INFO-VAX Sun, 12 Aug 2007 Volume 2007 : Issue 439 Contents: Re: Intel marginalizing Itanium even faster than expected? Re: Intel marginalizing Itanium even faster than expected? Re: Intel marginalizing Itanium even faster than expected? Re: VMS cluster behind a *NIX firewall Re: Wonderful things happen to an OS when it has an internal champion Re: Wonderful things happen to an OS when it has an internal champion Re: Wonderful things happen to an OS when it has an internal champion Re: Wonderful things happen to an OS when it has an internal champion Re: Wonderful things happen to an OS when it has an internal champion Re: Wonderful things happen to an OS when it has an internal champion Re: Wonderful things happen to an OS when it has an internal champion Re: Wonderful things happen to an OS when it has an internal champion Re: Wonderful things happen to an OS when it has an internal champion Re: Wonderful things happen to an OS when it has an internal champion RE: Wonderful things happen to an OS when it has an internal champion RE: Wonderful things happen to an OS when it has an internal champion RE: Wonderful things happen to an OS when it has an internal champion Re: Wonderful things happen to an OS when it has an internal champion champion c Re: X Window Servers ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 11 Aug 2007 15:21:48 -0500 From: David J Dachtera Subject: Re: Intel marginalizing Itanium even faster than expected? Message-ID: <46BE1A5C.7B848897@spam.comcast.net> Ron Johnson wrote: > > Guess what architecture that /Intel 64/ is... > > http://www.intel.com/technology/architecture-silicon/intel64/ > > (Conniving bastards take AMD's innovations and call it "Intel 64"! > That itself is enough to make me buy AMD64 chips.) It appears that HP's overall plan was even more dastardly than we had first imagined. Perhaps as early as 1998, HP was planning the demise of the DEC Legacy platforms and their host OS, OpenVMS, even if that meant tens of billions of investor dollars getting pumped down the Itanic drain. The Alphacide was merely a ruse to distract the VMS community from the larger plan. It now appears there never was an intent to continue VMS past Itanic. HP's intent was to supplant VMS with UX and the only way to do that was to eliminate VMS's operating platforms: first Alpha as a condition of the Compaq merger, now Itanic, apparently the hidden part of agenda. Unless a port to EMT64 is forthcoming, this could very well sound the final death knell for OpenVMS. If Itanic ends up in Davy Jones's locker, that's it for VMS. No one has even expressed any reluctance to change course in mid-stream at full speed, regardless of public "commitments". (Remember: the VMS roadmap is many things, but has never been intended to be construed as a commitment.) I wonder if there would be cause for the SEC or some other group to investigate any of this...? -- David J Dachtera dba DJE Systems http://www.djesys.com/ Unofficial OpenVMS Marketing Home Page http://www.djesys.com/vms/market/ Unofficial Affordable OpenVMS Home Page: http://www.djesys.com/vms/soho/ Unofficial OpenVMS-IA32 Home Page: http://www.djesys.com/vms/ia32/ Unofficial OpenVMS Hobbyist Support Page: http://www.djesys.com/vms/support/ ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 11 Aug 2007 15:01:23 -0700 From: Doug Phillips Subject: Re: Intel marginalizing Itanium even faster than expected? Message-ID: <1186869683.310456.197950@q3g2000prf.googlegroups.com> On Aug 11, 11:22 am, Ron Johnson wrote: > On 08/10/07 14:29, Doug Phillips wrote: > > > > > On Aug 10, 8:22 am, Ron Johnson wrote: > >> Guess what architecture that /Intel 64/ is... > > >>http://www.intel.com/technology/architecture-silicon/intel64/ > > >> (Conniving bastards take AMD's innovations and call it "Intel 64"! > >> That itself is enough to make me buy AMD64 chips.) > > > It looks like it's Intel architecture. > > > There doesn't seem to be anything there that Intel hasn't at least > > alluded to before. back in May, here in c.o.v., I noted the > > following: > > > : The Penryn road map shows 45nm 2007, 32nm 2009 and 22nm 2011. The > > : scuttlebutt about the Larrabee many-core project seems to point to > > : IA with x86 > > > So, it's 2007 and they've announced 45nm and more fully described some > > of the evolutionary tweaks. Where's the news? > > > I'm not a chip-head, but what I read about the Larrabee makes me think > > it'll be Itanium-type technology that can run x86-64 instructions. > > Will you be shocked then, too? > > Kinda. They tried it 6-7 years ago, but it was slow. Making x86-64 > run acceptably fast on ia64 would cost a *lot* of transistors, which > would either boost the size and cost, or reduce L3 cache and slow > down the CPU. > The times, they have a-changed. > Do you have a link to that road map? My reading indicates that > Larrabee is an x86-64 multi-core CPU+GPU. > The road map I referred to was Penryns. I haven't seen Larrabee in a road map yet, but maybe I haven't dug deeply enough. There was an overview given at by Intel where some facts were made public. Google Intel +Larrabee. Intel has coined the term "Many-Core" (or "Mini-Core", depending on how you hear it) to describe their Terra-scale project, of which Larrabee is part, and the "hints" are that the designers are learning as much (if not more) from the IA work as the x86. After all, each new chip is really just a proving ground for the next generation, isn't it? Intel has long expressed the desire to have a unified architecture rather than many competing ones like now; they thought that would be Itanium, but the market didn't agree. > One thing I did notice in my reading is that Tukwila (the Itanium > after Montvale, which is a tweak of Montecito) will have the same > CPU core interconnect (named CSI, Common System Interconnect, and > similar to AMD's Hyper-Transport) that Nehalem (a Xeon successor) > will have. > > Maybe that's what you are thinking of. > No. That's not what I was thinking of. ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 11 Aug 2007 19:00:58 -0500 From: bradhamilton@comcast.net (Brad Hamilton) Subject: Re: Intel marginalizing Itanium even faster than expected? Message-ID: In article <46BE1A5C.7B848897@spam.comcast.net>, David J Dachtera wrote: [...] >It appears that HP's overall plan was even more dastardly than we had first >imagined. > >Perhaps as early as 1998, HP was planning the demise of the DEC Legacy platforms >and their host OS, OpenVMS, even if that meant tens of billions of investor >dollars getting pumped down the Itanic drain. > >The Alphacide was merely a ruse to distract the VMS community from the larger >plan. It now appears there never was an intent to continue VMS past Itanic. HP's >intent was to supplant VMS with UX and the only way to do that was to eliminate >VMS's operating platforms: first Alpha as a condition of the Compaq merger, now >Itanic, apparently the hidden part of agenda. Is there a smiley missing here? :-) [...] ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 11 Aug 2007 15:01:55 -0500 From: David J Dachtera Subject: Re: VMS cluster behind a *NIX firewall Message-ID: <46BE15B3.DE97BC28@spam.comcast.net> Thomas Dickey wrote: > > David J Dachtera wrote: > > Thomas Dickey wrote: > >> [snip] > >> ditto - it can't do what I want. > >> (google is your friend) > > > Perhaps, but I've no clue here what to search for. > > hmm - here's the problem: SMG only covers about 70-80% of the features > in termcap (and even less of terminfo). If you (I don't have the time) > sit down and do a side-by-side comparison of the two, you'll see that. > > For data - see > > ftp://invisible-island.net/ncurses/terminfo.src.gz > ftp://invisible-island.net/ncurses/termcap.src.gz I guess it comes down to: what do you want to do that SMG doesn't accomodate? -- David J Dachtera dba DJE Systems http://www.djesys.com/ Unofficial OpenVMS Marketing Home Page http://www.djesys.com/vms/market/ Unofficial Affordable OpenVMS Home Page: http://www.djesys.com/vms/soho/ Unofficial OpenVMS-IA32 Home Page: http://www.djesys.com/vms/ia32/ Unofficial OpenVMS Hobbyist Support Page: http://www.djesys.com/vms/support/ ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 11 Aug 2007 11:46:56 -0700 From: Doug Phillips Subject: Re: Wonderful things happen to an OS when it has an internal champion Message-ID: <1186858016.217291.131160@g12g2000prg.googlegroups.com> On Aug 10, 6:09 pm, Keith Parris wrote: > Doug Phillips wrote: > > Looks like it would take a rather large (and patient) backing and some > > creative middle-ware acquisitions for that company to ever see black > > ink. > > If VMS were to be spun off, it would have to include both the OpenVMS > hardware and software business as well as the OpenVMS Services business. > Both portions would be very profitable, but the Services revenues would > be about 3-4 times that of the HW/SW side. But it would all add up to a > very-profitable business of about $1B annual revenues. It's just idle speculation, but unless you're thinking that HP would remain involved either as a parent or backing partner, starting a brand new stand-alone enterprise-level computer company would take some major investment money. It's not as simple as picking everything up, moving to new digs, hanging out a sign and business as usual unless you stay under the parent's umbrella, or move under that of another highly respected name. Do a proforma business plan and take it to an investment banker or venture capitalist. Now, if you could get someone like a Warren Buffett to back you, you'd certainly have a chance. Without a strong name and solid backing, you'd never get the "street-cred" needed to keep the F500 & Government customer's confidence. Unless your name is as well known as Kraft Foods, spin-offs aren't easy, and even some of the "easy" ones have stumbled. If you had a well-known commodity product and had the parent's complete support and backing, like IBM -> Lenovo, it could be pretty smooth. But HP isn't showing a desire to rid itself of VMS, so you're probably not talking about a spin-off, but a break-off. You'd have to "make them an offer they couldn't refuse." HP is carrying overhead and offering benefits that many people probably just take for granted. HP's inertia might seem a drag at times, but it also keeps things going through the lean periods. Breaking-off VMS is a much more ambitious undertaking than spinning- off a PC division. The two mergers VMS went through would likely seem pleasant in comparison. Now, you're not combining customer bases, you're buying one outright (including future commitments and profits) and you have to convince those customers that you're going to be around long enough to support them or they'll go away. I think many are a bit shaky already. BTW, that need-for-trust also applies to the employees. They need to trust you'll be able to meet your payroll, health care and retirement commitments. Some of your key employees might decide they've had enough and decide to either stay with HP or go someplace else. That is hard to predict. You want the hardware, too? All of a sudden you're competing directly with HP for the Itanium market, but you're not getting the volume- breaks they are for the chips and hardware bits. So, you trim your margin to compete, HP answers likewise and VMS moves into an even smaller niche. Do you have the funds to do an x86-64 port or resurrect Alpha? Probably not, because current earnings and/or debt pays for R&D and earnings are going to suffer, and debt is going to be maxed out while you recover from the start-up. As I said before: For VMS to gain market share, much more money must be spent on marketing, advertising and R&D. A break-off company like this would be *expected* to run in the red for a while. I really don't see how things would be better for an independent VMS without a wealthy and patient investor behind it. I don't mean to throw a wet blanket on the fire. Breaking-off VMS could be done but not as easily as some here seem to think. ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 11 Aug 2007 12:18:17 -0700 From: Doug Phillips Subject: Re: Wonderful things happen to an OS when it has an internal champion Message-ID: <1186859897.716754.251260@i13g2000prf.googlegroups.com> On Aug 11, 5:46 am, Kilgal...@SpamCop.net (Larry Kilgallen) wrote: > In article <000001c7dbb4$1956bea0$4c043be0$@com>, "Paul Raulerson" writes: > > > I understand there are VMS systems with that kind of reliability too. What > > impresses me is that the reliability is not so much because of the hardware, > > but because of the OS. > > The reliability is also due to the fact that the OS only runs on > certain hardware rather than anything-you-throw-together-as-a-PC. > That is the reason those people calling for porting VMS to X86 > architecture don't have a universal appeal. But the thing is, you can spend a few dollars for a Pentium-class PC and run Windows Server or *nix. You shouldn't expect much because you haven't spent much. You can spend thousands of dollars for EM64T-class hardware with all the server bells and whistle, and have a very powerful and reliable system. You get what you pay for. Specific X86 hardware is certified for each Windows and *nix, just like Itanium and VMS, and you follow the list or not at your own peril. I don't see a down-side to having VMS on X86. ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 11 Aug 2007 15:05:23 -0500 From: David J Dachtera Subject: Re: Wonderful things happen to an OS when it has an internal champion Message-ID: <46BE1683.D036FBE9@spam.comcast.net> Keith Parris wrote: > > David J Dachtera wrote: > > Keith Parris wrote: > >>Profitability has never been a problem for OpenVMS. So IBM couldn't > >>achieve "a return to profitability" for OpenVMS. > > > > If so, why the cutbacks / early retirements / off-shoring / lack of marketing / > > etc.? Doesn't seem justifiable. > > OpenVMS is only about 6-7 percent of BCS (although its share is growing > as, for example, Tru64 has declined). And OpenVMS Services revenues are > only about 6-7 percent of HP Services. So it's just small enough within > each of those realms that it doesn't get seem to get much attention, and > we've seen it contribute more than its share to cost-cutting measures > lately, IMHO. Gee I wonder if (ready for it?) lack of marketing (OH, NO!!! NOT AGAIN!!!) has anything to do with all that? -- David J Dachtera dba DJE Systems http://www.djesys.com/ Unofficial OpenVMS Marketing Home Page http://www.djesys.com/vms/market/ Unofficial Affordable OpenVMS Home Page: http://www.djesys.com/vms/soho/ Unofficial OpenVMS-IA32 Home Page: http://www.djesys.com/vms/ia32/ Unofficial OpenVMS Hobbyist Support Page: http://www.djesys.com/vms/support/ ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 11 Aug 2007 16:12:08 -0400 From: JF Mezei Subject: Re: Wonderful things happen to an OS when it has an internal champion Message-ID: Doug Phillips wrote: > Unless your name is as well known as Kraft Foods, spin-offs aren't > easy, and even some of the "easy" ones have stumbled. Or unless your name is HP and they have done lots of acquisitions AND spinoffs. Remember Carly stealing the "HP" name from its former core business and sending the core business out on its own with a different name (Agilent I think). ? > The two mergers VMS went through would likely seem > pleasant in comparison. At this point in time, since HP is now officially (with Livermore's confirming Stallard's policies of May 7th 2002 this year) not interested in VMS and will just keep it on life support for the remaining customer base, I would say there is nothing to lose. Status Quo gives you VMS dead in a few years. (especially with Cerner gone). Spinning it off at least gives VMS a fighting chance. And I would rather see VMS die fighting compared to a lethargic VMS that continues to allow to let itself be injected with small doses of poison at regular intervals. And by the time VMS management and engineers start to realise what is happening, it will be too late and they'll be out of a job 2 weeks later. ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 11 Aug 2007 16:14:32 -0400 From: JF Mezei Subject: Re: Wonderful things happen to an OS when it has an internal champion Message-ID: <38a1c$46be18aa$cef8887a$22882@TEKSAVVY.COM> Doug Phillips wrote: > I don't see a down-side to having VMS on X86. If VMS management and VMS engineers don't see any need for VMS on the 8086, then they will never discuss it with their bosses and hence will never get the ball rolling. As long as VMS management claims all is fine and rosy within HP, nothing will change, and the plan to let VMS wither away will continue as planned by the Stallard/Livermore's of HP. (Remember Winkler from Compaq who had similar thoughts about VMS ?) ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 11 Aug 2007 16:57:11 -0400 From: "Richard B. Gilbert" Subject: Re: Wonderful things happen to an OS when it has an internal champion Message-ID: <46BE22A7.6050105@comcast.net> VAXman- wrote: > In article , Kilgallen@SpamCop.net (Larry Kilgallen) writes: > >> >>In article <000001c7dbb4$1956bea0$4c043be0$@com>, "Paul Raulerson" writes: >> >> >>>VMS systems still tend to think of DASD as belonging to a particular system, >>>while >>>the more mainstream world has not gone down that path for several years. In >>>fact, > > HBVS also provides some features which are perferred to those of > hardware based RAID-1 solutions. One being no need for additional > hardware. > OTOH, hardware RAID does not require an expensive software license. Nor does it require CPU cycles on a box that may already be heavily loaded. And hardware RAID does not slow the system to a crawl while rebuilding a shadow set. I've done controller (HSC) based volume shadowing, Host Based Volume Shadowing and hardware mirroring (HSZ based). I think I prefer the later! No matter which way you go, you PAY. ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 11 Aug 2007 14:13:07 -0700 From: Doug Phillips Subject: Re: Wonderful things happen to an OS when it has an internal champion Message-ID: <1186866787.824779.326650@j4g2000prf.googlegroups.com> On Aug 11, 3:14 pm, JF Mezei wrote: > Doug Phillips wrote: > > I don't see a down-side to having VMS on X86. > > If VMS management and VMS engineers don't see any need for VMS on the > 8086, then they will never discuss it with their bosses and hence will > never get the ball rolling. > > As long as VMS management claims all is fine and rosy within HP, nothing > will change, and the plan to let VMS wither away will continue as > planned by the Stallard/Livermore's of HP. (Remember Winkler from Compaq > who had similar thoughts about VMS ?) I remember even further back to the days when DEC Desktops (Rainbows & even Pro's) were being sold off-the-shelf at Computer City, Radio Shack, Sears and the like, and the MicroVAX had brought VMS down to a level affordable by almost any business, and a desk-top MicroVAX 'personal VAX' was "coming soon." At a seminar in Chicago, someone asked a DEC VIP if we could expect to see a MicroVAX with VMS at retail stores, and he spouted some "VMS serves a very special market (blah blah blah) technical reasons (blah blah blah) very complex (blah...)" which basically I translated to "VMS is too good for the unwashed masses." That attitude is what helped sink Digital and still handicaps VMS. Also in that era (80's), our DEC OEM-Rep once told us he'd just come from a meeting where a DEC VIP told everyone the Digital view of the future: 'someday soon there will be no mid-sized companies. There will be small companies that will buy PCs, and large companies that will buy VMS.' Our market then was small/mid-sized business with PDP and VAX (no PCs), and the rep told us we should either port our software to PCs, or bring it up to enterprise. Funny, I still see mid-sized businesses around, so I guess "someday" hasn't yet arrived. Some others might also remember being told that Windows was Alpha's future, and if we didn't port everything over to Windows, we'd never survive. Well, maybe that would have been a smart thing to do, but VMS and I are still here and I don't see Digital. :-) -.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.- (Just got my :-) shipment so I'm feeling pretty good!;-) ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 11 Aug 2007 14:29:54 -0700 From: Doug Phillips Subject: Re: Wonderful things happen to an OS when it has an internal champion Message-ID: <1186867794.747172.31060@j4g2000prf.googlegroups.com> On Aug 11, 3:12 pm, JF Mezei wrote: > Doug Phillips wrote: > > Unless your name is as well known as Kraft Foods, spin-offs aren't > > easy, and even some of the "easy" ones have stumbled. > > Or unless your name is HP and they have done lots of acquisitions AND > spinoffs. Remember Carly stealing the "HP" name from its former core > business and sending the core business out on its own with a different > name (Agilent I think). ? > Yes, Agilent was a spin-off; HP was the "spinner" and Agilent was the "spinnee" and HP spun it purposfully. If they would spin-off VMS the way they did Agilent, then (as I said) the new company might make a go of it. In the case of Kraft, Altria is the spinner and Kraft the spinnee, and that was done for purely "politically correct" reasons. The reason doesn't matter; only the method. > > The two mergers VMS went through would likely seem > > > pleasant in comparison. > > At this point in time, since HP is now officially (with Livermore's > confirming Stallard's policies of May 7th 2002 this year) not interested > in VMS and will just keep it on life support for the remaining customer > base, I would say there is nothing to lose. > They seem to be giving VMS a bit more attention now, so I'll wait and see. > Status Quo gives you VMS dead in a few years. (especially with Cerner gone). > They can't keep losing big markets like that, though. > Spinning it off at least gives VMS a fighting chance. And I would rather > see VMS die fighting compared to a lethargic VMS that continues to allow > to let itself be injected with small doses of poison at regular intervals. > But it would cost a small fortune and take someone that had one, along with a lot of patience, to do it. (hey look! I spelled "patience" right this time!) > And by the time VMS management and engineers start to realise what is > happening, it will be too late and they'll be out of a job 2 weeks later. Maybe things will happen differently than what we fear. ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 11 Aug 2007 18:03:58 -0500 From: Ron Johnson Subject: Re: Wonderful things happen to an OS when it has an internal champion Message-ID: On 08/11/07 16:13, Doug Phillips wrote: [snip] > > Also in that era (80's), our DEC OEM-Rep once told us he'd just come > from a meeting where a DEC VIP told everyone the Digital view of the > future: 'someday soon there will be no mid-sized companies. There will > be small companies that will buy PCs, and large companies that will > buy VMS.' Our market then was small/mid-sized business with PDP and > VAX (no PCs), and the rep told us we should either port our software > to PCs, or bring it up to enterprise. Funny, I still see mid-sized > businesses around, so I guess "someday" hasn't yet arrived. With gross idiocy like that, it's no wonder that DEC died out. -- 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: 11 Aug 2007 18:35:06 -0500 From: Kilgallen@SpamCop.net (Larry Kilgallen) Subject: Re: Wonderful things happen to an OS when it has an internal champion Message-ID: <+cFPqwafK9K9@eisner.encompasserve.org> In article <46BE22A7.6050105@comcast.net>, "Richard B. Gilbert" writes: > I've done controller (HSC) based volume shadowing, Host Based Volume > Shadowing and hardware mirroring (HSZ based). I think I prefer the later! That is the point - with VMS you get to choose. In other environments people are forced down the hardware mirroring path. ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 11 Aug 2007 19:40:11 -0500 From: "Paul Raulerson" Subject: RE: Wonderful things happen to an OS when it has an internal champion Message-ID: <001001c7dc79$577f42e0$067dc8a0$@com> I copied files around on distributed mainframes back in the 1980's, over SNA, without any issue. I have no idea where this information is coming from... Admittedly, I would normally copy them with a batch job, but they would go as data streams over SNA, no problem. CICS transactions are definitely distributed - even in 1989, you could ship a transaction from remote instance to remote instance. Indeed, you could run CICS on *OS/2* and ship transactions to a mainframe. More, the mainframe could ship transactions *to the OS/2 CICS instance*. Or to servers that were not even CICS! Surely you realize if transactions can be automatically and seamlessly distributed across platforms with only trivial effort, it is even more trivial to do so across mainframes. And transaction routing can get really complex, with all sorts of issues like load balancing, federated data, cross instance security, etc. Not to say that VMS does not do this kind of thing with clustering. -Paul Below is some extra information that provides details not everyone would be interested in: In >> 1990 <<, distributed processing in CICS was available over all the communications methods, including MRO, LUTYPE 6.1, and APPC, as well as the older methods and TCPIP. Transaction routing was fully enabled between regions communicating under MRO or APPC. In other words, a terminal under one region can run programs and transactions under one or more *other* regions, regardless of where those regions are geographically or what OS those regions are hosted under. It didn't even require any special programming tricks. Function shipping could take place between any communicating regions. Function shipping simply meant that your data could reside on one or more regions other than the region your program or transaction was executing on. Remember, the program or transaction could be on any available region too, and not necessarily the ones that your data was on. The target region(s) could be running any communication methods. There were more capabilities. That was in 1990, and it *was not new then.* I assure you, current Transaction Server technology does a whole lot more. -Paul I just happened to have that information available, because I sold my very first CICS based software system, along with an IBM assisted hardware sale to run it on, on June 19, 1990. I still have all the proposal materials. Never though I would reference them again though, and I am surprised the CD was even still readable! :) > -----Original Message----- > From: JF Mezei [mailto:jfmezei.spamnot@vaxination.ca] > Sent: Saturday, August 11, 2007 12:05 PM > To: Info-VAX@Mvb.Saic.Com > Subject: Re: Wonderful things happen to an OS when it has an internal > champion > > Paul Raulerson wrote: > > CICS distributed transactions have been around since the 1970's, > > with mainframes connected over all sorts (by today's standards) > > ridiculously low bandwidth connections. > > Is that really the case ? As of the early 1990s, you could still not > copy files on SNA networks between nodes. You needed to do the > equivalent of MIME a file then submit it as a batch job with 80 column > cards being RJE submitted to the remote node which would then run a job > to rebuild the dataset. > > I now that terminals could connect to a number of different machines > through the network. But I do not think that CICS itself was > distributed. When your terminal was connected to CICS on node-A, it ran > transactions only via CICS on node A. > > I.E. CICS wasn't distributed. But the terminal infrastructure allowed > finctionality similar to a decserver (connect to different services, > but > once connected to you talk to that service). ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 11 Aug 2007 19:44:37 -0500 From: "Paul Raulerson" Subject: RE: Wonderful things happen to an OS when it has an internal champion Message-ID: <001101c7dc79$f638f570$e2aae050$@com> A fantastic summation Doug! What do you think would happen if a third party offered to partner with HP to port VMS to a mainstream processor? x86 comes to mind, but if there were a spin to address the hardware sales angle, Power might be a tempting target. More like a VAX than the x86 is anyway... :) -Paul > -----Original Message----- > From: Doug Phillips [mailto:dphill46@netscape.net] > Sent: Saturday, August 11, 2007 1:47 PM > To: Info-VAX@Mvb.Saic.Com > Subject: Re: Wonderful things happen to an OS when it has an internal > champion > > On Aug 10, 6:09 pm, Keith Parris wrote: > > Doug Phillips wrote: > > > Looks like it would take a rather large (and patient) backing and > some > > > creative middle-ware acquisitions for that company to ever see > black > > > ink. > > > > If VMS were to be spun off, it would have to include both the OpenVMS > > hardware and software business as well as the OpenVMS Services > business. > > Both portions would be very profitable, but the Services revenues > would > > be about 3-4 times that of the HW/SW side. But it would all add up to > a > > very-profitable business of about $1B annual revenues. > > It's just idle speculation, but unless you're thinking that HP would > remain involved either as a parent or backing partner, starting a > brand new stand-alone enterprise-level computer company would take > some major investment money. It's not as simple as picking everything > up, moving to new digs, hanging out a sign and business as usual > unless you stay under the parent's umbrella, or move under that of > another highly respected name. > > Do a proforma business plan and take it to an investment banker or > venture capitalist. Now, if you could get someone like a Warren > Buffett to back you, you'd certainly have a chance. Without a strong > name and solid backing, you'd never get the "street-cred" needed to > keep the F500 & Government customer's confidence. > > Unless your name is as well known as Kraft Foods, spin-offs aren't > easy, and even some of the "easy" ones have stumbled. If you had a > well-known commodity product and had the parent's complete support and > backing, like IBM -> Lenovo, it could be pretty smooth. But HP isn't > showing a desire to rid itself of VMS, so you're probably not talking > about a spin-off, but a break-off. You'd have to "make them an offer > they couldn't refuse." > > HP is carrying overhead and offering benefits that many people > probably just take for granted. HP's inertia might seem a drag at > times, but it also keeps things going through the lean periods. > > Breaking-off VMS is a much more ambitious undertaking than spinning- > off a PC division. The two mergers VMS went through would likely seem > pleasant in comparison. Now, you're not combining customer bases, > you're buying one outright (including future commitments and profits) > and you have to convince those customers that you're going to be > around long enough to support them or they'll go away. I think many > are a bit shaky already. > > BTW, that need-for-trust also applies to the employees. They need to > trust you'll be able to meet your payroll, health care and retirement > commitments. Some of your key employees might decide they've had > enough and decide to either stay with HP or go someplace else. That is > hard to predict. > > You want the hardware, too? All of a sudden you're competing directly > with HP for the Itanium market, but you're not getting the volume- > breaks they are for the chips and hardware bits. So, you trim your > margin to compete, HP answers likewise and VMS moves into an even > smaller niche. Do you have the funds to do an x86-64 port or resurrect > Alpha? Probably not, because current earnings and/or debt pays for R&D > and earnings are going to suffer, and debt is going to be maxed out > while you recover from the start-up. > > As I said before: For VMS to gain market share, much more money must > be spent on marketing, advertising and R&D. A break-off company like > this would be *expected* to run in the red for a while. I really don't > see how things would be better for an independent VMS without a > wealthy and patient investor behind it. > > I don't mean to throw a wet blanket on the fire. Breaking-off VMS > could be done but not as easily as some here seem to think. ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 11 Aug 2007 19:54:00 -0500 From: "Paul Raulerson" Subject: RE: Wonderful things happen to an OS when it has an internal champion Message-ID: <001201c7dc7b$45b69430$d123bc90$@com> > -----Original Message----- > From: Larry Kilgallen [mailto:Kilgallen@SpamCop.net] > Sent: Saturday, August 11, 2007 6:35 PM > To: Info-VAX@Mvb.Saic.Com > Subject: Re: Wonderful things happen to an OS when it has an internal > champion > > In article <46BE22A7.6050105@comcast.net>, "Richard B. Gilbert" > writes: > > > I've done controller (HSC) based volume shadowing, Host Based Volume > > Shadowing and hardware mirroring (HSZ based). I think I prefer the > later! > > That is the point - with VMS you get to choose. In other environments > people are forced down the hardware mirroring path. No, they are not. Even Windows provides software RAID capability - at no extra cost. So does Linux, AIX, i5OS, etc. It's just that hardware based SAN management is better in many environments. I wonder if a VMS system could be configured to support 10GB iSCSI systems? That would be kinda cool. FCP would be better in many cases of course, especially if the system has a built in fibre switch as well as a few built in Ethernet switches. MMm... -Paul ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 11 Aug 2007 15:11:29 -0500 From: David J Dachtera Subject: Re: Wonderful things happen to an OS when it has an internal champion champion c Message-ID: <46BE17F1.E94D381D@spam.comcast.net> Paul Raulerson wrote: > > Eh- not exactly. AIX has more in common with merged version > that went to mainframes, though roots do trace down to > AT&T V7. > > And nope- no source code around. > > Apparently though, the source code for VMS is available. > Someone was talking about it a few messages ago. Seems > weird to me that it would be out in public. It isn't. What's available is an abridged collection of compiler listings, not pure source code. Some elements (LMF and such) are not included to protect IP. No build procedures either, I've heard. -- David J Dachtera dba DJE Systems http://www.djesys.com/ Unofficial OpenVMS Marketing Home Page http://www.djesys.com/vms/market/ Unofficial Affordable OpenVMS Home Page: http://www.djesys.com/vms/soho/ Unofficial OpenVMS-IA32 Home Page: http://www.djesys.com/vms/ia32/ Unofficial OpenVMS Hobbyist Support Page: http://www.djesys.com/vms/support/ ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 12 Aug 2007 02:14:43 +0200 From: "Martin Vorlaender" Subject: Re: X Window Servers Message-ID: John E. Malmberg wrote: > So far it looks like Cygwin and the other one Mingw? mentioned are the > only two free ones found so far, and I think that the second one is just > a minimum Cygwin package. Kenton Lee has a comprehensive list on his X web site: http://www.rahul.net/kenton/xsites.html#XMicrosoft As the free version of Pexus X-Deep/32 is no longer available, it really seems to boil down to Cygwin/XFree86 and Xming (which is different from MinGW - Minimalist GNU for Windows). cu, Martin -- One OS to rule them all | Martin Vorlaender | OpenVMS rules! One OS to find them | work: mv@pdv-systeme.de One OS to bring them all | http://www.pdv-systeme.de/users/martinv/ And in the Darkness bind them.| home: martin.vorlaender@t-online.de ------------------------------ End of INFO-VAX 2007.439 ************************