16
votes
Accepted
What did Richard Stallman have against VMS?
I have access to the file RMS; VMS 7 dated 1980-07-12. I can't make it public, but I can read it and I believe it's ok for me to paraphrase and summarize it.
RMS argues VMS lacks several important ...
- 3,101
12
votes
Were the VAX eXtended Function Control (XFC) instructions ever used commercially?
I was VAX Architect for six years in the late '80s, and at least during my tenure, Raytheon was the only company licensed to design VAX-compatible processors, for producing MIL-SPEC machines. They did ...
- 331
9
votes
Mainframe Hater's Handbook?
"The Unix-Haters Handbook" is a product of a particular time and place that made an entire book possible, the rise of RISC workstations and the Internet.
People had been grumbling about ...
- 311
8
votes
Accepted
DEC "CI" bus, better known as?
At a certain point in the 1980s, 'I' things were all the rage in DEC.
BI - Backplane Interconnect (the bus in the 8xxx series VAXen - see Wikipedia)
CI - Computer Interconnect (showed up as star ...
- 33.5k
8
votes
Porting of software from the m68k family architecture to the DEC VAX
I can give you an anecotal answer. I did this a few times.
I suspect that porting in this direction would have been unusual. We only did it where the customer insisted on the use of Vax hardware.
...
- 8,021
7
votes
Accepted
VAX 11/780 16MB memory board - what was the physical size?
In answering this question, I found that there were multiple generations of 11/780 memory board, and so sizes, capacity, etc., are quite hard to pin down. I still have not found a board larger than ...
- 33.5k
5
votes
What did Richard Stallman have against VMS?
A Google search turned up no sign of that file.
I'd be surprised if a search would turn up anything as RMS;VMS indicates a local file on his account on a machine called MIT-AI. Likewise a reply to ...
- 213k
5
votes
Accepted
What random number generator was used in the VAX game Empire?
From the DECUS VMS Fortran source, the random routine RND() is as follows:
FUNCTION RND(IHIGH)
C
IMPLICIT INTEGER(A-Z)
INTEGER*2 TIME(4)
EQUIVALENCE (TIME(2),SEED)
REAL MTH$RANDOM
...
- 20.5k
4
votes
Accepted
Why did it take 2 hours to switch to a standby VAX?
I wasn't there, so I don't know why it took two hours. If I had to invent a plausible scenario, it would be along these lines.
The VAX is a transaction processor with a database that reflects the ...
- 6,118
4
votes
Were the VAX eXtended Function Control (XFC) instructions ever used commercially?
I microcoded up all the UNIX string functions, just to see if anything could be gained; and also a dynamic programming solution of an esoteric parsing problem. The former would need huge strings to ...
- 41
3
votes
Were the VAX eXtended Function Control (XFC) instructions ever used commercially?
Note: Strictly speaking, my answer below doesn't answer the question asked, because what the OP was referring to was the instructions reserved for customer use, rather than those it reserved for DEC, ...
- 390
2
votes
VAX 11/780 16MB memory board - what was the physical size?
To give you a sense of the inter-board spacing in these types of systems, it is useful to consider the main constraints. These include airflow for cooling, the physical space between the connectors on ...
- 121
2
votes
Were the VAX eXtended Function Control (XFC) instructions ever used commercially?
There was a user guide for the VAX-11/780 microprogramming tools with an example of how to create and invoke user-written microcode. See https://stackoverflow.com/questions/6390036/vax-what-cpus-can-...
- 61
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