 02 Aug 2007 01:08:16 -0700, Anton Shterenlikht wrote: > To conclude, the issue is probably more myself than VMS. When you get more comfortable with it, make your cluster _the_ firewall behind a router (which also acts a firewall) that supports both routable and non-routable IPs and then put everyone else on the non-routable IPs and give the VMS nodes a non-routable alias IP. That is what I do. -- PL/I for OpenVMS www.kednos.com ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 02 Aug 2007 03:58:09 -0700 From: Neil Rieck Subject: Re: What does GEM mean? Message-ID: <1186052289.441259.289870@i38g2000prf.googlegroups.com> On Aug 1, 1:25 pm, Steve Lionel wrote: > > http://www.valuesearchfunds.com/userFiles/Essay_Oct_2005.pdf > > Schwartzmann says, in this article, "The GEM family was also > retargeted for MIPS and x86 machines but did not become a noticeable > offering for these architectures." I'm not sure what planet he is on, > but Digital/Compaq Visual Fortran certainly was noticeable and a > roaring success for a GEM-based x86 compiler, handily whomping all > competitors in the Windows market. What was especially amazing about > this was that the GEM team treated x86 as a second-class platform, > withholding optimizations that were done for Alpha and assigning > junior team members to the x86 side. Imagine what it would have done > if the GEM team had not held back on x86. > [...snip...] > > Steve So was GEM ever implemented on VAX? The reason I ask is that BASIC code generated on Alpha seems to be much more optimized (even when compliled with "/optim=level=0") than the same code compiled on VAX. For example: BASIC stub: i% = 123 ! programmer forgot % so 123 was defined as a float on VAX j% = 456% ! 456 defined as an integer on VAX You can see 123 defined as a floating point at compile time which is then converted to integer "at run time". But when this same code is compliled on Alpha, 123 is defined as an integer at complie time thus avoiding the run-time conversion. Neil Rieck Kitchener/Waterloo/Cambridge, Ontario, Canada. http://www3.sympatico.ca/n.rieck/ ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 02 Aug 2007 09:02:02 -0400 From: John Reagan Subject: Re: What does GEM mean? Message-ID: Neil Rieck wrote: > > So was GEM ever implemented on VAX? There was an early plan for a VAX target version of GEM, but it was quickly dismissed. While it would have helped compilers with little or no optimization on VAX (BASIC and COBOL come to mind), the other VAX compilers had reasonable optimizers for most applications. The extra work (and risk) to produce a VAX GEM and retarget all the front-ends seemed to be a waste of time in light of looking forward to other architctures (PRISM, MIPS, etc.). Plus things like BASIC's interactive mode on VAX doesn't lend itself to an optimizing backend like GEM. BASIC would have had to keep both forms around making even more nasty. So yes, at /NOOPT languages like BASIC and COBOL get more optimzation with GEM than their VAX counterparts. -- John Reagan OpenVMS Pascal/Macro-32/COBOL Project Leader Hewlett-Packard Company ------------------------------ End of INFO-VAX 2007.420 ************************